Helicobacter Forums

Hello,

This is my first post. Glad this forum exists. I hired a registered dietician a few months ago (Nov 2018) to see if certain non-GI symptoms I had that might be related to inflammation. My stomach has generally been awesome, and I had no GI symptoms at all when I first saw her, or even really today, six months later. Certified in the LEAP protocol, she had me do a blood test and a stool test (namely the GI-MAP).

Blood test revealed which foods are inflammatory for me (good to know). Stool test revealed h pylori, which I had never heard of, plus some deficiencies of good bacteria.

We tried probiotics and changing my diet to reduce inflammation and improve gut biome at the same time. Big success with the anti-inflammatory diet: my non-GI symptoms are much better! Yay!

Failure, however, on the h pylori. I redid the Gi-MAP stool test and learned that my h pylori had become more virulent. Boo.

Dietician recommended conventional treatment under care of a doctor. Doctor prescribed 14 days of bismuth quadruple therapy. (Would have done triple therapy but I am resistant to clarithromycin.) I start tomorrow.

Questions:

1) What exactly ARE the side effects of Bismuth Quadruple Therapy? I gather from reading threads here that they include nausea and black stool. Anything else?

2) When are side effects likely to begin, and how soon after treatment might they end?

3) Given that I have never had GI symptoms at all and do not have an ulcer as far as I know, might I reasonably experience fewer side effects? Hoping for some good news here...

Thanks in advance for any help,

PaulaC

Quadruple therapy is a combination four drugs. Bismuth is just one of them. Bismuth's side effect is basically dark stool. Usually PPI will be include in this treatment. There is no actual side effect on PPI. PPI is pretty safe and some people take it for years. Most of the side effect will come from the 2 antibiotics, which you will have to find out what they are.

Not everyone will experience side effects. But if you are unfortunately sensitive to one or more of the drugs, then usually the side effects kicks in on day 3. and depending on how sensitive you are. Some people can get the side effect on day 1. some people dont feel much.

the side effects are due to your body's tolerance to the antibiotics. with or without GI symptoms have nothing to do with your side effects.

you should get a proper breath/stool test done before taking the antibiotics. I dont think GI Map is the recommended test for diagnosing H. pylori infection.

Thank you for that information. I completed my treatment on Tuesday May 20 (two days ago). As it turns out, I got pretty lucky with the side effects. All I had was dark, loose stool until Day 11. On that day, four days ago, I made the mistake of drinking alcohol, completely forgetting that one of the meds says clearly on the label, “Do not drink alcohol while on this medication.” It hit me like a Mack truck. I felt godawful for 24 hrs (chills, discomfort, vomiting, general weakness) and moderately bad ever since. It’s getting better, but I still have low energy, am still getting black stools, and my dentist today pointed out that I also have black tongue.

How long does it take for side effects to subside after this treatment? Will mine subside more slowly because of my screw-up with alcohol? In other words, how badly did I screw myself when I stupidly drank alcohol?

alcohol act as a solvent. normally the effect of alcohol is to reduce the effect of antibiotics. your side effect is probably something else. eg. mentally stressed about it. usually side effect of antibiotics will go away within a week after stopping.

try relax and gather positive thoughts. Looking forward to your UBT result a month later.