Helicobacter Forums

Hi, Expert
I had stomach issues started few months ago. Went to doc and he asked for h pylori blood test, which came positive. He prescribed

Clarithromycin 2 Times a day
Metronidazole 3 times a day
Dexlansoprazole in the morning
Moxifloxacin once a day
For 14 days

After 14 days
Again dexlansoprazole for 7 days

Follow up testing

I asked my doc for follow up testing but he say there is no need for follow up test.

But I was not satisfied, so I go for test approximately 1 month after taking away all the medicines.

Again there is conflict between information got from online sources and my local laboratories.

I was asking laboratories for stool test but they say blood test is enough for follow up testing and got my blood and test came back positive. I was not satisfied by this result so go to another laboratory and ask them for stool test. And the results came negative for follow up stool test.

Now I have two questions.

Why both follow up tests are different.

And

I have still pain in my left side, sometime it feels In stomach or sometime in intestine, I am not sure. If the stool test is accurate why I have still pains or it will take some time to heal or h pylori is not eradicated that's why I feel pain.
And breath test is not available in my country

Sorry for bad English.

First of all, I think the stool test is accurate and congratulate you for getting rid of the HP.
Your determination of finding out the truth is incredible. But that is the right thing to do.

Your doctor made a mistake for refusing to give you a follow up test.
The laboratory made a mistake for asking serology test to be used as follow up test.

while the accuracy of stool test is over 90%, you can always repeat the test again in another month to double confirm the result. Only when H. pylori is truly eradicated, you have a chance to recover.

explanation:
blood test is to check for anti-hp antibody. once infected, the antibody will stay in your body for months or even years. so your blood test will always be positive after eradication of HP. This is similar to current COVID19 situation. rapid antibody test can only tell your history of infection and not your current infection status. rapid antibody test can only tell if had been infected or exposed to the bacteria or virus before.

stool test is to check for the HP's antigen. So if there is HP, it will be detected. However, like many other tests, stool antigen test rely on bacteria load. If the bacteria load is small due to recent use of antibiotics or PPI or herbs, then you may get false negative result. Otherwise, it's a very sensitive test.

Why do you still have the pain after HP eradication?
This is because HP causes inflammation in your stomach. It is the inflammation that gives you the pain. When HP is gone, the inflammation will gradually retreat. The young patients will recover faster than older patients. Sometimes when the damage from inflammation is severe, the scar may never heal and can post a long term problem.

Helico_expert wrote: Thu May 07, 2020 9:03 am Why do you still have the pain after HP eradication?
This is because HP causes inflammation in your stomach. It is the inflammation that gives you the pain. When HP is gone, the inflammation will gradually retreat. The young patients will recover faster than older patients. Sometimes when the damage from inflammation is severe, the scar may never heal and can post a long term problem.

Found a study paper saying that among hpylori eradicated patients even after 5 years period up to one third of them had still inflammation causing hpylori anti-bodies present in stomach and around 20% had inactive gastritis..

It's probably true. Hence we think it's better to have H. pylori eradicated as soon as one reach 17 years old.