I found my kid rolling something around in his mouth when he was about 3. I asked him to show me what it was, he refused. I asked him to trade me a banana for the thing in his mouth, he went for it. It was a baby gecko. He was no longer of this Earth. Idk if my kid redrummed him or if he was predeceased. He’s 12 now. He thinks I’m gross for remembering. 😂
I finished quad therapy on March 20th. Took urea breath test a week ago and it set me back to how I felt at my worst before treatment. The drink they use is citric acid. Citric acid is one of the things the drs said to leave out of my diet.
It’s in E V E R Y T H I N G. 🤦♀️
I also started taking these powder sleep aid/acetaminophen last week. First non active ingredient was citric acid.
It all made my week miserable.
Gatorade has citric acid. Many meds have it. Obviously some foods.
Just a tip if you’re ingesting citric acid and have or treated h. Pylori, it could be making things worse.
Hello, beautiful people.
My h. Pylori journey started around October 2024. I started having what seemed like morning sickness. I’d get up in the morning and sometimes felt a bit nauseous but nothing crazy. At first it was a few times a month.
By Spring 2025 I was in urgent care or the ER about once a month from not being able to stop throwing up. Never pain just nauseous and vomiting that I could not get to stop sometimes. I would get a terrible twinge inside my chest and abdomen, would wake up fine sometimes but after some minor activity or not eating the nausea would start. Sometimes I felt like I was having low blood sugar and couldn’t control my temperature during these episodes.
Then came the bad heartburn, burning in my stomach.
Finally saw a Gastro in October last year. I had an endoscopy and h. Pylori was found along with a small hiatal hernia. All biopsies were clear other than the h. Pylori being found.
I missed my return appointment and just never rescheduled so I was still suffering till March. I finally got in to see her and got started on quad therapy.
Metronidazole, Tetracycline, pantoprazole and Pepto.
So let me tell y’all how I messed up while taking the meds.
I was given the wrong schedule at first so I was taking meds at the wrong times. We fixed the schedule but I was already worried that I’d messed up the timing and wouldn’t eradicate. On day 5 I’d slept a total of 6 hrs since starting quad therapy. All the ppi’s give me terrible insomnia. I’ll smoke weed and take sleep meds and cannot go to sleep.
So I was a mess. I asked my gastro if we could do something else but she wanted me on the pantoprazole because omeprazole was just as bad for me so she’d already switched once. She thought I could tough through the insomnia. But I was basically non functioning at that point with 6 total hours of sleep in 5 days. Y’all. I quit taking the pantoprazole. Did not take it again throughout the rest of the therapy.
I also ate every time I took an antibiotic. Didn’t matter if it was tetra or metron. I always had a small meal before.
The last few days were exhausting. I skipped 2 doses of tetra somewhere. I also skipped a metron dose. A few times I forgot to take the Pepto. I’d also switched from Pepto pills because I handle the liquid better than chewables.
With all that being considered…I did it! It’s eradicated!
I’m able to eat pretty much whatever I want now. My appetite is back. I finished 14 day quad therapy on March 20th. I took the urea breath test on Monday. I felt so awful after drinking the drink for the test. I ended up in the ER that evening because I couldn’t stop throwing up. I’m still having problems today but it’s getting better again. No idea if that drink can trigger these issues but it was bad for me. Therapy itself was not bad. I was terrified to start but I was more terrified of this worsening.
If you’re scared to start, just do it. It may be rough but so is this bacteria.
Don’t drink any alcohol, not even cough syrup if you’re on the metronidazole. The pharmacist said even using mouth wash with alcohol in it could be enough to react badly if you swallow a little.
I wish you all eradication and healing!
TLDR: I dealt with h. Pylori for a year and a half. Did quad therapy, messed up some of the dosing and timing, still eradicated. Drink from urea breath test made me as sick as the h. Pylori.