MyGastritis is a personal health journey and evidence-based storytelling website about my experience with chronic gastritis, failed treatments, mistakes, weight loss, right supplements, side effects and recovery.
Chapter One
2019 · 133 → 150 lbs
I've been skinny since I was a kid. I also had acne, mostly on my cheeks, and already had acne scars by the time this story started.
In 2019, I wanted to change that. I started doing push-ups almost every day and eating several times a day to build muscle. By the end of the year, I had gone from 133 pounds to 150 pounds at 5'9". I finally looked stronger, but the acne was still there.
March 2021 · Dermatologist
In early 2021, aside from acne, things started getting weird. My face became extremely oily, so bad that for the next three years, I had to carry napkins with me everywhere just to wipe the oil off. Plus, whenever I worked out and got hot, my face would turn bright red. I had been exercising my whole life, and that had never happened before.
I went to a dermatologist in March 2021 to figure out what was going on with my face turning red, and also to treat my acne. She diagnosed me with rosacea, a condition where your face turns red when you're exposed to high temperatures or eat spicy foods. She told me that the condition "supposedly" had no cure and prescribed Soolantra.
March 2021
As for my oily face, she just told me this: "You're very young, and because of that, your face is producing that oil to keep you young" (these doctors are unbelievable). She prescribed me a soap with benzoyl peroxide.
Whenever I used the soap, it made my face really dry, but after an hour or so, my face would become extremely oily again.
Doxycycline · 2× daily
For the acne, she prescribed what ended up being my downfall: a medication called Doxycycline, an antibiotic used to kill acne-causing bacteria. I had to take it twice a day. Whenever I took it in the morning, it gave me headaches, stomachaches, and heartburn. The headaches and stomachaches lasted until night, and then I had to take it again.
November 2021 · Gastro #1
By November 2021, the stomachaches, headaches, and heartburn, especially when I ate, still had not stopped, so my first gastroenterologist ordered an endoscopy. The camera showed that the antrum, the lower part of my stomach, was red and erosive. “Erosive” means the protective surface had small breaks in it. Those surface injuries can go with burning or pain, which matched what I was feeling.
The biopsy called it chronic superficial gastritis with reactive changes. In normal words, the lining was chronically inflamed near the surface, and the cells looked like they were responding to injury. H. pylori was negative, and no cancer was found in the tissue they sampled. My symptoms had started after Doxycycline, so i was sure that was the cause.
Piroton 40 · PPI
During the first visit, she prescribed me Piroton 40, a proton pump inhibitor (PPI) containing esomeprazole. A PPI lowers the amount of acid your stomach makes by blocking its acid pumps. Unlike an antacid, it doesn't neutralize acid already there. With less acid irritating my inflamed lining, my pain and heartburn went away while I took it. But it gave me indigestion, and food did not sit well with me.
On the day of the endoscopy, I said the first medication had not sat well with me. She prescribed Piroton Fast 40: esomeprazole with sodium bicarbonate. Esomeprazole reduced new acid production; bicarbonate was the actual antacid and protected the medicine from stomach acid. It relieved the heartburn and burning while I took it, but the pain returned as soon as I stopped.
February 2022
Since the first gastroenterologist's medications didn't help me at all, I went to a second one in December 2021. He prescribed me a medication called Bismusyl, a so-called gastric mucosa protector. I'm not going to lie, out of all of the medications i took from doctors, this one was the one that helped the most with my stomach pain and it did sit well with me.
The problem was that as soon as I stopped taking the medication the pain would come back. Since that medication did not heal my symptoms of heartburn and stomach pain, I paid the doctor a second visit in February. And guess what he prescribed me this time? Yes, Omeprazole. Here we go again.
early 2022
While I was seeing my second gastroenterologist, two new symptoms appeared: severe bloating and dizziness after eating. Every time I paid him a visit, he would examine me and say, "You're full of gas." I was getting dizzy, too. There were some nights that I couldn't sleep because it would get so bad that I would wake up in the middle of the night, get out of bed, and feel like my head was spinning on a roller coaster. He prescribed me a medication for bloating, but it did little to help.
2022
I later noticed that sweet potatoes were triggering the bloating. At the time, I did not know anything about hypochlorhydria or SIBO. I only knew one thing: whenever I ate sweet potatoes, especially large portions, I became extremely bloated.
Much later, I learned that although stomach acid isn't what mainly digests sweet potatoes, it helps control bacteria before food moves deeper into the digestive tract. When acid is too weak, more bacteria may survive, and the risk of bacterial overgrowth in the small intestine can increase. So, when I was eating large amounts of sweet potatoes, the starches and fermentable carbohydrates may have become fuel for bacteria in the wrong place. Instead of being handled normally, they seemed to ferment too early, creating severe gas, bloating, pressure, and discomfort.
I wonder what could have possibly been causing that low stomach acid of mine...
mid 2022
But things started to get even worse. In mid-2022, after eating, I was getting a lot of acid reflux especially after eating, along with the same dizziness. It wasn't as intense as when I was eating sweet potatoes, but it made me feel uncomfortable. Also, when I tried to make certain movements with my head like tilting my head down slowly or looking at myself in the mirror with my head straight I would get cramps that started in my stomach and traveled all the way up to my head. I figured that those cramps had something to do with my gastritis since it is an inflammation of the stomach lining and your gut is somehow connected to the brain.
mid 2022
In mid-2022 I made an appointment with a third gastroenterologist. I told her what was going on with my gastritis (stomach pain and heartburn), and a vertigo-like sensation after eating. I told her that when I tried to make certain movements with my head like looking at myself in the mirror with my head straight or tilting my head down I would get cramps in my stomach and head. But she told me that gastritis does not cause any dizziness or vertigo-like sensations. I showed her my last endoscopy. Every time she examined me she also said I had gas. She prescribed me something called Dexlansoprazole, and guess what that was- another proton pump inhibitor, along with a medication for bloating and another for my dizziness.
late 2022
Dexlansoprazole did not help me with my gastritis. As soon as I stopped taking it, the pain would come back. It also did not sit well with me; it upset my stomach and gave me indigestion. As for Betaserc, it didn't help at all with the dizziness. In fact, my dizziness and acid reflux got worse, especially after I ate. I paid her a second visit and told her that I had the same symptoms. She prescribed an antacid called Milpax, along with the same Dexlansoprazole, and gave me a referral to an otolaryngologist.
end of 2022 · 130 lb
Those medications did little to help my acid reflux or dizziness. I would still get dizzy and experience stomach cramps when trying to look at myself in the mirror with my head straight. The same went for my bloating - nothing changed. During the third visit, she prescribed me the exact same medication for the bloating and gave me a referral to a neurologist. By the end of that year, I was at 132 pounds.
The thing is, I was no longer going to doctors to treat my original gastritis symptoms like a burning stomach or heartburn; I was going to treat the dizziness, bloating, and acid reflux. These were symptoms I did not have before I started seeing the doctors. All of these new symptoms started once I began taking the medication they all prescribed to me. Are you seeing the common denominator here?
by the end of 2022
On top of that, by the end of 2022, I was getting intense pain in my joints, especially my elbows. I couldn't even do one push-up. Even worse, I couldn't carry a grocery bag for more than a minute, no joke. And whenever I would brush my teeth especially in the mornings, my gums would bleed. Since I wasn’t getting any better, she also ordered some blood tests and said I might need another endoscopy to find out what was going on. I didn’t want to go through another one, so I decided to see a different gastroenterologist.
January-March 2023 · Gastro #4
In January 2023, I went to a fourth gastroenterologist. I was still dealing with stomach pain, reflux, bloating, and dizziness, and some of the medications were upsetting my stomach. She wanted another endoscopy.
The endoscopy was on February 14, about fifteen months after the first one. The report had a lot of medical terms, but the part I understood was that my stomach lining still looked red and irritated. It also described a coating on the surface in the lower part of my stomach. Although the diagnosis used a term for irritation across the stomach, the report described its upper and middle parts as normal.
When the biopsy report came back in March, it still said chronic gastritis, with erosive areas(small breaks in the lining) and cells reacting to injury. After all those doctors and medications, the problem was still there. The reports did not tell me exactly how much had changed since 2021, but I knew I was feeling worse.
January 2023
During my first visit, she examined me, noticed that I was once again full of gas, and prescribed a medication called Rudox. I explained everything that had been going on and showed her all my previous tests, along with the medications other doctors had prescribed. I also mentioned that some of those medications were giving me stomachaches. She agreed, saying she didn't like those medications either. She explained that she needed to perform another endoscopy because she couldn’t give me a new prescription without knowing exactly what was wrong. I was relieved and thought to myself, "This doctor really knows what she is doing."
Right after the endoscopy, she prescribed me a medication called Ezolium. Wanna know what it is? Wanna take a wild guess? It's a brand name for Esomeprazole, a proton pump inhibitor.
April 2023
By April 2023, I was tired of feeling dizzy and wanted to understand what was happening. The neurologist ordered blood tests, an MRI, and an EEG, a test that records the brain's electrical activity. The EEG came back okay. The MRI report, though, mentioned small bright spots toward the back right side of my brain and nearby areas. It said they were probably related to reduced blood flow. That was what “ischemic” meant in the report.
Reading that scared me. I still felt that my digestion had something to do with what I was experiencing, because the cramps seemed to start in my stomach and travel up toward my head. That was the pattern I noticed; the MRI did not explain whether the two were connected.
2023
The blood test results showed that I was low on vitamins D3 and B12. She prescribed B12 injections, D3 supplementation, and a medication for my dizziness. I decided to get the B12 injections and take the D3 supplements. As for the medication for my head, I bought it but decided not to take it because I was sure all of those health problems had something to do with my stomach.
2023
The MRI also mentioned swelling in the lining of my sinuses, the air-filled spaces behind my cheeks and deeper inside my head. It suggested there might be mucus-filled pockets called mucoceles. The neurologist referred me to an otolaryngologist, an ear, nose, and throat doctor, to look into those findings.
At the time, it felt like another problem had been added to the list. Later, I learned about silent reflux, when stomach contents(Acid and Pepsin) can travel high enough into the upper airway to irritate the back of the nose and nasopharynx, causing chronic nasal symptoms that are frequently mistaken for allergies or sinusitis.
May 2023 · 133 lb
Here in May 2023 in a clinic getting my B12 injections(I hope you know where they are injected, it was not a funny experience).
2021 → 2023
For about a year and four months (November 2021 to March 2023), I went to four different doctors, and they all prescribed the exact same thing. Antacids, proton pump inhibitors, gastric mucosa protectors, whatever you want to call them, these medications didn't heal my gastritis, heartburn, or stomach pain. But once I started taking them, all sorts of new problems appeared, like acid reflux, dizziness, bloating, gum bleeding, weight loss, and worsening acne, problems that I did not have before going to the doctors.
On the right, you can see my Medical Claims History, which lists all four doctors that I visited from 2021 to 2023 and some of the medications I bought with insurance. Most of the medications I bought, especially the PPIs, won't be on there because my insurance didn't cover them. However, some others are, like the Omeprazole prescribed by the second doctor. So, there is proof that at least two of the four doctors (the second and third ones) prescribed me PPIs. For the others, you'll have to take my word for it, but trust me, they all did.
July 21–27, 2026
After the failed treatments and after things kept getting worse, I still refused to give up. I kept searching, testing ideas, learning from mistakes, and rebuilding one step at a time. By July 2026, the follow-up finally showed the change I had been working toward: the chronic superficial gastritis found in 2021 and 2023 was no longer the stomach-biopsy diagnosis.
The camera diagnosis was moderate antral erythematous gastropathy. In normal words, there was still moderate redness in the lower part of my stomach, extra blood flow in the lining, a moderate layer of exudate, and bile flowing back from the duodenum. But the report did not describe the erosive areas seen in 2021 and 2023. That does not mean the lining was completely normal or free of injury; it means no erosions were documented this time.
The biopsy called the stomach finding reactive gastropathy, not chronic gastritis. Reactive gastropathy is mainly a pattern of injury and repair with little inflammation. My biopsy did mention a mild presence of immune cells, so I would not call it “no inflammation,” but it also did not repeat the earlier diagnosis of chronic gastritis. By then, this matched how I felt: the burning and stomach pain were gone, and I could go many hours without food without pain.
Continue the story
Part II begins with the first alternative approach that brought relief—and the mistake that followed: lemon water, continuing pain, weight loss, diet changes, and the difference between symptom relief and recovery.
Part II: Trial & Error