Lost 25% of my blood (Ulcer)...Looking for thoughts

C

ClearMind

New Member
Hi All,

Happy to report I continue to live with very little back pain! But...

Over the last few weeks, I was feeling a bit groggy and tired. About a week ago, I noticed it looked like I had digested blood in my stool. I thought it was prudent to go to my doctor considering the symptoms I was seeing. They did some tests and I had a very low blood count and had become anemic. They also confirmed I did have blood in my GI tract. Because of everything they were seeing, they were concerned and did an upper endoscopy the next morning. I'm a 27 year old male - and they said I was too young to be bleeding.

They confirmed their suspicions and found a peptic ulcer and the biopsy also tested positive for H Pylori. I was put on 5 days of nexium to help heal the ulcer and tomorrow I'm supposed to begin a 14 day PrevPac treatment of 8 pills a day to try and kill the H Pylori and allow the ulcer to heal.

I am aware of all of Sarno's thoughts on H Pylori, and most of the medical journals I've read agree that at least half the world population has this bacterium in their stomachs. But what I found interesting was that H Pylori in those with ulcers had a different appearance under the microscope and are believed to be a different strain.

I'm at a real impasse here. My resting heart rate has finally dropped back down to 80 (from 100) as the bleeding has stopped and I guess my levels are slowly getting back to normal. But when faced with such real, tangible, dangerous conditions - I don't know how convinced I am that this is all in my head and was hoping maybe somebody here who is familiar with TMS would have some experience with battling ulcers/H Pylori.

I've read some really terrifying reviews of the PrevPac and have some reservations about starting treatment but I also know I lost a lot of blood through this ulcer and I need it to heal. I find myself in probably a more unique situation that most (as they may not be aware of TMS) and am at this crossroads with western medicine and what I know to be true regarding TMS and my back pain.

The doctors and journals seem to be aware of the idea that stress or diet can cause a peptic ulcer and they all said/have told me it has absolutely nothing to do with stress and everything to do with H Pylori compromising the lining on my stomach wall and allowing stomach acids to breach the lining.

Can anybody offer some thoughts or perhaps experiences with ulcers? My first though is it's my back pain just finding its new home - but back pain didn't almost put me in the emergency room. This ulcer did. And that's the big difference and gap I'm having difficult bridging.
 
Wow, I feel your dilemma, ClearMind. I did a search of both this forum and the wiki and there seems to be little information about peptic ulcers. In the "olden days" I knew quite a few people who had them. Since then, I've been thinking "problem solved" but apparently not if the meds are that distressing: http://www.askapatient.com/viewrating.asp?drug=50757&name=PREVPAC

Sounds like you need to do SOMETHING though. Wish I could offer more than "tea and sympathy". I'll be thinking of you and hoping that someone here has useful information or an association between tms and ulcers.
 
I have peptic ulcers. I am doing this program but I am still taking my meds, not all the time but when it acts up. I don't have H. Pylori, but I drink a lot of kefir (which is healing btw) & I take Dexilant, which is amazing. I would do what the dr says imho and still continue to work on Dr. Sarno's program. I have PF and I still wear PF orthotics in my shoes. It takes a while for my body to heal, but I am healing. Of course, this is just my opinion, but it's what I am doing.

Namaste
 
Peptic ulcer is a common SI-shift when back pain is integrated away. TMS seems to like to shift toward the gastro-tract, or anxiety and depression; but the switching destinations are infinite.

Your doctors are wrong in saying that it has nothing to do with stress and that it's a "pylori-problem." I communicated with Robert Sapolsky right before I published my book on the matter, and also on TMS in general. His work was seminal in understanding the implications of stress. If you have Netflix it's still on there: "National Geographic: Stress: Portrait of a Killer" It's a good show.

You must be under severe self-imposed stress, otherwise your system wouldn't be breaking down. Plus your RHR was way too high. What's going on in your life? The pylori only attack the system when stress has compromised the immune system. Sapolsky's work on stress won him the Heritage Foundation's "Genius Award."

I have a friend who was so stressed out he lost quite a bit of blood rectally. After they checked for others things with "the anal-riffic scope," they diagnosed stress. They gave him Valium and he healed nicely.

If I could be so bold as to guess what Dr. Sarno would tell you; "take care of your stomach first, be smart, take the meds, then get to work on the psychologicals."

You best start Miller's relaxation techniques and get your breathing and ANS in harmony mode again. I remember Andrew Weil saying that his friend had a peptic ulcer for 2 1/2 years. Weil got him to start the breathing CDs and he healed nicely.

Steve
 
Oh, they just keep track of when people respond to your posts. You can click on it to see who has replied to you, etc. Here's what it looks like for me:
upload_2013-12-13_21-50-52.png

Basically, it's letting me know that you just responded to my post. Since you are Steve Ozanich, your alerts must be going crazy.

Whenever you respond to a thread, you start "watching" the thread that you posted in. Then the thread shows up with a little glasses icon next to it. Like, in the General Discussion forum, you can see that I am watching the first four threads, but I'm not watching the fifth:
upload_2013-12-13_21-55-9.png

I am automatically watching the first four threads because those are the ones that I have responded to. If someone responds to those threads or to any other threads that I am watching, a notice will pop up in my alert menu in the upper right hand of the forum.

Regarding you first question, "wassup," I'm basically trying to leave my apartment, but I keep on getting sucked in to interesting threads here on the forum. And yes, I really am that much of a forum geek that on a Friday night I still find answering questions about forum software to be interesting. o_O
 
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Eye sees now! I never noticed those glasses next to the thread. Eye-ronic huh?

Do you think ClearMind bailed out? I hope everything worked out, the beast can be a dilemma of fear and doubt and confusion.

Ruth underscore L taught me about kefir?, cool. But Ruth you have to throw the orthotics away. That's part of freeing yourself from yourself. You are the one holding your feet in pain. Let it go, and it starts with tossing the shoe supports. If you have TMS your feet are fine. Many have thrown their MRIs away.

It only has meaning, if you assign it meaning. Believe in yourself.

Steve
 
Steve, you're so right about deep breathing relieving stress.
It really works for me. And laughing.

Four more inches of snow coming? I just laugh at it while using the snow blower.
 
ClearMind, I do have some experience with H-Pylori and have done a lot of research on it. I have it, at least I tested positive for it on a stool test 2 years ago. I don't however, have an ulcer, at least that I know of. I apparently picked it up in Panama after my husband and I retired here in 2005. I understand that one on of the risk factors for getting it is having low stomach acid.

Basically, there are many different medical opinions about what causes ulcers. Most doctors in mainstream medicine toe the party line, but more doctors are bucking the trend and thinking that stress plays a very large part in the process and H-Pylori is not the only factor. Treating H-Pylori with antibiotics and acid-suppressing drugs is all the rage, however it is also dangerous. First of all, I believe that there is only about a 50% success rate with this approach. This is because antibiotics can cause more problems than they solve by killing off your beneficial gut flora, thus actually giving the bad, gram-negative bacteria, like H-Pylori an empty field. A lot of people simply cannot complete the treatment because they get so sick from the antibiotics. You should also be aware that acid-suppressing drugs are just plain dangerous. First of all, H-Pylori loves an acid free environment and it's worst enemy is your stomach acid, so why kill it off? Doctors would say that it is to kill the acid to heal the ulcer, but it is extremely unlikely that your ulcer was caused or is being exacerbated by your stomach acid. Secondly, people become easily addicted to them because, after stopping, they get rebound acid, which can be really bad. Then they can't get off of them or are afraid to. Also, if you look up the admitted side effects of these drugs, you will see many critical vitamin deficiencies, like B-12 and D, with longer term use. Why? Because you need stomach acid to properly digest your food. Also among the side effects is a tendency to get pneumonia and other infections. Why? because your stomach acid is a first line of defense against infections. I know many heartbreaking stories about people who have been trying to get off these drugs for many years.

I think the best thing to treat H-Pylori is something called Mastic Gum. This compound is extremely toxic to H-Pylori and I have read that it is perhaps 80% effective. My husband and I both take it for the H-Pylori and he is a doctor. You can buy it as a gum or as a capsule. If you still want to continue with your present treatment, you can also take the mastic, it has no side effects that I know of. Something else to help your stomach ulcer is DGL licorice. You can also get this in supplement form.

I encourage you to read a book by Johnathan Wright called "Why Stomach Acid is Good For You". He is a well-known Gastroenterology doctor who treats ulcers all the time. He also thinks that a lot of it can be stress-related. I had very good results following a lot of his recommendations.

Best of luck to you.
 
Hi All,

I apologize for taking 5 years to respond to you (wow does time fly when you have your symptoms on the run!). I intentionally try to limit my time on here to when I actually need help and my reading to topics relevant to my particular situation. I have a tendency to absorb other symptoms so I try to give my little friend upstairs as little ammo as possible as far as coming up with new and clever ideas to distract me.

I have found it helpful in my searches over the years to identify with some else's situation/symptoms especially when there was resolution to it. It gave me hope and helped break the fear cycle so many up us become trapped in. So I'm here to do the same hoping should someone be unfortunate enough to share a similar difficulty they will be alleviated or at least helped along their journey of recovery with a happy ending.

Let me begin by saying after all my research I do believe my ulcer was brought about by stress and is TMS. I did find myself with several very real and anxiety inducing symptoms as a result of the ulcer (rapid heart beat, fatigue, vertigo). I decided to follow Steve's advice and take the whopping dose of antibiotics even though I had further stirred myself into a frenzy by reading all the negative experiences the PrevPac can bring about (of which, I of course had none and the self imposed anxiety because of my "research" was unnecessarily layered onto this "nothing burger"). As I've seen expressed by some of the veterans here, there may occasionally be situations for specific individuals when an overlap between our prescription for healing and the traditional western approach can occur and be helpful. I found this particular situation for myself to be one such case. I completed the course of medicine, had several follow-up blood panels to confirm my numbers we on track to normalcy, and never had an ulcer again.

I have had a myriad of other equivalents I've battled and won since (including prostatitis, night sweats, fatigue, leg muscle pain, plantar fasciitis, headache, and probably several others I'm forgetting). So if you stumble upon this post and it reads familiarly, I hope you find this update helpful. I did continue to educate myself with some of the recommended reading and activity during and after this episode (including exercising, meditating, journaling, etc).
 
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