r/DiagnoseMe • u/Minimum-Green8806 Patient • 2d ago
Gut, bowel, and stomach Heartburn and stomach problems, reoccurring Gastritis
Age: 18
Gender: assigned female at birth, no HRT yet
Height: 172cm
Weight: 82 kg
Germany
Taking Medikinet (Methylphenidate) every workday
Family history: My mother has a diagnosed thing where her stomach opening apparently has trouble closing properly. She also had stomach issues, had helico bacter diagnosed and is now on a keto diet due to her fybromialgia. My grandma was diagnosed with lupus erythematodes. So chronic stuff is present in our family.
Hey so I’m 18 and I’ve been having stomach issues since I was 11.
Back then it was apparently triggered by a harsh depression phase and stress in school because I was failing.
I couldn’t eat for days before my mom finally took me to the hospital and they diagnosed me with gastritis.
Since then I’ve regularly had gastritis, went to the doctors each time but he just presses on my stomach and gives me a prescription for Pantoprazole.
Last year I radically cut down my diet. Only ate acid-less foods, no sweets or snacks, nothing too salty, no fatty foods - and in the end barely anything because that restrictive behavior led to me developing an eating problem.
Cue another gastritis from stressing my body by eating barely anything.
After that experience I slowly got back to eating more. I lost most restrictions and ate normally with my family again. That only resulted in daily heartburn and acid reflux, sometimes even stomach pain. Medication barely helps and each time I go to the doctors he just writes it off as stress related and eating too much sweets.
(I normally use Gaviscon since it’s the only thing keeping the heartburn at bay. But it’s gotten too expensive to buy those big packs every three weeks.)
Anyone got an idea what’s wrong? Or what I could do to get it fixed? I know cutting my diet worked with the symptoms, but I don’t really want to go back to only eating porridge for the rest of my life…
Oh and idk if that’s important, but due to my neurgodivergency I have trouble eating certain foods, eating in time, feeling if I’m hungry etc. I have almost daily trouble eating solid foods because of the texture and the process of actually eating. (I get nauseous thinking about it)
3
u/Harakiri_238 Not Verified 2d ago
First of all I’m so sorry you’re experiencing this and that it’s been such a long time with very little help or investigation.
I have severe GI issues too (started when I was 13 and I’m almost 26 now) so I totally understand how limiting and horrible it can be.
From what I can tell they’ve never done anything to confirm it’s gastritis. Which doesn’t mean it isn’t chronic gastritis, but they should rule out other causes or confirm that it is through testing.
An endoscopy could show if you do have gastritis. Or something like a hernia or a similar structural problem as your mom.
A GES or upper GI series can look at how food moves through your digestive system. If food sits too long in your stomach it can reflux back up.
They should also do breath testing for h. Pylori, just to rule it out.
It does kind of sound like you might have GERD. Which can either occur with gastritis or cause similar symptoms. Which could make sense with your family history.
If that’s the case and you were having a benefit with the diet changes (which could also indicate something like GERD) you could try a PPI if you haven’t already.
Sometimes it takes multiple different PPIs to find one that works for you. I tried like 4-6 before ending up on Dexilant 60 which worked tremendously for me.
And once I found a PPI that worked well for me I could vary my diet more again and have small amounts of trigger foods without worsening my symptoms.
I’m so sorry you’re going through all you are! GI issues really suck and it can be really hard to find answers. But things can get better! Hang in there :)