Severe Gastritis & Possible Ulcer

More for my own records than anything else.

I'm not sure if I mentioned it but when I first arrived in NZ back in February I ended up with a very nasty influenza type virus which they suspect might have been swine flu as there was a bit of it going round at the time.  Since then on a cyclic basis - originally every 10 - 14 days I have been suffering from terrible pain in my ribs, back and I guess upper stomach (right between the ribs)  these episodes only last 2 - 3 days mainly.  The pain being constant and not seeming to be related to any particular food I ate, not made worse by eating or not eating.  The last bout I got was at the end of May and it lasted two weeks.  I did go to the doctor for it and they arrange a scan and blood tests, but of course by the time you can actually get the blood tests and scan done I was feeling okay and they showed nothing.   Well this time I went a whole month with no problems, and then last Sunday during the night (almost exactly one month since the end of the last attack) it came back with a vengeance.  I went to the doctor on Wednesday and he wasn't sure what was going on but after examining and bringing me to tears when he touched the spot at the base of my ribs/stomach, and commenting he had never seen anyone react like that before, he suggested I might have H Pylori and possibly a stomach ulcer.  He gave me a new PPI as the Omaprazole given in May didn't agree with me and asked for a stool sample so they could send it to be tested.  Why do they give you such tiny containers for such things?!  

Well by Thursday morning the pain was so bad I could hardly walk or breath so my husband took me to A & E.  Initially I don't think the doctor took me especially seriously and at first just told me to take the PPI and Gaviscon.  That is until he saw my blood test results!  My CRP was VERY high, my white blood cells, monocytes and neutrophil counts were high as well, showing I had severe inflammation and infection.  I also had an ECG which was abnormal, possibly because I was in so much pain, but will have to be rechecked at a later day.  A xray was also done.  I have to have an endoscopy done at the beginning of August to check for an ulcer, but he said I had a severe case of gastritis probably caused by H Pylori, so has given me a course of two antibiotics, plus the PPI and Gaviscon to take.  Today is the first day I have felt slightly better.  I have been getting bad headaches, not sure if that is relation to the medications or not, and everything tastes odd since starting the antibiotics.  I feel quite weak, but I am hoping that will improve as well.  To not have the levels of pain that I was in though is a vast improvement.  Of course my husband said I should have gone to the hospital much sooner than I did, and that because I must have a high pain threshold (from being in constant pain from the TOS etc) that I left it too long.  I have to say I am glad the bloods showed up something this time - perhaps because they were done whilst I was in the middle of a full blown attack!  I was starting to think my brain must be really good at making up pain that wasn't really there when all the previous results came back normal.  

I'm hoping that the antibiotics solve the problem and I won't have any more flare ups!