Friday, December 5, 2014

adventures with gastritis

My history with gastritis has been long but exceedingly sporadic -- i don't believe i've mentioned it here before.  The first bad bout was when i was in either jr-hi or high-school, i don't clearly remember which.  What i DO remember is that in junior-high, not once but twice did i have to run out of biology class to barf.  I have no idea what might have been in the cages, beakers or petri-dishes that set me off, but they sure did.  The two episodes happened close to each other, then didn't happen again -- hmmm, whatever the trigger was seems to have been cleared away.

The first "attack" was forgotten by me, until i had an exact recurrence here in StL several years ago.  We had just had breakfast at our favorite diner and the pain immediately reminded me!  I went home, "lightened the load" and used enzymes, and it faded away within the hour, but left me exhausted for a couple of days.  This episode, i hypothesize, was where i picked up the bug that has been plaguing me since.

I had another episode, even worse, last year.  Again, i had just eaten out, but not at the same place.  The inflammation in my stomach lost me my appetite for days, and was more tender to the touch than the previous event, but soon subsided -- i was normal again within the week.

Thanksgiving day last week, something set me off again, though nothing on the menu came from a commercial source ... and it was not acute but what looked like the beginning of a chronic turn to the situation.  I FELT stomach irritation on Friday (not the pain, just a hint of the inflammation), and it also seemed to manifest in LACK OF STOMACH ACID, a situation which has so abated with me that i don't have betaine-HCl on hand anymore!  That's obviously a mistake.

But the acid situation on top of the gastritis spelled H.-P-Y-L-O-R-I to me!  I started googling....

I used up what was left of my licorice tincture, broke out the peppermint, and put a serious dent in my ginger-teabags (all of which helped but didn't conquer) before i came across a mention of EPAZOTE.  This is a culinary herb in Mexican food, as well as a medicinal with antibacterial, anti-parasitic, and anti-GAS properties.  ... And coincidentally, i had some in my kitchen already!

With the first shot of the tea, my stomach felt better!  It was like taking a modern instant-action drug as compared to the usual wait-for-it herbal remedy.  No wonder that the traditional treatment time is three to four days, with a follow-up two weeks down the line to deal with any worm-eggs that might hatch after the original dosing.  It's THAT powerful.

Immediately, the constant belching subsided.  I no longer had the constant low-grade nausea.  My digestion felt a lot closer to normal, but i'm still eating rather lightly and prompting enzymes and acid with the aid of bitters.  I feel MUCH better than i did on Wednesday.

The fact that in semi-tropical America, this herb is a casual item in cooking is significant to me -- tropical locations offer generous opportunities for parasite infection!  Using epazote in your soups and casseroles should give you ongoing protection.  I didn't find it strongly flavored, so it can't be much of a contribution to the taste of dishes ... but there it is, in the recipe of a tamale-like chicken dish, from a mainstream purveyor of traditional Mexican ingredients.

The packet of epazote i had was only a half-ounce, so i used it all in making the 3/4 cup of tea for my first three doses.  Our outstanding international grocery-stores in StL will make finding another couple of packages easy, though, and i WILL keep this valuable herb on hand from here out!  I'll repeat my Thu-Fri-Sat dose next week, too, and i'll try to remember to include some of it in soups and stews from now on!

Herbs are a poor replacement for drugs?  HA.  Treating H. pylori with antibiotics takes a cocktail of different pharmaceuticals, not just one, and the dosage is continued for WEEKS ... and still doesn't have a 100%-effective record.  In a modern world of filthy food-production methods where we get a constant trickle of antibiotics and pathogens in our diets, the value of traditional methods of health-protection must not be under-estimated.

19 comments:

  1. Lucky I surfed by - thanks for the tip! I don't think I have H pylori, but my GI tract is growing less & less tolerant of my minor (by prior comparison) indiscretions. I'll try some epizote - I have a concoction called "Stomach Ease" by Yoga Teas, if I recall correctly it's mostly licorice & peppermint oil, but it does soothe minor indigestion.
    Our local HEB has all the tamale-making supplies, & I saw packets of epizote while I was looking for a big bottle of comino. I'd be happy to pick you up a few packets if you wanna send me your address. endurovet AT gmail

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    1. thanks, Val, but i picked up some more today while we were out! :-) i envy you the HEB -- when i visit my daughter in the Houston area, i always shop there!

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  2. You stomach problems sounds like the beginning of my gallbladder colics, which eventually resulted in a gallbladder removal. at about me being 39 years old.

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    1. i do hope you're wrong this time! :-)

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    2. I hope too, there is indeed a small probability,but I choose to point in that direction in case if you decide to do some checking, to ask your doc about an ultrasound examination.

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  3. Hmmmm Epizote... I must get some. Although most of my stomach problems are gone... I have occasional episodes and always have. Thanks for sharing this.

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    1. I had H. pylori several years ago--it gave me diarrhea for a month and a half. The doctor thought to test for it when he pressed on my solar plexus and it was sensitive. He looked like he thought it was a far-fetched idea, but SOP was to test for it, anyway. In fact, it was an acute infection and I was making only two of the usual three antibodies.

      Last time I had gastritis, I cured it with a two-day fat fast. I'm sure most readers know that drastically lowering your protein for a few days makes your body burn proteins already there, like inflammatory proteins and viruses. But I don't know if it would do anything for H. Pylori, which is literally screwed into your stomach.

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    2. Karen, unless the gastritis is bug-driven i don't know if epizote will work, but i guess we'll find out! :-)

      Lori, that's very interesting, thanks for sharing your experience! that would explain the loose bowels i've suffered from recently, too.

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    3. It could be your body trying to flush out the infection--like a runny nose.

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  4. Sounds awful...I sympathize. I had a nasty GI thing Friday/Saturday from garlic in my food. I am intolerant of onion, garlic and leeks...oh well. I think too many people over season anyway. I'll look into the Epazote...it might help me, thanks!

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    1. it's at very least another non-pharmaceutical tool for you to consider. :-) reading further, I hear that one of the functions in culinary use is to reduce the flatulence-capabilities of beans, and that it's been used for that and worms/parasites since the Aztecs. ain't nature grand?

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  5. I finally had an h. pylori blood test after many years (decades!) of GERD. The first time I adopted a low carb diet my GERD disappeared completely within 2 weeks, but after another decade plus of damage when I stopped following a low carb diet it is not responding to diet and probiotics alone. I think I did some serious damage in those intervening years.

    The blood test was "marginally positive". I don't know, it seems like being "marginally pregnant", but in any case I wasn't interested in the slash and burn treatment allopathic medicine offers--antibiotics to wipe out all your gut flora, PPI's to "heal" your gut, and then, G-d willing, probiotics to restore the gut flora. No thanks, at least not for being just "marginally positive". My doctor offered a stool test to see if the results are more positive, but I really know what I need to do (heal the gut, increase acid to wipe out the bad guys, keep the good gut flora), just not sure how to get it all to work. Healing is where I keep getting stuck!

    So--keeping in mind that you weren't tested for h.pylori so it's based on some supposition on your part-- I'm interested in trying the Epizote, if I can find it. It sounds like it goes in that category of "won't hurt, might help". Are you using fresh or dried? Any suggestions on quantity?

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    1. My over-the-counter search was instructive -- Whole Foods didn't have it, and to my surprise Global/Jay International didn't carry it either -- I found two types in my local Carniceria LatinoAmerica (and I picked up some beautiful beef shank and oxtail while there). :-) I THINK it's sometimes available fresh, but you can always find it dried.

      But the easiest way, if you don't have good Latin-American groceries where you are, is simply to order from Amazon -- I checked and they do carry it. :-) I originally spelled it wrong in the post, but I went back and edited there although I couldn't in my comments -- it's epAzote. "Epazote de comer" is what you're looking for. I bought the whole leaf on the stem, crumbled it up well, and steeped the whole thing -- made about a cupful and divided it into three doses.

      Dosing does seem to be important -- the traditional technique seems to be that you make 1/4 to 1/2 cup a day for three days, and drink it on an empty stomach (if you make it the night before, you can toss it down first thing in the morning before your usual drink). Then wait one week, and repeat the regimen. This is specific for worms/parasites which would leave undamaged eggs behind -- I don't know how effective that is for bacteria, but might help clean up the survivors of the first round.

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  6. As it is known for me from my general interest in traditional remedies, many plants were used for treating bacterial infection. Often such plants contains tannines, like the bark of oaks, shell of a pomegranate, Tansy flowers infusion. I know people who treated dysentery with taking one tsp of dry tea leaves several times a day. It is important not to overdo tannines , like everything.

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    1. ah, THAT will be why red wines are tonic for h. pylori.... :-)

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    2. I am not very familiar with red whine affecting digestion problems, I rarely have either. I remember people drinking a lot of strong tea after a food poisoning episodes. When I was young, people routinely had food poisonings, and it was not considering a serious illness. I remember having it like once a year, usually from a sourcream or a country-cheese bought from a store. Sour-cream was sold not sealed and packed, but dispersed from huge containers into empty glass containers customers had to bring to a store. Country cheese was wrapped into a paper. Due to the frequency of food poisonings we all were familiar with a drill.

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    3. I'm sure minor bouts of food-poisoning are HIGHLY evolutionarily congruent!!! ...i'll remember that trick with the tea! :-) how wide-spread do you remember salmonella-poisoning to be? (my dear neighbor got a case of it a couple of years ago, and became deathly ill.)

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  7. "the value of traditional methods of health-protection must not be under-estimated"


    Do hope you're back to feeling your usual self Tess

    All the best Jan
    .

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    1. I feel MUCH better, thank you, Jan! :-) i'm still taking it easy at meals, though, and drinking ginger tea and shots of peppermint.

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