Helicobacter Forums

Hello everyone,
I am a 34 year old male living in Southern California. My problems date back 8 weeks ago. I was woken up in the middle of the night with a strong cramp. Rushed to the toilet and boom diarrhea. It felt really weird, nothing I had ever felt before. Then, although I went regularly to the bathroom (once a day during the morning), the stools would look as if I had diarrhea and they were thin. Then a month ago I started getting pain in the abdomen. My lower abdomen felt like it was on fire with sharp pain in my lower left abdomen. My upper abdomen was also having pain, but it was sporadic sharp pain. I was burping a lot and had heartburn, which I never really had. I finally decided to go to the doctor. Went, the Doc thought it was just a stomach bug and prescribed ciprofloxacin and I was to provide a stool sample for parasites. Started on the ciprofloxacin and my symptoms like lower abdominal pain started to subside. I still had a lot of gas and was burping a lot. Once in a while I would feel, sharp pain in the upper abdomen but it was no where near what it was. After the 7th day of treatment, I started to feel like crap again. Had diarrhea and anxiety attacks, ended up in the ER. They only gave my a GI cocktail and sent me back home, no test or anything. Then after a couple of days without medication, I woke up with pain in my pelvic area after urinating. Decided to go back to the doc, was prescribed metronidazole and omeprazole. While this was happening I had gone to do an ultrasound (they didn't find anything) and had done a stool test for H Pylori and was ordered to do a ct scan. My symptoms were not bad while I took the metronidazole and omeprazole, (some heart burn and burping). While taking the ct scan, I was called by the doctor, I had to go that day.

I had tested positive for H Pylori and was going to start a 10 day triple therapy (omeprazole, Clarithromycin and Levofloxacin). I have been on them, for the past 10 days (today is my last day of the treatment). For the first 7-8 days I felt weak, urinated frequently and a lot of gas but it was not as bad as before the treatment. The past couple of days though, I started to feel the lower abdominal pain (not as bad, but it had gone away) and stomach growling, in terms of the upper abdomen I feel that if I wasn't taking the omeprazole I'd be having the sharp pain, it feels like its waiting to comeback.

To top it off, I got my CT scan results back and they saw mild wall thickening around the sigmoid colon and rectum. Went to a GI and I'm scheduled for a colonoscopy on Thursday.

I just wanted to know from some of the experts here and some of you that have gone through this, can H Pylori cause all these problems, are am I suffering from multiple things? And should I be feeling worse at the end of treatment, than I did in the beginning of treatment?
I've lost 13 pounds in the last 25 days, I'm freaking out here, your responses are more than welcomed.

not a typical H. pylori symptom. H. pylori doesnt cause diarrhea.
Your doctor checked for C. difficiles? probably that's why you were given metronidazole..

anyway, hope your triple therapy worked in killing off H. pylori and good luck to your colonoscopy.

i am worried about your H. pylori may have developed antibiotic resistance from ciprofloxacin that you took earlier.

if you took cipro first, then stool test positive, it is likely that H. pylori is already resistant to cipro (and levofloxacin). which mean your high chance of failure to your triple therapy.

Hi thanks for responding. Online I've seen diarrhea as a symptom, little concerning you mention that its not. To be fair, I usually go once a day, so its not like I'm running to the bathroom all day. Its just that my stools were loose and looked like diarrhea. Ever since I've been on the antibiotics they have started to look normal.

Which antibiotics are the best to fight H Pylori?

I was diagnosed as being allergic to Penicillin when I was 11-12, before that I never had a problem with penicillin. I've read that many people outgrow the allergy as adults. I'm thinking of seeing an allergists to be tested on my penicillin allergy, since I've read that Amoxicillin is the best to treat H Pylori.

more than 50% of people in the world is infected with H. pylori. It would be a big problem if every carrier suffers from diarrhea.

actually, most of the symptoms come from inflammation.
Inflammation may lead to reduction of mucus, acid burn, ulcers, metaplasia, etc.

Amoxicillin is good because it is very hard for H. pylori to become resistant to it. So you can repetitively use amoxicillin.
another one is bismuth. So two of them are always used together. or sometimes, for patients who are allergic to penicillin, doctor would replace amoxicillin with bismuth or other antibiotics.

Yes, it is true that some people can outgrow allergies.