I’ve been having gnawing stomach pain after eating for five days now, and the doctor has prescibed an acid reducer for me. After five days of pretty bad pain every time I’m hungry and when I eat, I’m getting tired of it - anybody know how long before I start getting some relief from this pain?
(I know why they call it “gnawing pain” - it feels like something is gnawing on my stomach from the inside. Fun times.)
I had a duodenal ulcer from H.S. to my junior year in college. Once a month I’d be flat on my back in terrible, nauseous pain. Bleeding put me in the hospital a couple of times. Back then there was less medicine to treat them. All I really had was Tagamet.
Then a friend’s dad told me about Estomacurol. You can only get it in Mexico and it’s not soem dangerous medication but just a bunch of buffers that neutralize stomach acid and allow a patch to form over the ulcer, giving it a chance to heal. I used it for a month or two and all of a sudden I was completely healed. It’s been 20 years now without another single problem. Honestly, I think the darn stuff may have saved my life. If nothing else it at least significantly improved it’s quality.
You can get it in about any pharmacia in Mexico. I think it’s about $2.00.
What kind of “acid reducer”?
If it’s a proton pump inhibitor (the drug names end in “ole” eg Omeprazole), the relief should be almost immediate, you’ll have to wait a couple of days if it’s an H2 receptor antagonist (drug names ends in “ine” eg Cimetidine).
Make sure your doc schedules you for a urea breath test, to detect the presence of the bacteria H. Pylori. This bacteria is the cause of many ulcers, infection with it is also risk factor for developing stomach cancer.
The good news is that 10 days of specialised antibiotics and a PPI can cure the infection in about 90% of people, and once cleared, it’s usually gone for good.
Don’t just take the tablets indefinitely, get to the root of the problem!
(Usually eating a fatty meal or drinking a glass of milk will reduce the pain from an ulcer, but increase the pain from gallbladder problems. If your pain is worse after eating and focused on the right side under your ribs, it’s less likely to be an ulcer, and you should see your doc again.)
I was having a lot of pain on my right side and was diagnosed with a duodenal h. pylori infection. I went through more or less the regimen irishgirl describes, and by the end of the 10 days or so, was feeling much better. I continued to take the PPI (which is available over the counter now as Prilosec) from time to time and now, about 6 months later, I’m fine.
In November of last year I started throwing up blood. Not old, brown blood, but bright red arterial blood. The ER sent me to a gastroenterologist who did an emergency endoscopy (I had fallen a few days before and they were afraid that I cracked my esophagus). Turns out I have the worst ulcers (dozens of them) that he and the nurses had ever seen. We were hoping it would be the bacterial kind, but it is not. They do five biopsies every time they scope me (every three months for a minimum of two years) since it looks so much like Barrett’s (esophagial cancer). In fact, last week they scoped me to take biopsies and found a polyp, so they just cut it out. We’re still waiting on the results from both the biopsies and the polyp. 
I’m on Protonix, which is sort of the “granddaddy” of the acid reducers. My insurance company wouldn’t pay for it until they tried me on two (less expensive) others, but they weren’t as effective. They have finally agreed to pay for the Protonix.
I’m 29 and extremely healthy (other than this), by the way.
Relief (for me) is within an hour of taking medication, but I seem to recall that it did take a week or two for it to fully take effect. Sorry you are in pain.
I don’t have the medicine with me at work, so I’ll have to post later about what it is that I’m taking. I’m starting to get hungry again, after having three hours of pain this morning, so I’m going to have to make that decision about “pain from hunger, or pain from eating” again. Sheesh, this sucks.
I was a little surprised that the doctor didn’t test me for H. Pylori too. From my understanding, that little bug causes the majority of all ulcers. Well, we’ll see what the medicine does, and I’ll go back if I don’t have any relief pretty soon.
Hope you can figure out what’s going on and clear it up, Marconi.
(By the way, I didn’t actually eat for five days, like it looks in my OP. If I had been eating for five days, I wouldn’t wonder why my stomach hurt. 
)
I could be wrong, but I’d heard h. pylori was not easy to get unless you travel to…erm…less industrialized places? Lotsa things cause this kind of pain. Ulcers, gall bladder, ulcerated esophagus from chronic acid reflux, etc. I’d be more concerned about the sudden onset.
Hope you feel better soon.
I had one eight years ago. It was a small one but it hurt like a S.O.B. Woke me up at night and made me very wary of eating because that’s what triggered the worst pain from it. A doctor told me to take Tagamet and very soon I was back to normal, though I was somewhat miffed that I’d payed $70 for a consultation with a doctor only to learn that something I could buy over the counter for $8 would relieve the problem.
I started off with Pepcid AC, and the pain in my belly just laughed at it. The acid inhibitor my doctor prescribed is Rabeprazole Sodium, H+, K+, and -ATPase Inhibitor. It sounds pretty serious. Here’s hoping that the pills will kick in by tomorrow - I had a couple of woozy spells and nauseous spells today. That doesn’t seem like a good thing.
Inigo, it was an extremely sudden onset. I can practically pinpoint the minute that it started. Well, I’ll give the pills another couple days, then go back if they still aren’t helping.
I was just diagnosed a couple weeks ago with a hiatal hernia - and that does do the burny-ouchy thing in the stomach, so I understand your pain. It came out of nowhere - but since I am on NSAIDS for my arthritis, it’s not truly a surprise.
Unfortunately, the best thing for the hernia is to avoid NSAIDS. But without the NSAIDS, my knees start going from the arthritis. Luckily, I go to a new rheumatologist on Wednesday, and I’ll definitely be pushing for different medications.
Susan
Update:
I think the acid inhibitor is finally starting to work. I’ve made it almost to lunch without too much pain. Yay!