It seems my family physician believes I have an H. pylori infection in my gut. They somehow deduced this after shoving a camera down my throat and taking a look-see in there last week … I think they may have done something else to me at the same time, but I can’t remember as I was given some pretty good goofy juice during the procedure.
ANYHOW, I’ve been prescribed a battery of drugs (well, 3 to be exact) to take out this infection. One of them is “Metronidazole” or some damn thing. The nurse cautioned me to avoid alcohol at all costs during the course of this treatment and for a few days following it (so, about 10 days) as it will make me sick to my stomach with that drug. This even includes mouth wash.
DAMMIT! I’m on holidays right now, and its the last few nice days of summer up here and I can’t even enjoy a cold beer on my deck! Or, even a frosty glass of scope or listerine!!!
IT AIN’T FAIR DAMMIT!!! LIFE JUST AIN’T FAIR!!!
[sub]I just wanted to share and hopefully have someone give me some pitty. Thanks[/sub]
I will be thinking of you with pity tomorrow at the Victoria Beerfest:
No, seriously, B., I hope that they knock this thing out quick and you get back on your feet (or off, as the case may be) in record time. Good luck man.
Awwww. Rotten. However, with any luck you’ll be feeling much zippier in a week or so.
If you don’t mind my asking, what kind of symptoms did you have to prompt them to look for this? I’ve been having some “upper right quandrant” pain for a couple of weeks and am just starting all the various tests to see what it might be. So far I’ve just had an ultrasound of my gallbladder (no results yet), but the doctor also gave me some heavy duty antacid which seems to be helping a bit.
That’s the problem! I feel fine right now! If I felt sick, then I could be a little comforted in knowing that I’ll get better in time… but I feel as good now as I ever have!!
<sob>
As for your asking how I was diagnosed, I’ll give you the run down.
For about the past year or two, I had really bad acid in my stomach. So much so, I’d go through a bottle of Tums every week or so. Not normal anyhow.
One night in Febuary, I woke up with chest pains. Now, while I am only 30 years old, I am about 20 pounds overweight and I know enough not to screw around with chest pain so I woke my wife up and we went to the hospital emergency. The hooked me up on an ECG right away and kept their eyes on me like I was the only person that that mattered in the whole world.[sub] I’ve since put 2+2 together and learned if you want immediate assistance in Emerg just say your having heart pains… [/sub]
The good news is, the attending emergency physician said my heart checked out perfectly fine. That was the good news. He wasn’t sure what the problem was though but gave me some Prevacid to see if it would help, which it did.
The following week I went to my family doctor and relayed the story to him. He mentioned that recently it has come to light that a bacterial infection in your stomach can cause all sorts of problems, amongst which is similar symptoms to which I described. So, he prescribed me more Prevacid to take care of the symptoms in the meantime and booked me for a “gastro-something or other” The procedure where they put the camera in my gut.
Well. I had to wait over 7 months for the appointment (yay Canadian Health Care!!!). And in that time, the acid hasn’t been bothering my nearly as much and I haven’t been taking tums nearly as much either. I am assuming the Prevacid may have had a hand in that.
But, anyhow, after 7 months of waiting I was getting that test done anyhow. So I went through it and the Doctor noticed somehow (I was pretty out of it during the time, they drug you up pretty good when they’re ramming a big tube down your throat) that I had an infection. So, yesterday my doctor prescribed me this treatment to clear up the infection and hopefully cure the “acid” related problems I’ve had.
Perhaps Qagdop will make an appearence and give some more specifics to the problem with this bacteria?
What’s the big deal about a week? Just substitute a nice, frosty lemonade or something. I could go months without alcohol, and probably wouldn’t even notice.
In case some people didn’t pick up on it, I meant the exaggeration of my feelings in the OP to be a slight sign of sarcasm. I know 10 days without alcohol is not the end of the world… even though a cold one in front of my firepit is a close to a perfect evening.[/sub]
This happened to me once when I was on Flagyl. I still went to the pub with my mates, but I discovered that when you’re sober, drunks are a) repetivite, b) boring, and c) irritating.
Not a good idea. My Dr told me that the medication could quite easily have a side effect of making my stomach quite upset. I’d rather be at home with an upset stomach than at work for several hours miserable.
As it turns out, my stomach is taking them OK, but since I started them, I can’t stop now.
