The truth that “gastritis” has not been cured, the recurring attacks may be these reasons

  Clinically, we meet many patients who visit the clinic because of recurrent epigastric pain, epigastric distention, postprandial fullness, heartburn, acid reflux, belching and other symptoms, while gastroscopy usually reveals varying degrees of gastric mucosal congestion. Therefore, the majority of gastric patients are logically diagnosed with “chronic gastritis” and are prescribed medication to eat in accordance with chronic gastritis. However, many patients with chronic gastritis do not get better even after taking a variety of stomach medications for a long time, and some have symptoms that improve or disappear during medication and then relapse once the medication is stopped. In fact, these situations may be the result of several reasons.  Causes of gastric disease not removed: such as smoking, drinking and other bad habits, staying up late, irregular eating and other bad habits, as well as long-term mental tension, psychological stress, etc. can cause digestive tract dysfunction, manifested as stomach discomfort. If these negative influences are not removed, only thinking about taking medicine to completely cure the stomach disease, is tantamount to raising soup to stop the boil.  H. pylori not removed: H. pylori grows exclusively in the gastric mucosa and causes a variety of gastric diseases, including chronic gastritis. Because it is the culprit of gastritis, not completely removed, only taking general gastric drugs (such as acid inhibitors, gastric mucous membrane protection drugs), it will only work for a while. Soon after stopping the medication, the bacteria reignite the inflammation and the symptoms return.  However, the more common reason is that many patients with gastric problems are not suffering from gastritis, but from a condition called functional dyspepsia. The symptoms of this disease are similar to those of gastritis, which makes it easy to misdiagnose. The main symptoms of functional dyspepsia are pain or burning sensation from the upper abdomen, or a feeling of fullness, or poor appetite, belching, eructation, or vomiting after meals. These symptoms are prolonged and sometimes mild and severe. Because of the long duration of the disease, patients usually visit the doctor several times and undergo various tests such as laboratory blood tests, abdominal ultrasound, and gastroscopy without any obvious abnormalities, and are diagnosed with chronic gastritis by gastroscopy alone. In addition, there is a characteristic of this disease that various drugs do not seem to be very effective, taking medication may relieve some, but stopping medication is easy to relapse. The main causes of functional dyspepsia are: gastrointestinal motility dysfunction, increased gastrointestinal sensitivity, increased gastric acid secretion, Helicobacter pylori infection, and psychological abnormalities.  The main treatment is symptomatic treatment. Improve the patient’s correct understanding of the disease, discharge tension, improve their living habits, dietary habits, adjust the dietary structure, and try to remove the causes of the disease. Postprandial discomfort syndrome is often manifested as postprandial fullness and belching, which is mostly caused by gastrointestinal dysfunction, and the medication is mostly used to promote gastrointestinal motility drugs, such as morpholine and mosapride. In contrast, epigastric pain syndrome mostly manifests as epigastric pain or burning sensation, which is not related to eating, and is mostly caused by excessive gastric acid, so drugs that inhibit gastric acid such as omeprazole and rabeprazole can be used, together with drugs that protect the gastric mucosa such as magnesium aluminum carbonate tablets. For patients whose various treatments are ineffective and who have psychological abnormalities after psychological testing, anti-anxiety and antidepressant drugs should be used under the guidance of a doctor, which can also be very effective in controlling the symptoms of gastric disease.