Gastritis - excessive hunger - healing or something else?

[Galley_Slave]

Hi there!

I've had gastritis for the last 14 months, however after opting for the herbal route, it is now very much under control... so much so that I'm pain 98% of the time. I'm still maintaining a very bland diet of bananas, pears, root veg, lean animal protein, quinoa, 2.5+ litres of water a day, a low GI powdered cereal similar to baby cereal I mix with water. (nothing else, no dairy, very little wheat, no caffeine, alcohol etc).

3 weeks ago I felt absolutely dreadful one morning (very nauseas) after my usual BM 10 minutes after rising. I realised that I didn't have enough in my system to keep to going (almost like a "crash" if you exercise on an empty stomach). My weight went down to 54kgs from 56kgs (I'm 1.73m tall so don't want to loose any more weight). Anyway, so I carbo-loaded for the next week and got my weight up to 56.5 again - I've been calorie counting and trying to keep it between 1700-1800 a day... but the thing is even now at 56.5 I'm still feeling a little strange in the morning(nausea) if food does not get into my system quick enough. And I'm very hungry - much more so than usual - I'm eating way more than my husband, but then again I'm not getting the calories from alcohol. I need to eat every 2.5 to 3 hours.  I don't drink liquid with meals. Sometimes after eating breakfast, a banana, 1 cup of quinoa and 1/2 tin of tuna I'm still feeling a little nauseas at 11am (like its taking ages to get into my system)-  then suddenly I'll feel perfectly fine for the rest of the day. I find if I have a glass of water with 2 scoops of glucose powder I feel a lot better (don't have this often though).

Could this increased hunger be because my stomach lining is actually healing nicely (since my body has seriously been deprived of food for the last 11 months)? Or do you think something else is going on?

I've been told I have slow digestion. I sometimes wake up with a very dull headache. I feel a bit of brain fog, and I'm lacking the energy/drive I used to have... almost like fatigue but not quite. I only have 1 BM a day.

Thanks for your time and I look forward to hearing from you.

[Dany307]

How do u can solve that?

[patient915]

Ok, you had not mentioned anything at all before about alcohol or NSAID's.  I'm glad your problem is solved.

[Galley_Slave]

As I said - I don't drink alcohol or take NSAID's.

But it's all sorted out - I did a controlled water fast in the hospital (accurate way of checking if you suffer from hypoglycemia)... and my results were normal after 40 hours. The amazing thing is my "system" has been totally reset i.e. I no longer have the extreme hunger that had me eating every 2 hours just to maintain weight - the fatigue is gone and I have more energy now than I have had in over a year - and my headaches are also gone. It's a miracle!

[patient915]

Do you take any asprin or other antiinflammatories?  How much alcohol do you drink?

[Galley_Slave]

Thank you.

Diagnosed via endoscopy. Not sure of the cause as I had subacute thyroiditis as well as colon colitis at the same time - was on a bunch a meds at the time, but mainly for the colitis. It's chronic antral gastritis. I have been diagosed by both an iridologist as well as an acupuncturist as having slow digestion (the symptoms are easy enough to figure out as well).

I think my current symptoms are hypoglycemia... will be checking it out next week.

[patient915]

Welcome to the gastroenterology community!  How was the gastritis diagnosed?  Could they figure out a cause of the gastritis?  Was it chronic or acute gastritis?  Have you been clinically diagnosed with slow digestion?