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What Is H. pylori?

Medically Reviewed by Minesh Khatri, MD on December 07, 2020

Helicobacter pylori(H. pylori) is a blazon of bacteria. These germs can enter your torso and live in your digestive tract. Subsequently many years, they can crusade sores, called ulcers, in the lining of your stomach or the upper part of your small intestine. For some people, an infection tin can lead to stomach cancer.

Infection with H. pylori is common. About two-thirds of the world'south population has it in their bodies. For most people, it doesn't cause ulcers or any other symptoms. If y'all do have problems, there are medicines that tin can kill the germs and help sores heal.

Equally more than of the world gets access to clean water and sanitation, fewer people than before are getting the bacteria. With practiced health habits, you can protect yourself and your children from H. pylori.

How H. pylori Makes You Sick

For decades, doctors thought people got ulcers from stress, spicy foods, smoking, or other lifestyle habits. Just when scientists discovered H. pylori in 1982, they found that the germs were the cause of most stomach ulcers.

Later H. pylori enters your trunk, it attacks the lining of your breadbasket, which usually protects you lot from the acid your body uses to digest nutrient. In one case the bacteria have washed enough damage, acid can get through the lining, which leads to ulcers. These may bleed, cause infections, or proceed food from moving through your digestive tract.

You can get H. pylori from food, water, or utensils. It's more than mutual in countries or communities that lack make clean water or good sewage systems. You can also option upward the bacteria through contact with the saliva or other body fluids of infected people.

Many people get H. pylori during childhood, but adults can get it, too. The germs alive in the torso for years before symptoms beginning, just most people who have information technology will never become ulcers. Doctors aren't sure why only some people get ulcers after an infection.

Symptoms

If you have an ulcer, you may feel a dull or burning pain in your abdomen. It may come and go, simply you'll probably feel it most when your tum is empty, such every bit between meals or in the middle of the night. It tin can concluding for a few minutes or for hours. Yous may feel better after yous eat, potable milk, or take an antacid.

Other signs of an ulcer include:

Bloating
Burping
Not feeling hungry
Nausea
Airsickness
Weight loss for no articulate reason

Ulcers can bleed into your stomach or intestines, which tin can be dangerous to your health. Go medical help correct abroad if you have any of these symptoms:

Stool that is bloody, dark red, or blackness
Trouble animate
Dizziness or fainting
Feeling very tired for no reason
Stake skin color
Vomit that has blood or looks like java grounds
Severe, sharp tum pain

It's not common, but H. pylori infection tin can cause stomach cancer. The disease has few symptoms at kickoff, such as heartburn. Over time, you may discover:

Abdomen pain or swelling
Nausea
Not feeling hungry
Feeling full after y'all consume but a small amount
Airsickness
Weight loss for no reason

Getting a Diagnosis

If you don't have symptoms of an ulcer, your doctor probably won't test yous for H. pylori. Only if yous have them now or take in the past, it's best to get tested. Medicines like nonsteroidal anti-inflammatory drugs (NSAIDs) tin can also damage your stomach lining, so it'southward important to find out what'southward causing your symptoms and then y'all can get the right treatment.

To start, your md volition ask you about your medical history, your symptoms, and whatever medicines you take. Then they'll requite y'all a physical exam, including pressing on your belly to bank check for swelling, tenderness, or pain. You may likewise take:

Tests of your blood and stool, which can help discover an infection
Urea jiff examination. You'll beverage a special liquid that has a substance called urea. So yous'll breathe into a bag, which your doctor will send to a lab for testing. If yous have H. pylori, the bacteria volition change the urea in your body into carbon dioxide, and lab tests volition show that your jiff has higher than normal levels of the gas.

To look more closely at your ulcers, your dr. may use:

Upper gastrointestinal endoscopy. In a hospital, a doctor volition use a tube with a small camera, called an endoscope, to look down your throat and into your stomach and the upper part of your small intestine. The procedure may also exist used to collect a sample that volition be examined for the presence of the bacteria. You may be asleep or awake during the procedure, simply y'all'll become medicine to make you more comfortable.
Upper GI tests. In a infirmary, yous'll drink a liquid that has a substance called barium, and your md will give you an Ten-ray. The fluid coats your throat and tum and makes them stand out conspicuously on the image.
Computed tomography (CT) browse. Information technology's a powerful X-ray that makes detailed pictures of the inside of your trunk.

If yous take H. pylori, your doctor may also exam you lot for breadbasket cancer. This includes:

Physical exam
Blood tests to check for anemia, when your body doesn't have plenty red blood cells. It could happen if you have a tumor that bleeds.
Fecal occult blood test, which checks your stool for blood that'due south not visible to the naked eye
Endoscopy
Biopsy, when a dr. takes a modest slice of tissue from your breadbasket to await for signs of cancer. Your doctor may exercise this during an endoscopy.
Tests that make detailed pictures of the insides of your body, such equally a CT scan or magnetic resonance imaging (MRI)

Handling for H. pylori

If you have ulcers caused past H. pylori, you'll need handling to kill the germs, heal your stomach lining, and keep the sores from coming dorsum. It usually takes 1 to 2 weeks of handling to get better.

Your doctor will probably tell yous to take a few different types of drugs. The options include:

Antibiotics to impale the bacteria in your body, such as amoxicillin, clarithromycin (Biaxin), metronidazole (Flagyl), tetracycline (Sumycin), or tinidazole (Tindamax). You'll most probable take at least two from this group.
Drugs that reduce the corporeality of acid in your tum past blocking the tiny pumps that produce it. They include dexlansoprazole (Dexilant), esomeprazole (Nexium), lansoprazole (Prevacid), omeprazole (Prilosec), pantoprazole (Protonix), or rabeprazole (Aciphex).
Bismuth subsalicylate, which may also help impale H. pylori forth with your antibiotics
Medicines that cake the chemic histamine, which prompts your stomach to brand more than acrid. These are cimetidine (Tagamet), famotidine Pepcid, Zantac 360), and nizatidine (Axid).

Your treatment could mean you'll take xiv or more than pills per day for a few weeks, which seems like a lot of medicine. But it's actually important to take everything that your doctor prescribes and to follow their instructions. If yous don't take antibiotics the right way, leaner in your trunk can become resistant to them, which makes infections harder to treat. If your medications bother yous, talk to your md about your treatment options and how y'all can handle side effects.

Most i-2 weeks after you lot terminate your treatment, your doctor may test your breath or stool again to make sure the infection is gone.

Prevention

You can protect yourself from getting an H. pylori infection with the same steps you accept to continue other germs at bay:

Launder your hands afterwards y'all employ the bathroom and before you prepare or eat food. Teach your children to do the aforementioned.
Avoid food or water that'due south non make clean.
Don't swallow anything that isn't cooked thoroughly.
Avoid food served by people who oasis't washed their hands.

Though stress and spicy foods don't cause ulcers, they can proceed them from healing quickly or make your pain worse. Talk to your doctor near ways to manage your stress, improve your diet, and, if you smoke, how yous can get help to quit.

What tin I expect after H. pylori infection?

Nigh ulcers acquired by H. pylori will heal after a few weeks of treatment. If you've had 1, you should avoid taking NSAIDs for pain, since these drugs can damage your stomach lining. If you need pain medicine, ask your doctor to recommend some.

Where can I find information or support?

You tin discover data about H. pylori infection and ulcers from the American Higher of Gastroenterology. For information on stomach cancer, too as online and local support groups, visit the American Cancer Guild.

Source: https://www.webmd.com/digestive-disorders/h-pylori-helicobacter-pylori

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