h pylori test result

[spacebunnyx]

Hi,

I've been having stomach discomfort (acid, burping, gnawing feeling and nausea) for a while now and have just had my test result for h pylori back. It was negative.

However, a couple of things have been playing on my mind:

1) I had a small "ulcer-like" thing in my stomach at endoscopy 10 years ago... i had no treatment for it... if I don't/didn't have h pylori then what caused it?!

2) how reliable is the stool antigen test? Also, I'd been taken PPI's for a few days before... would that have an effect on the result?

I would be so grateful if you could help me with these questions in any way - I don't want to google!!!!

Jess xxx

[countrygirl]

Whenever they do an gastroscopy they take a small biopsy and test for h pylori so if its neg at biospy its negative full stop. I am also negative but I have tiny patch of gastritis ( inflammation) in my stomach as well. I have hiatus hernia and have had two gastroscopies in past 5 years to check on it and both times I was neg for h pylori but had tiny patch of gastritis. I was told that nearly everyone has tiny bit of inflammation in stomach that moves and comes and goes.

PPI will not alter your test results for h pylori.. I was also told that most people are infected with this as a child and then we get rid of it ourselves but in some people the immune system does not get rid of it and it becomes a chronic infection which needs antibiotics etc.

I have heard that the biopsy and breath test are the most reliable for h pylori as the blood one can show positive because of earlier childhood infection but does not mean you have any infection now. Do now know about the stool one sorry.

[Plysg]

Hi

I had a blood test for H Pylori back around June time following some stomach pains and was on PPIs at the time. That came back negative and a couple of months later I came off the PPIs because they weren't really making much of a difference and have since been on Mebeverine assuming it's IBS. On the most part I'm doing much better than I was a few months ago mainly due to reducing the stress in my life, but I'm still suffering with really painful hunger pangs if i go more than a couple of hours without food. I went back to the docs and she's now testing me again on thurs for the Pylori as she says PPIs can often give a false negative result.

Don't know if anyone else has heard of that (my surgery is a training surgery and have encountered some plain awful trainees over the past few months!) but if you're concerned maybe it's worth speaking to the docs and seeing if the PPIs may have had an impact?

Hoping mine comes back positive this time if only to go some way towards explaining what's going on in there!