Chris Ekai

Your ulcer is probably an infection, and it has been curable this whole time. Not stress. Not the pepper. Not thinking too much. A bacterium called H. pylori lives in the lining of the stomach, and it is behind most ulcers. It spreads through water and shared food and it is common here. Very common. The stress thing was believed by everybody, including doctors, until two Australians proved otherwise in the eighties. One of them drank the bacteria himself to make the point. They gave him the Nobel Prize for it. That is how settled this is, and your aunty is still telling you to avoid thinking too much. Here is what to actually do. › Ask for the stool antigen test or the urea breath test. By name. Those two look for the infection now. › Do not accept the blood antibody test on its own. It shows you met this thing at some point in your life, possibly twenty years ago, and it stays positive long after the infection is gone. People get treated on the strength of it for nothing. › Stop acid-reducing tablets for two weeks before the test, and antibiotics for four. They suppress the bacteria without clearing it, so the test comes back negative while you are still infected. Ask whoever prescribed them first — do not just stop. If it is positive, the treatment is a combination of antibiotics for one to two weeks. Finish it. All of it. Half a course is how this thing survives and comes back harder. Now food, because that is my part. › Broccoli sprouts if you can find them. Cabbage otherwise. There is real work on the compound in them and this bacterium. › Stop the milk. Everybody in this country drinks milk for ulcer and it is the wrong instinct — it soothes for twenty minutes, then the calcium and protein make your stomach produce more acid than before you drank it. You feel better, then worse, and you never connect the two. › Rest the gut. Not smaller meals more often — that is the advice everybody gives and it keeps the stomach working all day. A lining cannot repair while it is being asked to process something every two hours. › Carrot and cucumber infused water through the fasting window. Slice both into water, leave it, drink it through the day. It carries something in and it asks almost nothing of the stomach. › No alcohol and no smoking while you are clearing it. Both work directly against the lining trying to heal. And the honest line... Food does not clear H. pylori. Antibiotics clear it. Food supports the lining and makes the treatment go better, and any page telling you cabbage alone will cure an infection is lying to you. One honest line on the fasting. If your pain is worse on an empty stomach, which is common with a duodenal ulcer, this part is not yours and you should not force it. Tell me instead and we will do it differently. Ask for the breath test or the stool test. By name, this week. And if you have been treated twice and it keeps coming back, that is a different conversation and usually a household one. Message me.