Helicobacter Forums

HI,
I live in North America and finished my 2nd line of therapy (quadruple) more than 3 months ago. I continued with Pantoprazole 40 mg a day for two and half months and for the last two weeks cut it down to 20mg/day and then 20mg for every other day for additional week. since I did not have symptoms anymore, I did not continue taking PPI and been off of PPI for two weeks now. I started having some acidity in mu upper GI a few days ago. Not sure what caused it. I suspect it might be the effect of vitamin supplement that I started taking a few days ago. I have not done the test yet and I do not think I will. My question is :
Does the antibiotics damage the lining of stomach and cause acid reflux?
1- Should I go back to PPI again ( I am concerned about the side effects)?
2-Do vitamin supplements effect the stomach acidity?

Thank you so much

Antibiotics do not harm your stomach lining. More likely it is H. pylori who has done the damage and depending on the level of damage, the healing can take a while.

you can go back to PPI. But, I think it is important to find out if you still have H. pylori. So if you need acid blocker, you can use ranitidine, for the next 2- 3 weeks. then repeat the breath test to see if your previous treatment work.

PPI can give false negative result to breath/stool test.

Ranitidine will not affect breath/stool test. you can continue ranitidine until the night before breath test.

Thank you

Thank you for your responses.
I should mention that I did not have any acid reflux prior to going on antibiotics and my symptoms were very mild (just occasional burning sensation. It all started after two weeks being off the antibiotics.
Thank you

HP being eradicated is going to be a new environment for your stomach plus you're also on a PPI which changes the environment. I'm sure its going to take some time (weeks or maybe even a few months) before your stomach can get back into a state of homeostasis. By that time hopefully your reflux is gone.

Thank you for your response