I've been drinking citric acid with gastritis... & didn't even know it.

Hi everyone. This is my first post. I've been lurking for a while but decided to finally join.

So, here's how my alcoholic gastritis began. It was a night out at a resort with my friends, partying and drinking like animals. I rarely drink, only socially, maybe once or twice a month. The night quickly turned into mixing vodka and rum... and throwing it all up the next morning. I didn't think much of until a couple days after when I started experiencing stomach pain. I ended up in the ER twice, saw my primary doctor once and my GI doctor once in the span of 3 weeks. It's been 3 weeks since I've left the ER the first time, and it's just on and off pain and discomfort. I'm wondering why I haven't been healing too well yet... some days are okay, other days are just awful. I've barely left the house since. I've tried so many different things... slippery elm, L-glutamine, tea, antacids, and changing up my diet to eat nothing acidic. Only today have I discovered that I have been drinking aloe vera juice with CITRIC ACID in it. It is 99.8% pure aloe. I did not think to read the ingredients fully until today... stupid I know. You can call me stupid, because it was. I drank a good amount last night on an empty stomach and some this morning... now my stomach and esophagus are burning like crazy. I'm on Sucralfate for acid reflux and stomach pain, Protonix, Odansetron for nausea, and BusPIRone for anxiety. I never really had this bad of a reaction to the aloe vera juice in the past but maybe it's just been making it worse over time... how can I turn this around? I've finished almost the entire jug and now I'm throwing away the rest... I need to go buy 100% aloe vera juice and hopefully that would help to patch things up... I'm sad that this has probably been prolonging my gastritis, I want it to go away so badly... :(

After some research and asking around, I'm actually not sure if it's the citric acid. A smart lady at the health food store let me know that there's barely any citric acid in the aloe juice to affect you; it's just there in a tiny amount as a preservative. Perplexed as to why I have this horrible burning feeling in my stomach tonight. Nothing has helped... sigh.

SharonZ, yes that's what I keep being told... that it's going to take some time. It's just awful to go through all the flare-ups and I'm trying to do whatever I can to speed up the healing process and keep the symptoms under control. I've been trying to stay away from anything acidic. I am taking the sucralfate correctly, I won't stop doing that. I've only been taking it since Saturday when I went to the ER the second time. I definitely don't plan on drinking alcohol ever again after this nightmare. I did have an endoscopy and it was diagnosed as moderate inflammation to the stomach. I also have a 3cm hernia and I've been told that won't cause any problems. Apparently they didn't find H Pylori during the endoscopy... there's nothing about it on my discharge papers and I even asked my GI doctor, she said I don't have it if they didn't mention it. Also I haven't taken any NSAIDs.

I figured I would buy Lily of the Valley Stomach Formula since it has rave reviews for healing gastritis. I read that it healed someone's acid-induced gastritis in a week. Someone's daughter was healed in 2 weeks of gastritis plus lots of other stomach issues she's had for 6 months. I see 99% positive reviews for it on Amazon and other sites. So I figured it's worth a try. It's natural, it can't hurt anything.

Hi Carlax. Welcome to our forum. I'm not recommending anything, -- just mentioning that we use George's Aloe. We purchase it at the health food store by the gallon. It has no citric acid and it tastes like a drink of water..Very easy to take.

Have you also stopped some of the other stuff that will help your healing-- no coffee, no carbonated products, no tomatoes, no chocolate, no citrus fruit or juices, no fried stuff, . Run this by your doc and follow his guidance. What did he say about food. What do you eat in a typical day.

We wish you well and hope you will keep us up to date on your progress