Gastritis: Symptoms, Causes, Treatments
Find out more about how you can treat gastritis

Gastritis is an inflammation, erosion, or irritation of the lining of the stomach. It can occur suddenly or gradually. Gastritis can be caused by irritation due to excessive drinking, stress, chronic vomiting, or the use of certain medications such as aspirin or other anti-inflammatory drugs. It may also be caused by pernicious anemia, which is a form of anemia that happens when the stomach lacks a digestive fluid needed to absorb and digest vitamin B12. Bile reflux can also bring about gastritis. Infections caused by bacteria and viruses also cause gastritis. Finally, helicobacter pylori, a bacteria that lives in the mucous lining of the stomach, can also bring the onset of the disease. Warning: if gastritis is left untreated, it can lead to a severe loss in blood. In some cases, it may even increase the risk of developing stomach cancer.

Gastritis symptoms
Symptoms of gastritis can vary among different people; some people experience no symptoms. The most common symptoms, however, include nausea, abdominal bloating, abdominal pain, indigestion, vomiting, a burning or gnawing feeling in the stomach between meals, hiccups, loss of appetite, black, tarry stools, or even vomiting blood or coffee-ground-like material.
Acute gastritis tends to occur suddenly and comes with nausea and pain in your upper abdomen. Chronic gastritis occurs more gradually and causes a dull pain and a feeling of fullness.

Diagnosis of gastritis
Your doctor may use a variety of methods to test for diagnosis of gastritis. For example, he might use an endoscope, a thin tube containing a tiny camera, is inserted through your mouth and down into your stomach to look at the stomach lining. The doctor will then check for inflammation and may perform a biopsy, a procedure in which a tiny sample of tissue is removed and then sent to a laboratory for analysis. Blood tests may also be conducted to check your red blood cell count to determine whether you have anemia. He or she can also screen for H. pylori infection and pernicious anemia.

Gastritis Treatments

Gastritis can be treated in a variety of ways. Methods commonly used include taking antacids and other drugs to reduce stomach acid, which causes further irritation to inflamed areas. Another solution you can try is avoiding hot and spicy foods. For gastritis caused by infections, your doctor will prescribe several antibiotics plus some sort of acid blocking drug (a heartburn drug). If the gastritis is caused by pernicious anemia, B12 vitamin shots will be given.
The gastritis usually goes away once the underlying treatment is addressed. Before stopping any medicine or starting any gastritis treatment on your own, talk to your doctor first. Most cases of gastritis improve quickly once treatment has begun.