By Dr. Francesco Candeloro
Gastritis is an inflammation of the stomach walls due to poor nutrition, drug abuse, or, indirectly, Helicobacter pylori infections. Let's find homeopathic remedies to cure it .
Symptoms and causes of gastritis
Gastritis is an acute or chronic inflammation of the stomach wall, which is generally manifested by symptoms including: burns, cramps, nausea and disgust with food, sometimes even vomiting .
The acute forms are often the consequence of the excess intake of foods that can irritate the mucous membrane of the stomach, in particular alcohol, spicy or particularly elaborate foods, but also some commonly used drugs such as aspirin and other painkillers. For these forms it is generally sufficient to comply with particularly restrictive dietary regulations for a few days, so that the disorder completely regresses.
The chronic forms, on the other hand, are decidedly more delicate and must be followed carefully over time, in particular the atrophic form, which can present, with a certain ease, changes in the tumoral sense of its lesions. There is also a close correlation between the atrophic form and Helicobacter pylori infection : besides causing the classic symptoms already described and which, in the case of chronic forms, constitute that picture of poor digestion known as dyspepsia, they are accompanied by also aimed at a vitamin B12 deficiency, resulting in large cell (macrocytic) anemia, different from the small cell (microcytic) anemia also easily found in patients with chronic forms, due to the fact that they are associated with small, but constant, blood loss, which constitutes the picture of blood oozing, which in turn causes loss of iron salts.
Traditional therapy obviously makes use of a series of dietary recommendations that tend to limit the intake of foods that more easily cause increased acid secretion, and therefore possible damage to the wall, such as alcohol, coffee, tea and chocolate, foods particularly fats, fruit juices, soups and citrus fruits; to all this is often added the need to resort to well-known drugs, known as proton pump inhibitors (omeoprazole and derivatives), often assisted by magnesium and aluminum salts used as common antacids.
In the case in which, finally, the infection with Helicobacter pylori is ascertained, it must be eradicated with a rather complex antibiotic scheme, and not always well tolerated by those who undergo it.
You can learn more about the correct diet in case of gastritis
Homeopathic remedies against gastritis
Also for gastritis as well as for many other pathologies, in homeopathy it is necessary to distinguish a different treatment of acute forms compared to chronic ones, and this is already a first difference with traditional treatments which employ instead the same drugs in both cases.
In the acute forms it will always be very important the circumstance that favored the onset of symptoms, and which may include both excesses or food abuse (Nux vomica) and food poisoning (Arsenicum album) as well as intake of fatty or processed foods ( Pulsatilla ); however, in these circumstances there are not lacking situations favoring that have nothing to do with nutrition, such as states of anger followed by abdominal pains, which improve by folding in two ( Colocynthis ) or even suffering of the soul which in some way remain unexpressed (Ignatia and Staphysagrya), but also states of tension or frank fear that can be associated with variegated symptoms of the gastrointestinal sphere (Argentum nitricum, Aconitum and Gelsemium).
Obviously some of these remedies will find use also in the chronic forms, of which often the acute ones, and their expression, represent only momentary exacerbations of disturbances however always present, although in less important form.
This is how we will often identify the indication of Nux vomica when the digestive difficulty will be found in ambitious and intolerant personalities of every obstacle, who abuse a little of everything, sleep little, and have a clear aggravation at a certain distance from meals, with the characteristic sometimes to find relief only facilitating vomiting; Lycopodium has heartburn that radiates to the pharynx, and lasts for a while, in rather rigid personalities, which tend to assume roles or attitudes of command, and show physical signs of premature aging; typically agitated, but at the same time suddenly prostrated, with characteristic worsening at night, between 1 and 3, is Arsenicum, which has burning pains - like burning embers - which always improve with something warm; Finally, Argentum nitricum presents noisy eructations which improve it, and a typical left subcostal pain, in a temperament that leads to ending everything prematurely, and decidedly anxious before trials, in crowded, restricted or elevated places.
