How do you diagnose gastritis?

Gastritis is a painful and uncomfortable condition that can make eating and drinking difficult. If you’re experiencing symptoms like bloating, nausea, vomiting, or abdominal pain after eating or drinking alcohol, you may have gastritis. In this article we’ll go through the different ways to diagnose whether you have gastritis.

Understanding What Gastritis Is

Before we dive into diagnosing gastritis, let’s quickly define what it is. Gastritis is an inflammation of the stomach lining that can be caused by infection with Helicobacter pylori (H. pylori) bacteria, excessive alcohol consumption (hic), stress (yay), certain medications (eyeroll) as well as some other factors.

The most common symptoms of gastritis include:

  • Loss of appetite
  • Nausea
  • Vomiting
  • Abdominal pain
  • Bloating
  • Indigestion

It’s important to keep in mind that many of these symptoms are non-specific and could be indicative of various medical conditions or even something mild like overeating (because who doesn’t love pizza?!)

Now let’s get into how to diagnose it.

1) Medical History

A comprehensive medical history will help your doctor identify potential risk factors for developing gastritis such as prior H.pylori infection or use of aspirin/NSAIDs (not the fun kind) on a regular basis. Your doctor will also ask about your current symptoms which might suggest if it’s acute or chronic gastroenterological problem(s).

In addition don’t forget to mention any family history related intestinal diseases showing symphtoms similar with yours; yes maybe weird but It helps!!

Your answers throughout this phase helps establish priorities in further examination methods aiming for possible determination/guessing reason behind gastric mucosa inflamation causes due careful evaluation proccess by your doctor.

2) Physical Examination

In this step, your physician will examine you for signs of gastritis like low blood pressure or anemia (due to loss of blood via microbleeding in stomach mucosa). A digital rectal exam (ouch!) may also be used to evaluate feces consistency and test underlining ulcer condition( yes, nothing is left up to chance ). Your doctor may feel the area around your abdomen for abnormalities, excessive pain or swelling. This information contributes towards a well-rounded Gastritis diagnosis.

3) Upper Endoscopy

This noninvasive sightseeing endoscopic tool visits through pharynx down stomach esophagus until meeting duodenum and it presents too many things: polyps(?), ulcers(?), guts crevices visible due over-relaxation (?!) in gastric muscles making carefull examinations among other digestive system parts like biliary tree (yawn). But don’t worry – patients are usually either sedated or anesthetized during this procedure so there’s no need to fret about any discomfort or anything else… because when we talk about health prevention is the keyword!

Usually in cases where severe symptoms exist for extended periods of time and patient’s primary clinical evaluation fails; gastroscopy accompanied by biopsy plays significant role since common scope run gives accurate informations related possible cancer cells existence OMG!!

Diagnosing gastritis often involves a combination of medical history taking with physical examination which depending on doctors findings might require further tests such as upper endoscopy/biopsy. So if you find yourself experiencing any unexplained abdominal disconfort especially after eating spicy food (yum) please visit your GP immediately who might prescribe some medication(ALWAYS FOLLOW MEDICAL PRESCRIPTION!), bed rest aka couch potatoing till healthy recovery beckons-you-will-get-better-in-no-time!!

Stay safe & keep munching 😉

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