Autoimmune Gastritis

[Sheldonmick]

My best friends daughter was diagnosed with autoimmune gastritis today. She is 17. If I understand correctly it's really rare. Does anyone have this disease ? Can you share about it please? Thank you

[SunnyWorld]

Poor girl so young. Did they do any other blood tests? I'm new here also and recently diagnosed with PA and Atrophic Gastritis.

[wedgewood]

Well that means that she has Pernicious Anaemia. She must be treated ASAP with loading doses ( injections) of vitamin B12 — 6 over 2 weeks , and then once every 2 months . A supplement tablet of folic acid(400 mcg) or plenty of folate in B9- rich green vegetables daily . This treatment is for life . With the correct treatment to keep all symptoms at bay , she can lead a completely normal life , Best wishes .

[Gambit62 Administrator]

Actually it isn't rare - it's just that B12 absorption problems are more common in older populations because of the impact of a tendency for stomach acidity to reduce as you get older.

PA is an auto-immune gastritis and so most of the people on this community have it though it is quite difficult to have a formal diagnosis because the test tends to give false negatives a lot of the time.

I would suggest that you take a look at the PAS website and that your friend and her daughter consider joining.

pernicious-anaemia-society....

There are a number of good books produced by the society - think you will find links under resources - though they are quite scary because of the number of times problems are undiagnosed and go undertreated.

With proper treatment your friends daughter it really shouldn't affect her everyday life.

[GastritisB12]

It is sad to hear she has autoimmune gastritis so young.

I have it too, some scientific journals say that it doesn't have to reduce life span at all, just has to be treated and monitored correctly.

Something odd seems to be happening there was review which indicates that in Western populations H.Pylori gastritis is on the fall but autoimmune gastritis is on the rise.

Who knows what's happening, there are so many innovations in our lives no one knows the long term effects of all of them.