For the past 6 months or so, I haven’t been able to shake a feeling of on-off ickiness. Well, I finally discovered why: Helicobacter Pylori, aka H. Pylori.
The headline version is that almost everyone has “H. Pylori” sitting in their gut. However… not all H. Pylori is “H. Pylori.” Think of something like pickles: they’re all “pickles,” but there’s just no arguments that not all pickles are equivalent. There’s much debate over what “activates” H. Pylori – i.e. is it a “bad” version, or does something happen that makes existing editions go crazy – we don’t know exactly, but we do know that H. Pylori can be bad news – and very very tenacious.
H. Pylori is a screw-shaped bacteria that primarily burrows into your stomach – however, it can colonize the small intestine etc. As you can imagine, burrowing holes into tissue causes, well, holes in the tissue. Inflammation. Also, H. Pylori has two big defense mechanisms: (a) it creates biofilms (layers of dead goop that it hides under to escape your system’s defenses) and (b) it secretes a substance (urease) that neutralizes acid around it – specifically your stomach acid – and, oh by the way, the chemical by-product of that reaction is ammonia. Toxic ammonia. Get enough H. Pylori burrowing and secreting, and you’re going to have difficulty generating stomach acid – and eventually getting ulcers due to the ammonia, burrowing, and rotting food that isn’t getting a proper acid bath.
Interesting personal footnote: H. Pylori is relatively easy to diagnose via symptom observation (once you know what to look for) and lab tests for it are expensive (~$300 – note that you can get a test kit on Amazon for $20, and supposedly it’s 99% accurate?). However, per my endoscopy to diagnose celiac (that’s a whole other topic, ugh) I happen to know that I did NOT have H. Pylori as of 2021 – I must have acquired it after that. Anyways.
One quick note: as with any injury, if you let it go, it can cause cancer. Or other really bad stuff. That’s why it’s a good idea to aggressively fast annually – maybe 40 days prior to Easter??!? wow what a coincidence – because fasting is a “full spectrum” re-balance that kills the bad guys and hits the reset button for your system.
Diagnosing H. Pylori
You have to have a grudging admiration for H. Pylori – it’s a tenacious little SOB that’s good at what it does. The good news is that it’s unique enough where it has symptoms that are discernibly unique as well. H. Pylori is highly transmissible (through the usual bodily fluids) and if you have a close-knit community with lots of snuffly toddlers, chances are close to 100% that you’ll get it and re-get it and re-get it…
As usual, once you understand how it works, you understand what to look for. Look for all or most of these together:
- Stomach “ickiness” or stomach pain (upper center, right under the rib “triangle”)
- Solid stool (*typically no diarrhea)
- Headache (*not always, unless it’s very advanced)
- Tenacious: you keep getting sick/barfing/feeling icky for weeks or months (*H. Pylori can last for years)
- Difficulty after eating meat/fat (*low stomach acid will mean that you can’t properly digest meat)
- White tongue (*low stomach acid will mean that you’ll get bacteria overgrowth on the back side of your tongue)
- Unexplained bloat (*again, low stomach acid means that the undigested food traveling through your intestine is just rotting)
- Lack of stuff nose (*it’s bacterial, not viral – but you may get concurrent viral infections here and there)
- Mouth/gum/tongue infections/sores (*H. Pylori can hang out in your teeth/gums too)
- Apparently-random barfs at 4-6am, while being ostensibly fine during the day (*low stomach acid means the stomach doesn’t empty; food rots in the stomach and needs to be ejected after a certain time – especially in kids)
Again – you might notice any one or two or those, but most of these together means H. Pylori. Typical transmissible bacterial infections look different than the above picture: Shigella, Salmonella, Again – you might notice any one or two or those, but most of these together means H. Pylori. Typical transmissible bacterial infections look different than the above picture: Shigella, Salmonella, Campylobacter, E. coli, etc are characterized by diarrhea, violent nausea, fever, barfing etc, sometime involving blood – usually, you can’t miss it. But you can easily miss H. Pylori, at least at the beginning (“Why do we keep getting sick!?!?”)
Drug-based Medicine’s approach
Conventional Drug-based medicine prescribes two things for H. Pylori: beta blockers (e.g. Omeprizole, etc., that block your stomach acid) and reckless antibiotics. Ironically, neutralizing your stomach acid is exactly what H. Pylori is trying to do! The ostensible idea is to first neutralize stomach acid to give any ulcers a break to recover, while blasting H. Pylori with antibiotics. Since H. Pylori is exceptionally clever at surviving, it requires strong antibiotics – which of course are blasted into your entire gut and system.
Healing H. Pylori
Fortunately, there’s actually no need to either gimp your stomach acid or inter-generationally destroy you and your descendant’s gut bacteria down to the seventh generation. As with almost all ailments, your body wants to heal, and just needs you to help it (and stop hurting it). Note that with most of the below, timing is crucial: you’ll want to take the remedies before or after eating, so that it maximizes the impact against H. Pylori.
So, in order of effectiveness:
- Stop hurting yourself – stop the artificial dyes, seed oils, heavy carb intake, petroleum preservatives, etc. I know, I know – but you have to. You can’t expect a remedy to work if you’re simultaneously actively undermining it and helping the enemy.
- Fasting: obviously your kids can’t do this, but if you’re at your full height, you can. Take salt and electrolytes, and skip eating for 1-3 days (it’s less horrible than it sounds). It’s free!
- Mastic gum (make sure you get real stuff from Chios Island. It’s a little expensive, but it’s pretty much a sure-shot for H. Pylori despite what google will tell you).
- Cabbage and cabbage juice (note: doesn’t kill H. Pylori or harm it at all – but eat it anyways; it has “Vitamin U”, so named because it’s the best compound for healing ulcers. It’ll help your stomach quickly heal. I just get the Aldi Saurkraut – I know it’s pasteurized, but you’re not eating it for the probiotics here (although those might help too, as bacterial competitors!))
- Stevia (REAL Stevia – unfortunately, as I found out, most of what you get at the grocery store is fake. Look at the ingredients – it’s typically corn sugar or some kind of other sugar with Stevia extract – aka Stevia-flavored sugar. Doesn’t cut it. REAL 100% Stevia is apparently a direct and effective killer for H. Pylori. I’m going to grow some, just for this use case – it’s expensive).
- Goldenseal + Echinachea (always a winner against bacteria, but timing is everything here. Stops bad bacteria from secreting toxins – take 1/2mL 30m before eating, it’ll help stop H. Pylori from secreting urease.)
- Green tea ((a) don’t boil it or it’ll lose it’s efficacy, cold steep or “warm” steep it (b) if you’re a barbarian like me, just eat the green tea leaves (c) for H. Pylori, not just any time – drink it 30-60 minutes after you eat)
- “Attack” Mushrooms, like Turkey tail, Lionsmane, etc. (We used Micro Ingredients Organic Mushroom 10-in-1 Blend – seems to have a helpful effect here).
- DMSO + Colloidal silver taken orally (nuff’ said. Oh, and get “Silver Wings” or some reputable brand, as most colloidal silver brands are fake. DMSO is the best biofilm disruptor ever, maybe in the history of the universe, some people are saying (that’s a joke, but it’s probably true).)
- Broccoli sprouts (didn’t try, but also apparently a great direct H. Pylori killer)
- Oregano or Peppermint oil (didn’t try, but also apparently good. Note that you have to get a reputable brand; pretty much 100% of cheap essential oils are diluted with fake petroleum-derived oils)
- IF, and ONLY IF you concurrently inhibit H. Pylori’s urease-secretion-cababilities: while eating, Apple Cider Vinegar and/or Betaine HCI. If you take these without first inhibiting H. Pylori’s neutralization, it’ll just neutralize it, and generate more ammonia (which is toxic and hurts you).
- Cranberry (didn’t try; but also apparently a goodie. Cranberry is magical anyways, so it’s probably true).
- Garlic. Garlic’s good for everything, so yay! (Just for reference: I both ferment garlic – so good – and pickle it – when Caitlin makes pickles, I get Aldi pre-peeled garlic and steal some and make pickled garlic with it. It’s less harsh than un-pickled garlic, so you can eat it by the clove along with chicken or whatever. Yum)
- Homeopathics, as usual
- (Probably) Sunshine directly on your stomach. Also, Dandelion. Haven’t tried them since it’s not summer, but those of those are clutch at just about everything.
I know that’s a big list, so let me summarize: Essentially, you’ll want to do two things (maybe three): (a) gimp H. Pylori, while (b) ramping up your stomach acid to destroy it. As a bonus: (c) crash the biofilms (again, DMSO is the star of the show here in my opinion).
What you’re trying to AVOID is low stomach acid, leading to (a) food sitting in your stomach and rotting, or (b) only partially digesting and working it’s way through the gut – again, rotting. I will never understand why on earth drug-based medicine is out there prescribing stomach-acid blockers – selling the very same pathology that H. Pylori hits you with. Listen pal, I can get pathologies for free if I want! I once had a G.I. Specialist inform that science has proven that there’s no downside whatsoever to taking acid-blockers, and that people can stay on them for the rest of their lives with no detriment. Coincidentally, that was the last time I went to a GI Specialist…
My Personal H. Pylori Timeline
August 2025: Started feeling icky on and off, couldn’t shake it. Sometimes I felt fine, sometimes not. Covid protocol seemed to stop the backslide (it probably helps with H. Pylori honestly).
February 2026: Realized I – or rather, we – had H. Pylori after the kids started 4am-barfing and then running around all day apparently fine (and digging through all the other symptoms, etc.).
I don’t know if I’ve had H. Pylori before, but I know I’ve had an ulcer. They’re not particularly scary – just an injury. I skipped eating the other day (just milk Kefir), and I’ll eat light today (avoiding fats and nutrient-dense meats). When I eat, I’ll drink green tea. I’ll eat mostly chicken + pickled garlic cloves, milk Kefir, and saurkraut. I may take some ACV after I eat. I’ll do some of the remedies above – DMSO+silver, Goldenseal, Green tea – when I eat. The remedies will gimp the H. Pylori; the medium-light load of stomach acid will let my ulcer heal but still hit the H. Pylori (I’ve already seen my tongue go from bathroom-towel-white back to pink). I hot pad my ulcer before eating and after waking up (get blood to it; get juices moving). 1/2 a jar of Aldi saurkraut, at least, per day. Later this week, when it arrives, I’ll get myself and the kids on Mastic gum (I’m the only one with an ulcer).
As the pain goes away, I’ll start to intentionally eat fats and nutrient-dense meats – probably by the end of the week. I’ll be mostly healed before the end of this week, and 100% healed before the end of next week.
