An acute attack of gastritis is a severe and sudden short term condition, whereas chronic gastritis would be a long term condition.

Acute gastritis may happen suddenly, but usually there have been some underlying factors that built up enough to cause a severe and sudden digestive upset.

Here are some causes of acute gastritis:

• Aspirin and other NSAIDS
• Corticosteroids
• Alcohol
• Consuming extremely acidic substances
• Physical or emotional stress
• Acidosis
• Parasitic, bacterial or viral infestation
• Standard American Diet (SAD)

Even though acute gastritis is sudden, there are signs that will tell you something is out of balance. For instance, if you notice you have hard dark stools that sink, you may be suffering from chronic dehydration and one of its complications is acute gastritis.

If you’ve noticed any indigestive issues like loss of appetite, nausea or vomiting you probably are experiencing the rapid onset of an acute gastritis attack.

Like everything else you have basically two approaches you can take for acute gastritis. The pharmaceutical approach isn’t going to cure the cause of your acute gastritis, but it may cover some symptoms . . . just beware of making things worse from side effects.

The nutritional approach is going to require you looking closely at your personal dietary habits. By using whole foods and the nutrient complexes within them you will naturally reverse all your gastritis pain, whether acute or chronic.

If you choose to ignore the cause of your acute gastritis and continue to try and drug your gastritis pain and symptoms away, your risk of it becoming chronic gastritis is worse.

Unfortunately, unless you address the root cause of your acute gastritis it could advance into a gastric ulcer.

That doesn’t necessarily mean you have too much stomach acid, it could mean you simply have an imbalance of digestive flora.

Only your stomach is acidic by nature, everything else is alkaline. Even the bacteria found in gastric ulcers are there because of the loss of an alkaline balance in your tissues. Once balance is restored the stomach and surrounding organs can function properly and the acute inflammation process will stop.

Acute gastritis improves rapidly with the right treatment, which sometimes involves using antacids to allow the ulcerations to heal. Keep in mind antacids should only be used in emergencies and for a short time.

Many of antacids are useless and often make acute gastric symptoms worse in the long run.

Eating more alkaline producing foods will benefit your recovery from acute gastritis without risking drug side effects.

You were born to heal,

Todd M. Faass

Health Advocate