Has anyone ever had positive test for helicobacter pylori, had it treated drugs, then only to have it return?

October 23, 2007 – 10:39 am | posted in Colorectal Cancer, GastroIntestinal

this has just happened to me, i’ve got quite severe gastric symptoms and weight loss, and just been referred for endoscopy. i’m terrified as have family history of perforated ulcers and stomach cancer. i have also raised liver enzymes in my blood. been under huge amount of stress recently too

Did it go away? Or were you in fact an eradication failure, 15% of triple therapy fails even if it is taken properly, which it often isn’t. Either way an alternate regime can be tried, however to be fair erradication rates for second attempts are down to 60%.

If you were proven negative by breath test, and then proven +ve again by breath test, there are a number of issues. (Blood antibody tests cannot be used to reassess patients who have had erradication carried out, as the antibody remains positive for years afterwards!)

The mechanism of infection is not understood, however in the handful of patients I have seen who went through the sequence :

+ve test
erradication
re-test negative
new symptoms
re-test +ve

all had partners who turned out to be CLO +ve. If this is the sequence you did go through it is worth checking to see if your partner is CLO positive and then attempting erradication in you both at the same time, to reduce the risk of re-infection.

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