If you’re reading this there’s a good chance that your stomach is giving you grief, or you’ve been putting up with it being sore for a while. Firstly it’s important to figure out whether you’ve got a damaged stomach lining, or just poor gut health.
What is an inflamed Stomach lining?
If you’re getting any of these symptoms you might have gastritis which is a damaged stomach lining :
- A gnawing or burning stomach pain after eating or generally,
- A loss of appetite,
- Heartburn,
- Indigestion,
- Nausea and/or vomiting,
- Abdominal pain or bloating.
If this sounds like you, our article on gastritis might be worth a read first, to see what other steps you can take. It’s also a good idea to visit your GP if this has been going on for a while, as there are many causes of gastritis, and left unchecked, they can turn nasty.
Or is it just a case of poor gut health?
If you don’t really have the above symptoms, but you get a bit of bloating, skin breakouts and mild food sensitivity, you might just have a bad dose of unhealthy gut bacteria overgrowth. This can happen when the bad bacteria in your intestinal tract outnumber the good one’s. This article tells you all you need to know about bacteria in your gut. Ultimately, a good gut health is linked to happier hormones, brain, and general health and wellbeing.
These bad gut bacteria love to eat away at your gut lining too, so the symptoms can be quite similar to an inflamed stomach lining. But I know when my gut bacteria is out of whack due to the dreaded adult acne resurfacing, some sensitivities to gluten, dairy and wine start re-appearing, bloating and general discomfort. The best way to approach this is to clean up your diet, and try and grow your good bacteria numbers. You can make a difference within weeks with the right diet. If this sounds like you, read more in our article on how to to improve your gut health. There is also this article and food list for a healthy gut diet, full of prebiotics, probiotics and fibre.
Steps to heal an inflamed stomach
When it comes to actually healing your stomach lining, I will warn you, that it can take a little time and it’s no party, however with the right diet you can really make a difference. These are the general steps :
- If you’ve got a particularly bad bout of gastritis and are struggling to keep food down, you might need a calming diet for a few days. It’s no longer as strict as very small and very few meals, but lets not go too large on the food front, listen to your body. You might want to cook up a simple chicken broth as many of our mothers used to do for us. It’s calming on the stomach and full of nutrients.
- Review your diet and eliminate foods which will further irritate your stomach lining, see foods that heal below, and foods to avoid.
- Take note of the foods you eat, take note of any unpleasant symptoms and write them down, so you can start to determine what foods are making them worse
- Start increasing the amount of prebiotic foods in your diet to maintain your healthy stomach lining
- Consider taking a probiotic, especially one which is known for it’s effects on bad gut bacteria (H.Pylori), containing either Lactobacillus salivarius and/or Lactobacillus acidophilus. I use metagenics ultra flora intensive care, because it just works for me, and contains the right strains. However it took many different brands to find the right one. Persevere!
- Avoid drugs (especially anti inflammatory NSAIDs) and alcohol which irritate your stomach lining. This is super important.
- Reduce your stress and get more sleep.
Which Foods to eat.. and which to avoid
Initially you’re going to eat a fairly bland diet, not much on the processed, packaged, spicy, fizzy, sugar or fatty front. That doesn’t leave much does it? Sadly the boring bland restart is really important to allow your stomach lining to repair. All that mucous needs to heal so that you’ve got regrowth of that all important protective lining.
And this is the important bit. If you tend to rely on anti inflammatory drugs (like nurofen or asprin) a little too much, they’re going to have to go. Likewise you will need to talk about any drug or steroid (or antibiotic) usage with your GP to see how you can minimise these and repair that old stomach lining.
We will then start re introducing the good stuff, sorry, still not anything sugary, high fat, ultra processed, fizzy or spicy. The good stuff is a nice range of high fibre, fermentable veggies, lots of antioxidant rich foods, and wholegrains. These will keep the food transit time high so that we’re continuing to move all of your food out of the stomach quickly.
Bland is good!! We need that lining to heal!
Once we’re back on the right track we can start re introducing the foods you love, but your stomach hasn’t loved in the past. It’s going to be super important that you keep that stomach lining in tip top shape with good food choices, to avoid going back to that dark place, as you might be prone to stomach issues.
The details on all these foods, including what falls into which camp, can be found in our very popular article on Foods to heal an inflamed stomach. Take your time, read it slowly, there’s a lot of information there on exactly what foods to introduce back in what order.
Are you doing any major fitness training?
A word of caution. An inflamed stomach is really common amongst endurance athletes. Anyone who goes on long runs or bike rides will know that the sugar rich goo or sports drink, is the go-to for the long trip home. Unfortunately this isn’t doing your stomach lining any favours. That’s right, you might have found your cause right there. Sadly combining excessive training with a high sugar intake is a recipe for disaster when it comes to an inflamed stomach. You will need to look at other carb rich options for your long training sessions which don’t involve a pure sugar hit. I’ve got a great article for you to read if this is your jam (no pun intended). This article on avoiding stomach issues during exercise takes you through 11 important steps to avoid that dreaded stomach burn on your training rides or races.
Recipes for an inflamed stomach lining
If you need some inspiration (and who doesn’t?) head over to our article on recipes to calm an inflamed stomach
OR, subscribe to our email and receive our free Healthy Gut 1 Day Meal plan along with 5 recipes:
- Breakfast: Lemon Blueberry Chia Pudding
Snack: Beet Ginger Juice
Lunch: Mediterranean Quinoa Bowl
Snack: Chocolate Chunk Cookies
Dinner: Thai Meatballs with Zucchini Noodles
Then it’s time to restore the good bacteria in the gut to rebuild the stomach lining
Once your stomach lining is starting to heal you can increase your pre and probiotics. It’s so important to grow those colonies of probiotics to ward off any bugs or bad bacteria, to allow your stomach lining to heal. Over the next few months you will need to eat lots of prebiotic and probiotic foods. I would also recommend that you read our article on eating for good gut health for the path forward, once your stomach lining is healed.
More information such as this can be found in our nutrition guides which can be downloaded below
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