Good specialist/hospital to treat peptic ulcer and my expericnece

[european]

Had ulcer symptoms for 5 months. After a month I went to the Shin Kong Wu Ho-Su hospital in Shilin.
First they fired drugs at me for two weeks to relieve symptoms as the first doctor thought it was indigestion.
I didn't take them.
Second time more drugs and another Dr. said maybe an endoscopy should be planned if symptoms don't go away.
Drugs were administered for two weeks. Side effects from one set of them was potential ticks in your face for life. So I didn't take them.
He said it was probably an ulcer.

I had been reading up a lot on ulcers during this time and knew that most are caused by H.Pylori and the rest are caused by overuse of NSAIDS.

So off I went to the Mackay hospital. The doctor said it was probably an ulcer. An endoscopy was planned as well as an MRI on the liver and gall bladder.

They found two small ulcers. Liver and gall bladder seemed normal.
Drugs were administered for two months and they said I should also do some blood tests.
Now, during the consultation for the blood tests - a test for h.pylori was not mentioned by the doctor. I asked about it and he said, "oh you want a test for H.Pylori?" I was a little surprised.
Anyway, drugs - Rabeprazole was administered for two months - follow up with doctor and then 3rd month would be administered.
So after 5.5 weeks taking the drugs - they worked. Then the symptoms returned.
The doctor was a little surprised. I had had the blood test the week before and the doctor said H.Pylori was negative. I was surprised at that. The other blood tests results like cholesterol and triglycerides were normal.

So he gave me some new medicine for the ulcer - Lansoprazole (Takepron) - 28 days.
Now after 5 days I still have the symptoms.

Today I read that there is a very small amount of people who get ulcers without H.Pylori or overuse of NSAIDS.
It is like 1.6% of sufferers. That study recommend testing again for H.pylori (due to false negatives) and if negative check and consider other more serious possibilities.

Now I also read that taking a H.pylori blood test is only good on average 67% of the time. The feces test and breath test have a much higher % success rate.
And if you are on medication (like I was for the ulcer) taking a blood test for H.pylori is pointless as it will show a false negative. Two weeks at least with no medication is the recommendation for testing H.Pylori.
Why didn't the Dr. know all this?

I saw some old posts with users who have had ulcers and they were cured.
So does anyone know a good Dr./hospital they can recommend to get me out of this mess?

Cheers.

[finley]

I was under the impression that, because H.Pylori is the most likely cause, they just blitz you with a (fairly complex) protocol involving antibiotics and dietary changes. It's not just a matter of "take this pill".

Bear in mind (1) the standard procedure in Taiwan is to just use the cheapest possible treatment that will make the patient go away. They don't factor in the possibility that he may keep coming back every time something doesn't work;
and (2) some doctors still don't believe that H.Pylori causes ulcers. You can understand their scepticism given that plenty of people carry it with no symptoms, but eradicating it DOES often seem to have the desired effect.

Go to Europe. They probably have more experience with it. It'll be worth the air fare.

[Belgian Pie]

You could try the Cheng Hsin General in Beitou/Tianmou, they have a gastrointestinal department.