If you think you have an infection of the helicobacter pylori bacterium, then I am sure you have thought about an H pylori test. This bacteria can cause a lot of problems if you don’t know what you are doing as it has been shown to be the number one cause of stomach ulcers as well as a contributor to stomach cancer.
If you are thinking about getting an H pylori test, there are a few things you should know. First off, there a lot of different options available to you, and many providers will try to sell you a third party screen by using either blood or stool and a mail-in kit. You want to avoid these types of tests as they are the least accurate types of tests.
The easiest test you can get is an H pylori breath test. The benefit of this type of test is that it is actually a lot more accurate than the blood or stool test despite being non-invasive. It also provides an instant result, whereas blood or stool tests often take weeks to get an answer.
What you do for the breath test is drink a solution containing urea and then breath into a special meter called a spectrometer which detects the presence of different types of gas in your breath. If you are infected with H pylori, the helicobacter pylori bacteria will start to digest the urea (it loves it) and release ammonia gas as a byproduct. Since people don’t normally produce or exhale ammonia gas, it is very easy for a spectrometer to pick up this gas.
If there is ammonia gas, the test is positive, and since the solution will cover the entire stomach, it is very likely to produce an accurate result. The only exception is if the H pylori bacteria has gone into hibernation mode and is currently completely inactive. This happens rarely and may result in a false negative to the test. You also might get a false positive if you have some other type of bacteria infection (but this is extremely rare since H pylori is one of the few bacteria that can actually survive and reproduce in the stomach).
Most insurance policies will cover this simple breath test as it is very cheap to perform compared to the old test, which was done by tissue biopsy. The only catch is that you often have to go to a specialist who actually has the specific piece of equipment needed to perform this test.