GERD issues
I am 22 years old. I don't smoke or drink. Growing up I can remember having a slight hoarse voice in the morning if I ate to late at nights. But never anything too miserable. It would go away within a hour after drinking water.
March 2011 on a Wednesday. I woke up with a hoarse voice that never went away. After a few weeks I started to get slightly worried so I went to my family doctor. I went 3 times over a course of 5-6 weeks and they had no idea after giving me multiple steroids and antibiotics that did nothing. I also had no pain in the beginning my throat didn't hurt at all. My only symptom was the voice. So they sent me to a throat specialist. (Audiologist) He did a throat endoscopy and told me I have GERD. He prescribed me omeprazole 20mg once a day. I changed my diet. I stopped eating hours before I went to sleep. I have never been a soda drinker, I am not a fan of fatty foods. The fattiest thing I like to eat sometimes is chocolate.. So I gave that up. I don't eat big meals. I have always been a snacker. But I didn't seem to get that much better so back as planned in 6weeks. He told me to start taking it twice a day. my throat started to hurt and become really sore around this point. I would wake up in severe pain, and it would hurt through out the day. I would take 2- 20mg omeprazole and I would also drink baking soda mixed with water whenever I couldn't handle the constant burn anymore.. I wouldn't drink the baking soda/water at the same time as taking the omeprazole. I made sure I did that hours apart from one another.
So about 10-12 weeks later my symptoms got much worse. It wasn't working. Nothing seemed to work.
So I went back to the doctor. They did another endoscopy and my throat is more swollen than the first. It's starting to swell up even higher around where my thyroid is.
I started having chest pains and it has become hard to swallow anything.
My heart rate gets insanely high in random occasions.
I feel a knock/thump whenever I swallow.
My throat is always hurting.
I am nauseous when I eat.
It's painful to eat or drink anything; I have lost almost 30lbs because of it.
So I have had a endoscopy twice now,
I got a barium swallow done and he told me I have acid reflux. probe test done,.,Blood work....How many more test need to be done?
I haven’t heard my voice in a year now. It's to the point where I am becoming depressed and I ignore talking to people. I ignore hanging out with friends, because if I talk to much my throat becomes incredibly sore to the point where I won't be able to sleep. I can't yell or whisper. I have one tone. If I yell then I’m pretty much out for the rest of the day because my throat hurts so badly.
I am thinking about going to the Mayo Clinic. Has anyone else been through this? Do you think they will be able to help? Could it be something else?
Im desperate.
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Shortness of breath and raspy voice means you may have laryngopharyngeal reflux, also known as silent reflux. Dr. Jamie Koufman has a bunch of free information at her web site for LRP and GERD. The GI doc doesn't look at the throat, or nose, or ears, and those are the areas affected by LRP. Diet change can help, as in low acid, whole foods. Maybe meds if your vagus nerve is involved. If you have bloating you may need to try a low FODMAP diet for a few weeks (eliminating foods such as beans, watermelon, apples (get a list online). It could also mean you have small intestinal bacterial overgrowth, SIBO.
Sounds like you have a lot going on that needs exploring. With diet changes you can explore on your own until you find a doctor who can support you. Good luck
Has anyone found that taking omeprazole or pantopozole and antacids make the GERD worse? It has been my experience and my doctors swear that is not the cause. I watch, for the most part what I eat. They want me on a FODMAP diet, but it appears to contradict a low acid diet. Meat seems to aggravate my symptoms, but FODMAP says no beans or soy, for example.
Anyone else have this experience?
Food map does not work for me all that well. I just stay away from acidic food, coffee, chocolate, high fat foods, sweets. Stick to low fat everything. I take 50 mg pepcid at nighttime. Only thing that seems to be helping my GERD attacks. Good luck
PPIs sometimes take a month to start working. Take it 1st thing in the morning on an empty stomach. Wait 30 minutes then eat something even if it's an almond. Some people's GERD really flares up after dinner so they take it 1 hor before dinner. Drink as much Alkaline water as possible. I get mine from Costco. Avoid trigger foods as much as possible.
I started having a lot of side effects from PPIs including water brash. I was taking 40mg of omeprazole in the morning and 40mg of famotidine at night. I started reducing the meds slowly over several weeks and I feel sooo much better. I am down to 1 famotidine in the morning!
I am being VERY careful with my diet. I found the Acid Watchers Diet (book by Aviv) very helpful. Reducing saturated fats, sugars, no onions or garlic, no carbonated anything, etc.
I hope you feel better!
Have you experimented with eating very lean meat? For instance, I can eat 93% lean ground turkey fine. But ground hamburger meat, even if 90% lean, bothers me, too much fat. I am fine with fish, which I hate but you do what you need to do. If you have tried that already and it doesn't work for you, yikes. My understanding is that the FODMAP diet is temporary, like three weeks, and then you add in items very slowly to see if you can stomach them or not. I did it a few years ago when I was in pain and it worked for me. Now I limit the amount of high FODMAP foods, but can do beans for instance as long as it isn't a regular item. Another possibility is digestive enzymes to see if they work for you. There are different types so again, experiment. Good luck! Finding what works is hard, and then it takes a few weeks to see progress so you need to be patient.
Funny you mention enzymes. I tried them and whoa! my stomach rebelled. I do not eat meat regularly, therefore that plan will not work. I eat it if someone else is serving it and on occasion when there’s nothing left in my house to eat before grocery shopping.
Before anyone asks: My protein comes from pea protein, occasionally soy, garbanzo beans, nuts/seeds and some vegetables have protein.
I have been working at stomach issues since I was born (66 yrs). I was a colicky baby, so I’m equating that with what’s happening now.
About 8 years ago a chiropractor helped me rebuild the flora in my stomach and literally saved my life. I went on a raw vegan diet for nine months and it destroyed the good bacteria in my gut. I didn’t know that you had to take certain supplements to avoid that. So, the chiropractor is retired now and I don’t have a similar resource.
I’ve been searching for a true functional health doc ever since.
I was on Nexium for years then switched to Omeprazole before breakfast and recently was put on Famotidine 40 mg before Diner but the reflux got worse so the doctor put me on Pantoprazole . I’ve had several scopes done and the last time was by a heartburn specialist and found out the sphincter going into my stomachs not closing so it’s allowing the reflux to come back up
I’m at a loss. I take Pepcid 40mg in morning and at night, then pantoprazole 30 min before dinner. It’s really hard for me to time that one because I eat right when I’m hungry. It’s taking me awhile because I contracted a respiratory flu bug and it has messed everything up.
@mimikat9 it is hard especially dinner time remembering to take it prior especially if I’ve been in town for awhile and stop and eat! Due to a failed back surgery I can’t sleep in bed so I don’t have to worry about elevating the head of my bed anymore