Reading people's journeys helped me sort this out, so I thought I'd share my unique story. Started in 2020, I developed strange tight pain in my breastbone and would constantly have blood in my spit. I've had a history of heart burn, nothing that a tums or two didn't fix. As it progressed, lots of blood, lots of pain, so did my fears. DR Google diagnosed me with 20 cancers ugh. Lots of testing with no help, some pink drink at ER, as well as CT scans nothing found. Finally to a scope where I was diagnosed with esaughitis, caused the blood in spit. Deemed mild and treated with a PPI med. I made healthy lifestyle choices for the next several months also, both in turn fixed me.... so I thought.

About a year off the PPi meds, I started getting strange pain between my shoulder blade, my back trapezoid muscles felt like a screw being put through it, like a massive knot. Off to the chiro I went.....0 affect. Then came the blood and chest pain. Back on PPi I went. For the first month they worked great.... then they didn't. I tried Everything, sleeping up, no food several hrs before bed, different variations of PPI, into about the 9 month mark, I started getting upper reflux, causing classic symptoms, nail drip, even found it difficult to take pills and food because of the swelling. In my third scope, they found the upper reflux causing swelling, therefore the expanded the opening, like a balloon being inflated in my throat. ..... kept on coming, no matter what I did . Finally I watched a you tube video of a person suggesting baling soda to neutralize the acid. Wormed amazing until it didn't. After about a month, i stared getting IBS symptoms, also pain in my gall bladder, pancreas area, stool issues ....back to the ER, 6th visit. Full CT, ultrasound, blood work, 0 results. I trusted the Dr and accepted my stress and anxiety, in company with the baling soda were doing damage to me. I went off everything.

After a 1.5 year wait, I was sent for a test that measures your bouts of acid reflux, a tube in your nose, worn for a night, then returned to the hospital, shown I had over 40 instances of acid reflux during the night.

THEN I Found out about SIBO. Created when I destroyed my intestinal protection of stomach acid (ppi and baling soda) . I received breath tests which showed a high result, but living in a small town revealed treatment to be difficult. Finally I found a great naturopath who helped me. I lost a ton of bloating (after the treatment) this bloating caused by inflammation in my lower intestines, pushed my stomach up, causing less room in my stomach, almost like pushing the bottom of a milk bag, watch how the top pours our, in my case, acid into my esaugus.

I learned the weird back pain was caused by inflamed esaugus, pushing on my nerves near my spine. Feeling at first exactly like a terrible muscle knot, then more centered in my spine.

With all the PPI and acid reduction, I destroyed my body's ability to protect itself, causing ongoing, non traditional GERD.

Feel like a new person now. I'll be entering into my second SIBO treatment soon to ensure it's controlled and completely off meds. Very seldom I notice any acid reflux, if at all, however I'm very hyper sensitive to any issues, so I use a over the counter pepcid as a precautionary.

A bit long, and likely a few spelling issues from my phone, I wanted ti share my symptoms, and treatment in event anyone has similar issues.