I see a lot of comments about symptoms and prescription medications. Treating symptoms will never rid you of GERD, (unless you are one of those who can be on a PPI for years and years. ) You need to find the causes of the symptoms. I had 3 endoscopies and with the 3rd one, the GI who performed the endoscopy told to never take a PPI again. It made my cells hypertrophic. I had been prescribed a PPI by 3 doctors. Each time I went off, the symptoms returned. If symptoms return, the PPI isn’t healing your gut! Doing the same thing over and over again is pointless. To heal, cause or causes are important and critical to rid you of GERD permanently, dietary changes are critical to rid you permanently, stress management is critical to feel good permanently - you want to stop feeling crappy for good, find a doctor that will test for CAUSES - bacterial overgrowth (SIBO), parasites, a yeast infection, a fungal infection and possibly a few of these may be present. That was the case for me.
After two years of sticking to changes in my diet - eliminating sugars and substituting with stevia, reducing desserts, going gluten free (and no I do not have Celiac Disease), drinking a coffee low in acid, going alcohol free for a lengthy period of time, being careful with spicy foods, eating organic as much as possible to reduce chemicals exposed to, managing my stress, and exercising (if you don’t exercise, even just walking daily helps with digestion), I feel fantastic. The changes I’ve made, I’ve kept up with. I never want to experience my symptoms again and feel miserable.
It is so hard to find a good doctor that will actually find the cause instead of just throwing pills at you to try. I have been on 3 different meds in 4 months. Nothing seems to help. They just kept upping the dosage. I changed my diet that hasn’t helped. I’ve lost 30 lbs which I didn’t need I’m now under weight. I have had an esophogram, an EGD, and ct scans. I have the Bravo test scheduled for mid Jan. I took myself off all the meds 2 months ago. I couldn’t take the side effects and it wasn’t helping at all. I use Gaviscon advance at night. My issue is the Globus sensation and congestion. I have them 24/7 so I do not know when I’m actually refluxing. I never get heartburn.