Did anyone experience this before or it's just me

Hi,
I've been reading a lot about acid reflux recently since I've got the symptoms in the last 1-2 months. I am a 35 years old male and I would like to share my experience to see if it's just me. One night in june this year I woke up feeling quite uneasy with my heart for the first time in my life. The kind of feeling made me restless and couldn't sleep. Really hard to describe. From the next day, I started having this shortness of breath feeling and occasional papitation and sputtering feeling with my heart. Went to see the doc and did the holter test. Basically the report said I had extra beat occasionally but apparently it's not deemed as a "harmful" problem. Almost from the same time when I started having these issues with my heart, I started having a sore throat and congested nose (most time it's one side). The degree of sore throat varied every day. Sometimes my voice can be a bit scratchy and sometimes it feels fine. but with a flashlight, I can see that the throat was a bit red all the time. Went to see the doctor and she gave me two kinds of antibiotic. I tried both of them in the next 2-3 weeks and didn't do anything to my throat. She was puzzled and mentioned maybe it's acid reflux. I didn't believe it at all because I didn't experience anything related to acid and no heartburn AT ALL. anyway I thought I got nothing to lose so I started the PPI medicine she prescribed. This was Aug and I had got throat and nsasal problem from June. I tried PPI for a week and didn't feel any difference so stopped. 3 days after I stopped PPI, I experienced heart burn the first time in my life. Ever since that day, I have been having acid relfux symptoms pretty much daily. After feeling the heart burn, I went back to the PPI medicine and stayed on it for 20 days and it didn't get rid of the heart burn issue. I read about it and apparently they've done some research and they gave healthy ppl PPI for a period of time and these people would develop acid reflux problem after stopping it! http://www.medicinenet.com/script/main/art.asp?articlekey=101718 So I suspected my acid problem may be related to teh drug. So I stopped acid medication from the end of Aug till now and I still have acid reflux symptoms pretty much on daily basis.

My main question is has any of you guys experience throat or sinus problem before you even had any direct acid reflux symptom like burping, heart burn etc. I know acid reflux can cause throat and sinus problem but I had it for 2 months without having any other GERD or acid reflux symptoms. Is this possible if the throat and sinus problems were caused by acid reflux? So could my GERD symptoms be caused by the PPI drug itself? or it's just a coincident?

Your comment will be much appreciated!

Post Edited (DPW) : 9/30/2010 7:48:50 PM (GMT-6)

I wondered the same thing. The main reason I went to the doctor originally was due to some breathing problems. So I started taking PPI's. While on the PPI's for a while, I started to reflux for the first time. I didn't understand why I'd start refluxing, since this was the first time I'd ever experienced it, along with heartburn. I stopped taking medicine and I'm still having trouble with the reflux problem. I stick to a very strict vegetable/fruit with occasional meat diet and I'm still getting reflux. I take a variety of supplements and I think I'm getting to the point where I'm about to give up and jump back on the "purple pill". Good times. I wouldn't be surprised if the medicine made the condition worse, but ultimately I think I was getting the beginning phases of the issue when it started. It's hard to tell. I am having a hard time figuring out whether I should get back on medicine as well, since there's so much controversy with PPI's, but then again reflux is dangerous business. Guess it's a pick your poison decision.

I was running to the my family doctor as well as my ENT doctor because I constantly felt as if I had a sinus infection. The left side of my face would look a bit swollen and that side was also stuffy constantly. After taking antibiotics and not getting any better i went back to my family doc. This time I had his assistant who told me my sinus issues were from GERD. I was like "GERD"??? I don't have any heart burn or severe reflux but I guess I have silent reflux. I do, at times, get really nauseated and if I eat spicy fatty foods my stomach will burn but I had no idea it would cause this sinus issue.
Apparently at night the acid creeps up in to the esophagus and can go up into the nasal cavities as well. Since I have been taking meds for it the sinus issues have pretty much cleared up. Crazy stuff

My only symptom was a cough, very seldom had any heartburn.  After surgery it is much better, but waited so long to find the cause of the cough about 8 years, I will probably never be completely free, I am talking alergy shots now and hopefully that will help some more.

The cough is different now, I would choak before and lose my breath.  Part now is habit I am sure.

hope this helps some,

Jayne