Selenium and other ways of not dying of fright

Does anyone take Selenium to try to prevent their Barretts progressing?

Or Aspirin, which is also supposed to reduce the risk significantly - though I don't understand how you take Aspirin if you have acid reflux! Anyone taking Aspirin or Meadowsweet?

I have just had my Barretts confirmed - though very tiny area, so I just got dismissed, not even offered follow up. Apparently I'm not bad enough to need surgery. I cannot tolerate ppis and I'm worried that Zantac won't stop me frying my oesophagus every night. I got told to try different ppis - but I've already tried Nexium, Omeprazole, Lansoprazole and Pantoprazole - all with dreadful side effects so I had to stop. I don't know which I fear most, repeat gastroscopies or dying of cancer, although I guess dying you only have to do once

Anyone managing Barretts without ppis?

Hi mudmagnetmum

Sorry to hear about your barrett's :( I'm wondering how long you had GERD for before the diagnosis, and what symptoms do you have?

I had some symptoms in 2007 but it cleared up after 6 months - my gastroscopy then was normal. Now I have the same symptoms back since last July but this time the gastroscopy showed a small hernia and signs of reflux. I am unable to drink alcohol, coffee etc without feeling as if I have acid climbing my throat (though I don't know if it really is). Sometimes I get upper stomach pains (to the left or right of sternum, at random) and burping. The main symptom I have is the feeling that I need to eat, a sort of constant false hunger. Some days that's not there, others it's a real nuisance; that was much much worse on Omeprazole. The other difficulty I have is drinking any quantity of any liquid - I very soon feel like I need some food to hold it down. Water is terrible - I can get amazing heartburn from drinking just water, if it's not with a meal. I also have interstitial cystitis, so not being to drink enough fluids has an adverse effect on that too.

I've had training in naturopathic nutrition, but nothing I've tried is helping, which makes me wonder how much is structural, or stress (that is the stress of having an several illnesses that won't go away!). It's also very difficult to be objective when treating yourself of course.

I also have food allergies so ppi's are contraindicated. In any case, I have quite a severe reaction to ppis, but I don't know if that is allergic or pharmacological in nature.

I know the risk of Barrett's transforming is actually very low at 1 in 1000, but not being able to take ppis makes me more nervous of it.

MockTurtle, I think to rescope in 3 years is reasonable, and if I wasn't so intolerant of having a hosepipe rammed down my gullet I'd queue up more often for it myself. My last one was under GA - what a coward I am. But that's mainly because they made the first one traumatic (failed sedation but unable to speak or move) - so it's not all my own fault (I think.....).

http://www.bsg.org.uk/pdf_word_docs/Barretts_Oes.pdf
Useful guidelines I've just found but not read end to end yet.

http://jnci.oxfordjournals.org/content/95/10/750.short
A selenium reference - but I think the original thing I read during some coursework (before I had this problem!) was that countries with lower soil selenium had worse incidence of oesophageal cancer.
http://www.gastrojournal.org/article/S0016-5085%2809%2902112-X/abstract?referrer=http://scholar.google.co.uk/scholar?hl=en&q=low+selenium+soil+oesophageal+cancer&as_sdt=1%2C5&as_ylo=2002&as_vis=1
(Another selenium study).

http://cebp.aacrjournals.org/content/17/5/1169.short
This one says that Aspirin is protective - may be we should all be on 75 mg of enteric coated Aspirin - looks like you don't even have to take it daily.

The Aspirin one is very interesting actually ...... gonna look into that one a bit more. Why don't they tell us this stuff?!

I hope your other tests turn out OK - keep us posted. Big Hug.

Looks like the jury still out on aspirin. One study showed no benefit, this one I think says it helps but it's harder to understand
http://www.gastrojournal.org/article/S0016-5085(10)00308-2/abstract?referrer=http://scholar.google.co.uk/scholar?hl=en&q=Aspirin+Barretts+oesophagus&as_sdt=0%2C5&as_ylo=2010&as_vis=1
Looks like it might reduce colorectal cancer risk too. My grandma got to 90 on 1 junior aspirin a day, maybe it's worth a try!