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Nissen Recovery 7 months

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GERD & Acid Reflux
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Posted 6/15/2012 10:51 AM (GMT 0)
Hey all

I have found great help from the experienced members on this site since my operation so thank you.

I am just under 7 months out and still experiencing some problems.

Mainly it is with my voice and throat. I wake in the morning with a sore throat and it's an effort to speak with the urge to clear the throat after meals.

I also have a lump sensation in my chest and chest pains when i exercise. Crucially though i don't have traditional reflux at all.

A couple of months ago when the recovery was going quite well I had a stomach virus and put a lot of pressure on the area.

I've not taken a PPI since November 2011 but am considering going back onto a low dose for a few months to see if it sorts it out.

Any help of similar stories would really cheer me up right now

Thanks for reading

Wil

 

Posted 6/15/2012 1:23 PM (GMT 0)
Hi Will,

It's good to hear from you, but I'm sorry you're having some difficulty.  If you had a stomach bug and did some retching, it's possible that you irritated things that had been healing nicely and it has set your recovery back a bit.

If you're not feeling reflux, that's a really good thing.  I think your idea of taking PPIs for a bit is probably a good one.  Your discomfort sounds like irritation, and it might calm things down.

Are you being extra-careful with your eating?  It takes time to heal an irritated upper GI tract.  It takes an annoying amount of time, actually!

Is there no chance that you have some allergy going on, in addition to your GI irritation?  The pollen season has been terrible over here, and people who "don't have allergies" are having symptoms.  Just a thought.

Try the PPIs and careful eating (for an extended time) and see if you get some relief.  Remember that you still have 6 months of healing to get to the year mark, and I can tell you from experience that some of those quirks that seemed like they'd be with me forever, disappeared at the year mark or a bit later.

Hope you feel better very soon!

Denise

Posted 6/17/2012 8:06 PM (GMT 0)
Denise i'm so grateful for your advice. I hope things get better i'll get back to being careful. I have been increasing portion size lately and that's not helping.
Posted 6/18/2012 1:09 AM (GMT 0)
Hi Will,

Good luck...take care of yourself.  Hope you get feeling better soon.

Denise

Posted 6/19/2012 2:47 PM (GMT 0)
Will,
I'm at 7 months, too! Some days I feel great, but other days I have what feels Unmistakably like reflux, or *something* similar! Upper GI shows all is good, but my doctor might order me an endoscopy to be sure... which I am happy to have to see how I'm doing.

This is a very baffling recovery. But I genuinely feel it is worth it. I just can't wait to really get back into weightlifting. I miss exercise like you wouldn't believe.

I think I'd been feeling a lot of reflux because I've been adding new things to my diet. Also I've been eating more. Some days I'm great, other days I'm not. It is very strange. Instant oatmeal has suddenly resulted in a lot of reflux, which was surprising, because I would eat that all the time at the beginning of recovery and I used to be fine with it.

How are you feeling these days?
Posted 7/28/2012 6:50 PM (GMT 0)
hi sorry I haven't logged in for a while. Well I'm still wondering if this will ever improve. That's pretty hard for me to say as I'm normally more positive. I just keep getting symptoms. It's not like classic reflux more of a burning in my throat - particularly in the mornings. I also get pain at the wrap site when I play sport which is annoying.

I have recently decided to start on the PPI's again just to see if that helps it because I just want to be able to forget about it for a while. I am still getting on with things but it's a bit of a struggle being careful all the btime and still feeling a bit unwell. I must be balanced though I do have some days which are good and I feel fine but it doesn't last and they are followed with days feeling rubbish.

I have bought the Kaufman diet book but it's quite retrictive so not started yet.

Anyway apologies this is a bit defeatist - I hope you are feeling better. I think I'm going to buy a bed wedge pillow!

I guess I need someone to say Will all is not lost mate I was where you are now and it turned out ok. I do get the feeling that the wrap could still be very sore and irritated

Wil
Posted 7/30/2012 4:20 PM (GMT 0)
Wil,
ha ha I was actually going to tell you something along the lines of "Will all is not lost mate I was where you are now and it turned out ok."

I was feeling like I had reflux again, too, oftentimes **INTENSE** like it was before surgery. But I am feeling much better now. I think it has to do with wrap irritation, where some foods are even more irritating now than before. Which is nothing horrible; I just avoid those foods. I don't drink coffee anymore, or ice cream/frozen yogurt, which is easier to do than you might think. I drink Vega One now, which is very good and is filled with vitamins. One scoop in a glass of room temperature water = delicious and nutritious, as well as energizing.

Eating late at night was a big cause of my problem.

Also, an ice cold dessert after a warm dinner is not a good idea, as your stomach needs to warm up the cold food or drink - even water - in order to digest it. This takes more time and keeps those contents in your stomach. I was drinking a tall glass of cold water just before bed. This is bad. It turns out that people have been drinking warm (even hot) water to relax the stomach for centuries. I drink warm water after dinner, and maybe a sip of warm (or room temperature) water just before bed. It seems to be working for me.

I love ice cream. I love frozen yogurt. I love ice cold water before bed. I love coffee. But what I love far, far more than all of that combined is feeling good. And it is a great feeling to know that I don't NEED those things.

And it's easier to get used to than I expected...
Posted 7/30/2012 6:33 PM (GMT 0)
Very wise words, dave. I'm the same really i'd love to eat what I want and have
a few drinks but i'm prepared to sacrifice whatever I need to in order to feel healthy. I'll give the warm water a try...i have heard that is good actually. I have recently been drinking iced coffee which is probably why I have some lpr symptoms. It's really hard with this operation to not start questioning whether it is right enough or has failed!
Posted 7/31/2012 6:31 PM (GMT 0)
Absolutely, it is enough to drive someone insane. I bet that the iced coffee has a lot to do with the way you're feeling. It's iced, it's coffee, and it probably has dairy creamers which affect me even worse than milk.
Posted 8/1/2012 2:55 AM (GMT 0)
I'm 7 months out of TIf and a large hernia repair. I've been having pain in my site area and my throat, but I had a scope done of my esophagus and I had an ENT check out my throat. Both of them said they didn't see any redness, which makes me skeptical because I have similar symptoms as I had before the surgery.
But I was going to say, I stay away from bread and anything that could stretch my stomach/throat. That always seems to irritate me. I've been lifting and running recently and I've been quite a bit worse.
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