My TIF procedure

To start I'm only 28 and have had acid reflux, gerd, and had a slight hiatal hernia for about 8 years. I've also tried every heartburn medication and all kinds of PPI's for about the last 8 years and wouldn't recommend that to anyone. I really didn't feel any of those medications really helped me and from what I have read on the side effects they aren't really good.

I recently had my TIF procedure done on 10/2/13 and so far I have been feeling pretty well. I definitely think it has made a difference in my life and well being and would recommend it to anyone who has chronic gerd or acid reflux. It's been about 3 weeks now and I definitely feel much better after getting past the 2 weeks of the liquid diet and although I still have about 4-5 more weeks of eating only soft foods and looking forward to eating meat again as I definitely need to gain some weight. The first 2 weeks were probably the hardest. The first week and a half after my procedure the main problems that I had were the severe chest pain from the procedure itself which is common and the pain in my shoulder/collar bone area which is also common. The painkillers provided definitely helped but make sure that you have the anti nausea medications recommended by your surgeon. Since you have to follow the liquid diet for the first 2 weeks the nausea medications really come in handy because the pain medications have nothing to be absorbed into and I would get nauseous when taking them but needed it for the chest and shoulder pain. I also was still very gassy and I started taking gas-x which definitely helped a tremendous amount as well. My surgeon who works out of Elmhurst Hospital in Elmhurst, IL was Dr. Siavelis and I feel he has a lot of knowledge of the procedure and really knows what he's doing if anyone needs a surgeon who's qualified to do it I would definitely recommend giving him a call. He had me keep taking Protonix everyday for the first 2 weeks after the procedure and is now weening me off by going every other day and so on until I'm finally off it. I did lose about 7 lbs after procedure which I couldn't really afford to lose because I'm a small person and shouldn't be losing weight at all since I'm so skinny but I blame the weight loss on the 2 weeks of liquid dieting required.

Now I do have some questions for anyone else who has the procedure in regards to a mistake I made and thought I could eat bread thinking it was soft but when I looked at TIF pamphlet realized I can't eat bread until at least week 8. Did anyone make the same mistake or do you think that will affect anything in the long run? Also I went back to work after about 2.5 weeks off being off and for whatever reason whether it be my office conditions (I think there's mold or something in here) or the fact that the weather is changing my allergies have gone crazy and I've been sneezing and coughing and constantly spitting up mucus and what not. I just wonder if anyone has experienced anything similar or had any severe congestion and if this will affect my healing at all or ruin the Esophyx valve? I was also wondering has anyone else in my age range had this TIF procedure? My primary doctor told me I was the youngest person he has ever known to have it done.

Also if anyone has any questions about my experience or my procedure I'd be glad to help as I know how bad it is dealing with GERD and wouldn't wish that upon anyone. GERD ruined my life for about 8 years and I'm glad I got it taken care of before it got any worse. I was miserable always having to force out burps and having chest pain and stomach pain and headaches and sometimes not even being able to get burps out and having that awful taste in your mouth and constantly spitting and it just affected every part of my life. I also lost about 20lbs overall in the last 3 years due to my acid reflux or GERD.

Thanks,
Louie