Hi akh,
You have a lot going on there. All the drugs you have been taking over the last few years were designed to reduce stomach acid. Prevacid, Protonix, and Omeprazole are all in the class known as Proton Pump inhibitors. They reduce your stomach acid production by 90-99%. The other medicine you took, ranitidine, which seemed to work well for you, is an H2 blocker, which essentially does the same thing by a different method, but only reduces about
60-70% of acid production.
All the symptoms you describe are typical of GERD, but the upper right abdomen pain you are having most recently sounds more severe, and may be from gallstones. I would ask you doctor to check for that. It may just be a coincidence, but long term use of acid suppressing drugs has been associated with gall bladder problems. Or it could just be your diet.
If you want to concentrate on diet to solve this, I recommend the book Fast Track Digestion, by Norman Robillard. In addition to his dietary guidelines, I would make sure you take a daily probiotic, and a digestive enzyme supplement, like Digest Gold. The digestive enzyme has been a godsend for me, reducing the gas and bloating to almost nothing. Robillard's theory is that 90% of GERD like problems are actually caused by too much bacteria in the stomach and upper small intestines, and the resulting gas that comes from the bacteria feeding on and fermenting the carbohydrates. His diet is designed to eliminate, or greatly reduce that issue without the use of antibiotics.
If you have to go back on the acid blocking drugs for any reason, please supplement your diet with calcium, magnesium, Vitamins B12 and D3. With greatly lowered acid levels in the stomach, your food doesn't get broken down as well, and those seem to be the nutrients that are most effected, leading to osteoporosis, at the very least, and probably worse in the long term.
Congratulations on your coming wedding. Hope you are feeling better before then. Two Digest Gold tablets with every meal