Bad heartburn, Prilosec stopped working, miserable and starting to panic

Hi,

An endoscopy in mid-march found I had a hiatal hernia and esophagitus/gastritus, as well as ulcers in my esophagus. After a few months on 20mgs of Prilosec twice a day, it successfully healed the ulcers, and I've been on it ever since.

But five days ago I started getting heartburn that has refused to go away, and it's now worse than it's ever been. I've taken the Prilosec as normal, but it seems to have stopped working entirely.

Terrible burning in the upper chest and a tightness in the throat, back pain/chest pain, as well as a general shortness of breath. The pain is awful and it's making life miserable. I've been very strict on my diet ever since the heartburn started, so it's not that.

I was, however, getting lazy about waiting a full 30 minutes before eating with the Prilosec, and before Saturday was still regularly drinking caffeinated tea; could this have caused my issues? I'm going to try upping the dose to 40mgs in the morning and 20mg at night.

Please, any other advice or suggestions would be greatly appreciated. This is such misery.

Post Edited (arck9) : 6/24/2014 12:54:28 PM (GMT-6)

Try jamie koufman's book check her out on the Internet and amazon....get the 8 ph water or above too.....drop tea and coffee even organic and decaf tea has acid in it.....no acid type fruits berries peaches etc..... bananas r okay apples only real sweet like delicious all citrus and tomatoes and tomatoes sauces no salad dressings.....obviously all carbonation no drinking.....may take months...

Thank you all for the replies.

I've been eating super bland, but still very sore and struggling. A different GI (couldn't get into my regular one, booked up) switched me to Dexilant 60mg once a day. I've been on it for five days but it doesn't seem to be working; how long should I be waiting for it to work before I go back to the doctor for a different drug?