Due to so much false information on the web, I wanted to share my story. I really think it took longer for me to get on track because of all of the misleading reviews and post sprinkled on forums and product sites. I will say that some of my problems could be stress. To let you know something about
me, I am a pretty stressed individual. I started having panic attacks and strange anxiety starting in my 30's. I had a lot of it under control until recently when it got worse. I have seen my GP about
this and he is reluctant to change my Prozac to something else. So on to the event. Around the end of January 2017 I had a trip to Vegas and I do not fly often, but I do fly. So I am not new to being on a plane. For some reason I dread change, and trips. This trip I really did not want to go on. While sitting and waiting for the plane I almost did not board, I had a very long panic attack. I told the person flying with me what was going on, they were not a lot of help. I did make it through the flight but had the longest full blown panic attack in my life, it lasted hours and that was being medicated and with alcohol to hopefully help calm me down. I felt sick, really sick like I could not consume food. Later that night I finally got hungry and choked down my meal from earlier in the day, a huge burger. I fell asleep and fell horrid the next morning. I was not as stressed once I started seeing the city, I enjoyed that part. But I remember coffee and other things bothering me to some extent. Once I got back home from the trip, the next day at work I remember this gnawing hungry feeling, it was crazy. I was eating way more often than normal. I would eat to kill the hunger feeling and 15 minutes later I would be hungry again. Nothing stopped this hunger for over an hour, nothing. I would also go between nausea and hunger. This gnawing hunger lasted for at least 2 days.
I seem to remember going between thinking it could be different things. I remember gulping baking soda and researching a ton of stuff on the internet, which I just do whether it is good for me or not. This is probably what got me in more trouble. I started reading that some people have cured this type of thing with apple cider vinegar, so I am drinking that several times a day. Maybe as a placebo it felt like it could be helping? Then I read about
low stomach acid instead of high stomach acid. Since I did not seem to have heartburn I figured this could be plausible. I ordered HCL with Pepsin and tried it. I did not seem to get worse on it initially but I seem to remember definitely not getting better. So off to my general practitioner I go, who diagnosed me with GERD and said "quit worrying". So I came back with a prescript
ion for Prilosec and started it. Time goes by and I do not seem to be improving. I keep going between thinking it really could be low stomach acid, or high stomach acid or something much worse, my mind is racing. I go to another practitioner since I did not think my doctor gave me enough consideration. She sends me off to a Gastro who says "stress". Okay so yes I agree with them that this could be stress and stress alone, but I need to get better. You cannot just tell someone with anxiety to quit stressing, it does not work that way. If I was stressed, I could not tell you what is causing the stress, it is just there. So more time passes and I am still not making progress. My throat is raw, starting to get hoarse now. On occasion I am waking up in the middle of the night with a really gagging feeling, taste like acid. At this point most of the day I have the aftertaste of metal in my mouth, no doubt acid.
More time passes and I am just done with all of this. I am eating tums like candy, taking prevacid OTC now and it is not doing jack. I go to see the guy that did my sinus surgery and have him do a larynx scope. He tells me flat out when people come to see him with these symptoms their Larynx normally looks fine, but my Larynx looks like two inflamed cherries, whatever that means. He wants me to get an upper endo, which I did on around May 15 or so. On May 5 I started Nexium which did seem to help a bit more. I started the Koufman diet on May 5 also, and ordered the book. My ENT that did the scope handed me a copied paper showing the Kaufman diet and I laughed to myself, because I had already started the diet a few days before.
Oh, I forgot to say, the upper endo looked fine. I asked him to look at my Larynx and he said it looked fine, no signs of Barrett's Esophagus at all, nothing in my stomach.
I may be a high anxiety person but I am good at quitting things. Let me tell you more about
my habits that could had attributed to this. I exercise daily, before this started I weighed 165lb and am 6' 0" tall. I was really heavy into doing planks, probably some days doing them for 2 minutes each plank up to 5 times a day. I walk an hour every single day. I already ate a healthy diet but did eat some processed food. I rarely eat fat and very rarely eat out, and absolutely never eat fast food. What I did do though is I would eat before going to bed. I would eat pretty late, trying to space out my meals thinking I would do better if my meals are spread apart, that I would eat less in a 24 hour period, hell it made sense in my mind. An hour before bed I would start drinking Merlot, probably because I was somewhat depressed, and I thought it knocked me out easier.
So now it is May 31, 2017 and I am at 151.2 lb living off a very restrictive diet that I have stuck to religiously. I have had no coffee and before was at least 2 cups a day. I have had zero alcohol, nothing. I do occasionally take half a caffeine pill when I feel myself falling asleep at work. I am living off a diet of chicken, black beans, brown rice or Ezekial Sprouted Grain bread. That is it, nothing else but maybe a small amount of olive oil butter on the bread for taste. I have converted my R/O filter to put out more alkaline water and occasional buy Evermore water which is testing > 10.0 for me on my meter. I can honestly say the acid taste in my mouth is gone. I have some days better than others, but for the most part the lump in my throat feeling is about
gone. The diet blows but if I had to eat like this the rest of my life I could do it to make myself healthier. I also ordered those plastic blocks off Amazon so my bed has been elevated about
5 inches for over a month. I go back to the ENT guy on August the 9th, we will see what his scope shows then.
Also, I would like to add. Do not believe the Amazon ratings. I really am thinking the companies are either giving out fake products or giving products to people to get them to post false reviews. I think these post you see about
low stomach acid are posted my companies to get either clicks and add to their web presence, I am thinking most of that is bunk. Maybe there are a few people that have low stomach acid, but the post are bogus. Beware what you read on the internet.
Things I tried and noticed zero positive outcome.
DGL Licorice (Amazon)
HCL with Pepsin (Amazon)
Slippery Elm (Amazon)
ACV (Wal-Mart)
Aloe Vera Juice (Wal-Mart)
Notice a trend here? Most of these things you will find posted all over the internet and many with the name brand and link directly to the product. I am not posting brands, just where I got them from. With each of these things I consumed at least an orders worth with no beneficial outcome. So far what is working for me to get some relief is diet, and the PPI's may be helping some, the jury is still out on that. I am going to do what the book says and stay on them until the time is up and then slowly come off of them. Buying the Koufman book was not even necessary, most of what you need to know you can find by just doing a Google, I really did not learn squat from reading the book. The recipes kind of suck if you ask me. I guess buying a book is not a bad thing though, I rarely throw a book away.
So I wanted to post something, this is probably my longest post ever on the internet. But after the crap I went through because of bad information, I wanted two things. I wanted to help someone else and also keep a chronicle of my journey through this.
On closing I want to say, this is working for me. But by god, go see a doctor and if you do not get the right response, go see another doctor. Read between the lines on forum post. Some of these people have an agenda they are serving, shame on them for that. Lives are at stake, and the well being of people. It is not all about
clicks and money.
I am not a doctor, go see yours and get diagnosed!!
Post Edited (reefcrazed) : 5/31/2017 9:42:17 AM (GMT-6)