New GERD sufferer - looking for tips!

You'll find that on here and various other forums, there are people who have had GERD for decades, or for their entire lives, and are yet to develop any form of cancer. Please bear in mind that GERD itself is not a life-limiting disease, but rather something that can be entirely managed to prevent complications in the future. Therefore, I'd like you to take a deep breath and relax, so now you can focus your energy on learning how to manage your new lifestyle.

I've had every single symptom of GERD/LPR in the book, and despite that my recent scope did not find anything except gastritis/esophagitis. I recently had constant heartburn - let me emphasize here, heartburn that lasted 24/7 !! - for 4 months straight in a row before this endoscopy, and the results were non-life threatening. Diet and exercise have helped pull me out of this situation so far.

As for some tips:
Avoid all heartburn trigger food (look up the main culprits).
Eat smaller more frequent meals throughout the day - for this one I'd suggest calculating your macros and partitioning them into small meals, make sure you only eat til you're half to 80% full.
Elevate the head of your bed 4 to 8 inches. This is specifically important to assuage night time reflux.
Try to exercise early in the morning, and exercise on an empty stomach, but you can also walk in the evening up to a half hour after eating.
Do not eat anything 3 to 5 hours before bed, and do not drink anything 2 hours before bed.

PS please do not look up your symptoms on google, there's a lot of disinformation out there, and anxiety makes GERD 10x worse. Wait for the medical professionals to diagnose you - you're going to be alright as long as you get serious about these lifestyle changes.

best of luck!

Of course, and I forgot to mention: Drink only water. No milk, soda, coffee, or sugary drinks (juice etc) until you get this thing under control, and then introduce those drinks little by little, but still in moderation.

Yes the dull pain is extremely common, especially post meal as you eat more and more throughout the day. Although the pain from my recent battle with GERD is mostly gone, the dull pain is with me 24/7, in fact sometimes it feels like the soreness after bench pressing a ton of weight. Relax and wait for your endoscopy, as I said my symptoms were way worse than yours and they only found inflammation.