GERD/Acid Reflux Support

Hi Everyone,

I am new to this, I am at wits end with my GERD experience that has plagued me for the last 7 months. I am here because I want to know how others deal with issues similar to mine. This is long but thanks in advance.

I am relatively young guy in my early 30's that has never had medical issues. I am very athletic. I play sports. I lift weights. GERD hit me unexpectedly and has turned my life upside down. For me these acid reflux issues started after a series of stressful experiences: I graduated grad school, I moved to a new state, and I lost my dog to lymphoma all in the month of May 2018. The day I found out I had to put my dog down I went to a going away party that friends scheduled for me and I drank a three beers to drown out my sorrows. Later that night I woke up in the middle of the night and I felt weird, really nauseous, this surprised because three beers never affected me this way. I ignored it and went to bed. Three days later I go to a Greek restaurant and have spicy hummus. Later that night I wake up hi-cupping and burping and I cant stop for the whole night. This scared me I went to the ER and I was told that I have GERD and I was given a 14 day Zantac prescription. Initially I didn't believe it. I thought to myself I just won't eat spicy foods for a while. I take tums and alter my diet, raise my head, and move forward without issues for about 2 weeks.

I continue what I think is a GERD diet aka no spicy food, while continuing to drink orange juice and eat chocolates (guilty). Three weeks later I wake up to a bitter taste in my mouth but it goes away once I eat. I think to my self this is weird it must be that I am not brushing my teeth well enough. I continue not eating spicy food but relatively everything else. Three weeks later my wife makes me my favorite tomato soup and we end up with a lot of left overs. I eat it everyday for a week at work. Then on Friday I notice that eating doesn't make the bitter taste go away. And it shocked me. I began to taste it all day and all night. I immediately freaked out. I couldn't sleep well because I would taste it. I would not eat hoping it would go away.

I continue this way for two weeks into the month of July hoping diet will make it go away. I doesn't. I begin taking the Zantac and it does nothing. I develop a really sore throat and a cough. I go to the doctor and I get prescribed Prilosec. I start taking Prilosec and my soar throat and cough goes away but I still that disgusting bitter taste and I develop chest pain near my sternum. I decide to be proactive and I find a GI and make an appointment. The GI decides it is time for an endoscopy. He finds a small peptic ulcer but according to him a normal esophagus. He tells me to resume my normal diet.

So I continue Prilosec but my sternum chest pain gets worse. It hurts to stretch. I go to another general doctor and I tell them that Prilosec is not working so I get Nexium prescribed. The chest pain continues, I go to another GI in August I get Carafate prescribed. At this point I am confused about what is happening and worried. I develop a ton of anxiety. I stop playing sports. I tell myself I need to find out the problem so I find another GI that can do more tests. In early September I get a gastric emptying exam and Endoscopy/Bravo pH exam on PPIs because they were worried I would have to much chest pain if I went off them. All three tests come back normal. At this point I was so confused. I was told to continue Nexium and Carafate. So I continue them because at this point I felt better than how I did on Prilosec. At the same time I begin to believe that I am crazy or something and tell my self that it just takes time. I continue to have the daily nawwing chest pain behind my sternum, I sneeze and it cracks, this continues all the way until November with the acid taste. The chest pain kinda starts to feel like it is lessening but I am unsure because I have been dealing with everything for so long. Then I contact the GI that did the Bravo exam and he tells me to double my PPI's. I do and suddenly the bitter taste goes down substantially but the chest pain remains but also lessens. I try a soft diet and lose a lot of weight, I can't afford to lose and only get chest pain intermittently through out the day usually after meals. In December I decide I am advancing so it must be okay to eat a sandwich with just bread, turkey and cheese. I get heartburn. So I contact my GI again last week and he tells me he is prescribing me another medication Amitriptyline.

So I am confused at this point so is this all esophageal hypersensitivity? Can the bitter taste and heartburn be hypersensitivity?

I am continuing my Nexium and Carafate, but at the same time, I am learning that this issue is something I need to learn to live with. At the same time I can't imagine my self taking these medications for life. I have interest in surgery now but I am worried that I am prematurely looking at this route.

So this is my spiel. Thanks.

Thank you for replying Sharon, I have seen your replies on these forums and they have been very helpful.

Yes I realize it isn’t that long compared to others but it came as a shock to me. It has been a huge mental struggle for me.

I forgot to mention that I really watch what I eat now. I bought the book Dropping Acid and it showed me a lot of the mistakes I made in the earlier months. The biggest problem now is I am developing a fear of food. Before all this started I was at a healthy weight of 150 lbs now i weigh 123 lbs. I currently survive off of oatmeal, egg whites, and a water pea carrot soup concoction. It is only food that doesn’t largely aggravate my chest pain.

With GERD, does constant sternum pain and bitter taste continue for months? Does it subside? My chest hurts to stretch or carry items.

Thanks,

Great to hear that their is hope. That is worst part feeling like nothing I do helps. Currently I am taking Nexium 2x40mg and Carafate 3x10mL a day.

Sorry I might be bothering with so many questions but any advice on speeding up recovery. I know everyone is different but I am just looking for some tips.

Thanks

I'm finding myself in a similar situation. I'm older (55) but would have said I had a cast iron stomach before this past year. The GERD came on very suddenly around the first of October, also at a very stressful time of my life. One night it just started and has really never seemed to go away. When Tums and OTC Prilosec didn't help, I saw a general doctor who prescribed Prilosec 40 mg 2x day.

The acid was so bad I asked to be scheduled for endoscopy. The wait to see a GI was long so a general surgeon performed my endoscopy November 6. He seemed annoyed and impatient to be doing the procedure and said I should have taken PPI's longer then re-evaluated. The endoscopy was normal and I was told it wasn't necessary to see a GI doc.

I've been on this dose of Prilosec now for nearly two months. The acid is somewhat better but I seem to have bloating and belching now most of the time. I'm not sure what to eat or not eat as it hasn't seemed to make much difference.

I was sick in July with what I thought was food poisoning. Not sure if that may have started these issues. I also went to the ER last April with chest pain. Chest x-ray, EKG and blood work were all normal. I'm not sure if that was GERD or they thought perhaps muscular.

This has caused me a huge amount of anxiety and I'm also frustrated that nothing I do seems to help. I hate taking the PPI when I read all the potential side effects. I plan to follow up with my nurse practitioner after the holidays and ask for a referral to GI. With all that's happened this past year, I'm afraid I may be labeled a hypochondriac, but I've learned you have to be proactive and your own advocate.

Thanks for the experience and advice posted here. I welcome advice and suggestions!

Hi Danielle,

Yeah the big thing is learning what you can eat to allow you to heal. This was and is still really hard for me. I am feeling better day by day, I am just hoping the chest pain goes away some day. Currently I eat oatmeal, egg whites, and pea carrot soup. For me I didn’t find out what was making things worse until I took everything out.

A good book to look into is Dropping Acid it will let you know the foods that are okay and things you can try. I guess the big takeaway is that it will take more than just the PPIs to fully heal. Yeah I also hate taking PPIs and I am a bit scared of how hard it will be to go off them. My focus is currently to heal and then i will focus on going off of the PPIs.

The medication schedule that is helping me now is: 2x40 mg Nexium and 3x10mL Carafate (liquid sucralate)

Thanks, Sharon, JohnCharles and John2018. My endoscopy was normal. I guess I was just hoping by this time I would be 100 percent better. Thankfully I don't now have the chest pain.

I will ask about the Carafate. Stress and anxiety with this condition seem to be a vicious circle and I realize I need to work on lifestyle and diet. I've heard the Dropping Acid book recommended before and will definitely check it out. Taking time to heal then going off the PPI seems to be a very good goal for me also.

Take care and please update on your progress.

Danielle – just re-read your post. For what it’s worth, I had my first endoscopy in 2004 from a famous doc (in GI circles anyway) – they even videotaped the whole thing for training purposes. The test came back normal. Fast-forward 11 years, and I had my second endoscopy in 2015 (after the PPIs stopped working), and they observed some slight evidence of damage but nothing to be concerned about. It was both good and incredibly frustrating.

I then went even further and had just about every possible test they could throw at me - stomach emptying study, ultrasound, barium swallow, esophageal manometry, and (my favorite) the 24-hour acid monitoring test. The latter really is the “gold standard” for determining if you have reflux.

But after all that, I only learned that I was slightly abnormal. I have acid reflux for sure, but nothing too significant. Apparently, a normal acid PH distribution is up to 14.5%. Mine was at 16.7. Doctor thinks the PPIs should be working just fine and that perhaps I’m just too sensitive (he noted that I was unusually aware of my acid based on the 24-hour test responses).

My point in mentioning all of this is that you too may be extra sensitive – but it doesn’t mean you’re a hypochondriac (in my book anyway). I know for sure my pain/aches are real, but I also know that they are 10x worse when I focus on them. So my ever-continuing goal is to do what I can to eliminate the heartache (and the real risks of acid exposure), and get on with my life. Not easy for sure…but reading and participating in these types of forums, helps.

@John I’ve had a wide variety of symptoms over the years, but interestingly, the bitter taste component hasn’t been present for me unless I really cheat on my diet (beer, fried food, etc.). I totally get what you’re saying about the radiating pain too – the way my doc has explained it is that there are so many nerves along the GI tract, that your aches are likely to migrate.

Glad to hear you’re able to resume some physical activity though. There was a time (during my good days) when I would do push-ups, dips, chin-ups and all kinds of exercises which now would cause me no end of grief. One of my goals for 2019 is to find the right exercise routine – involving stretching and maybe light weight-lifting to see if that helps (or hurts). Like you, I dropped a lot of weight from dieting, and now I’m hoping to get back to a more normal weight.

RE: PPIs, I changed from Prilosec to Dexilant based on my doc’s advice (he described it as the most powerful PPI). It was nice taking it only once a day, but if you can get by on a lower dosage overall, I think that’s a good thing. The downside for me with Dexilant is that I think it affected my digestion of certain types of foods and led to some irritable bowel like symptoms. But obviously, everyone is different.

And finally, congrats on the kid! That is definitely a powerful motivator to get healthy, and regardless, may be good for you as you’ll more naturally focus on her needs!

- John