Symtoms -- a survey

Forgive me if this has been done before, but I'd like to do a sort of informal survey of what your GI symptoms are. It seems to me that I have a wide range of symptoms. Some seem to have only heartburn. I'd like to know how often and how severe we perceive our symptoms to be, just for comparison. I will start:

Bloating: daily, sometimes several times a day. tends to be worse in the mornings and evenings. can be very severe. lasts minutes or hours

Nausea: daily, sometimes several times a day. tends to be worse in the mornings and evenings, tends to occur with bloating but not always. usually moderate in intensity, usually lasts minutes but sometimes hours.

Odd taste in mouth: a couple times per week. can be any time of day. ranges from acidic to sometimes alkaline

Constipation: mild to moderate. I'd say 15-20 days out of any month I'm constipated to at least a mild degree.

Burps of Fire: maybe two times a month on average, usually in the evenings. by definition this is severe...haha

Heartburn: maybe two times a month on average, usually in the evenings. feels like I imagine a heart attack would. severe by definition. doesn't occur with "burps of fire". I get the feeling it's an either/or thing as I've never experience them together.

Also, how many days per month would you consider your GI problems "debilitating"? I'd say 2 to 3 for me, on average, which is a big improvement.

How many days per month would you consider your GI problems "debilitating" for only PART of the day? I'd say this is still high for me....maybe 20. But many of those days it's only an hour or so that I feel really bad.

How many days per month would you consider your GI problems to be at least "mild" or "annoying", but noticeable? For me I guess this would be 20-23.

And, finally, how many days per month would you say you feel good, with no problems at all except for maybe a few minutes following a meal or whatever? For me, this is up to about 7.

Thanks for any replies.

I have

"Burps of Fire" (lol) roughly 4 days a month.

Constipation only occasionally, but when I have it, it's really, really bad.

Nausea and heartburn comes maybe every other day.

Bloating maybe twice a week.

The severity varies, depending on what I eat and what medicines I take.

I'm kind of disappointed that more people didn't reply to this. I can look on the internet and read here to find out what the symptoms of GERD are, but I still wonder what symptoms individuals present and to what extent that they have them.

And what's even more odd to me (and leads me to wonder if others experience this) is that most of the time there's no apparent relationship between my GERD symptoms and the food that I eat. Well, there are certain things (onions mainly) that will always bother me no matter what, but it's weird that I can eat pizza one day and it not affect me at all, but the next time it will darn near kill me.

indersonu, i don't think you should tell people to eat real tomatoes.  All my doctors have forbidden me to eat tomatoes.  so my guess is that if you had GERd, then you shouldn't be eating tomatoes.

Hi there,
I'll reply to your questions...
I experience burbs of fire - almost daily, but they are not terribly severe
I experience upset acidic stomach almost daily, always taking something for that!
I experience nausia almost daily, sometimes after every time I eat. But I can go a few weeks w/out it sometimes. Today was not so lucky.
I experience sharp "heart attack pains" probably every other, other day.
I hardly ever have constipation.
I have even ran to the bathroom and thrown up everything I ate 5 mintutes earlier for no reason.
I constantly burp gas

Sounds really pretty, huh? But I will say that none of this starting effecting me until I got chronic Hives for a almost 2 years straight. Since then, the hives finally left, but the gas and acid symptoms never did. I was also diagnosed with Lupus last year and notice a huge increase of symptoms with a Lupus Flare. Hope all this helps. I hope you can get your symptoms under control. Good luck.

Hi..

  I have been on protonix for about 5 months, and dgl licoricie and my symptoms have subsided quite a bit....However, in the beginning, these were my symptoms:

Pain between shoulder blades in back

constant burping

lump in throat feeling

esophageal spasms (and feeling food going down)

** I watched my diet all these months, avoiding caffeine, carbonated beverages, TOMATOES, mustard.  It has been difficult, but, I am noticing that I now can eat somethings sparingly.  I havent had pizza in forever...and Im really dieing for some!!...I had erosions on my esophagus,so I have avoided any tomatoe products because that seemed to really hurt me the most.  But, I can tell everything seems pretty well healed up now, but still afraid to eat any tomato products as of yet.  I will give myelf another month or so and try it.  This has been a very long road for me.  Soemtiems i still get symptoms,but they are no where as severe as they once were.  This is a chronic condition for most of us, who have a sphincter that doesnt work properly, so some of us may never truly be "cured"....but, if we can get it to the point where it doesnt  interfere with our lives anymore, and we can eat some of the food we crave in moderation, then I will be happy!!....Good luck everyone. 

My symptoms are as follows:

burning/sour taste in the back of my throat

wheezy coughing

frequent throat clearing

lots of mucous in my throat

All usually start soon after I finish a meal. Since I have started taking the PPI's, my symptoms have subsided about 75 or 80%, sometimes better. I am taking 20 mgs of Nexium twice a day. I was taking 40 mgs once a day but couldn't tolerate the side effects. The 40 mgs all at once worked quite well for me but the side effects were worse than the GERD. So, my doc had me try the other combo. I am going to see her again today to talk about getting an endoscopy. She didn't order one at first because the meds were working for me. Since I am still having symptoms, I want to see if there is something physical, such as a hiatal hernia going on.

Tummytuck

My symptoms started off as severe chest pain waking me up during the night
was put on omneprozale (sp) and this helped for a couple of weeks.
changed to nexium 20mg a day - no more chest pains
after about 3 weeks chest pains came back
changed to nexium 40mg a day - no more chest pains
ate dark chocolate easter sunday (small amount) had worst attack of chest pain that night
2 days later attack started 10pm, finished 36 hours later - went to see doc during attack - nexium upped to 80mg a day and given 300mg ranitidine
went to ER - doc advised me to take diclofenanc
following day went back to own doc - given motillum to take with diclofenac - still getting chest pains but not as severe
now off nexium as have had severe weightgain since going up to 40mg a day - made no difference to chest pain
last night had attack of severe gastric distress

(awaiting tests for hy-pylori and gallbladder/liver/pancreas but will be 1 to 2 months)

I do not have Burps of fire.
I have farts of disaster. My wife keeps the windows open at all times now. (just trying to keep it light lol)
I have pain directly under my sternum. Sometimes a sharp pain, other times a nawing pain.
I have a lot of bloating even after eating a small amount of food now.
I regurgitate food and liquid when my symptoms are really bad.
I feel nauseous sometimes when symtpoms are bad. I almost feel sick to my stomach.
I burp a lot, but not fire.
I dont usaully have 'heartburn" so to speak. But I do feel tiny bubbles rising in my throat sometimes.

**edit I now have sore throat as a symptom

Post Edited (Hamhoc) : 5/1/2007 6:33:19 AM (GMT-6)