No heartburn, but still have symptoms of GERD

Good afternoon,
I had gerd for 3 years until May 7 2009 in which I requiresd surgery to tame it. I never experienced Heartburn.I cud eat ne thing and never get heartburn.My symptoms were the following, 3strictures,my throat closed .every time I wud eat I wud feel the globus and feelings of fullness.I had nausea constantly. I would aspriate in my sleep from the constant backwash up my esphagus.I had 24..7 sour taste in my mouth.Not 2 mention I never got sleep as my gerd although 24/7 was prevalent in the night.
I also suffered asthma which was gerd related. I was on every med known to man to control my gerd nothing worked.they ran a few tests,endoscopes ,bravo ph test which showed I had h pylori and gastritis.H pylori was eradicated with medicatiion,however the gastritis was still there.I cudnt even swallow my medication @ times.WHEN THEY DID AN ENDOSCOPE THEY FOUND I HAD A DEFECTIVE LES ALONG WITH SEVERE GERD,GASTRITIS.THANK GOD NO CANCER AS THE ACIDS DID A NUMBER ON MY THROAT. CONSTANT BURNING AND HOARSENESS.MY DAD DIED OF ESPHAGUS CANCER @ 50.I had no option here except to go for surgery.I had the nissan fundplication 2 weeks ago and my quality of life significantly improved.so now since I wrote a story here lol,the answer 2 ur question is yEs u can have gerd without heartburn.my GI doc sais I had severe complications so heartburn is very minor although to the sufferers its not.please go get an endoscope as soon as possible. Sould u need ne mor info,pleaz by all means post it email etc
Good luk,bea

beareilly -

Thank you for the response.  I don't think my symptoms are near as bad as what you experienced.  My Gerd doesn't keep me up at night, but sometimes it wakes me up in the morning, not heartburn, but my stomach/esophagus hurts, feels bloated and crampy.  I think its gastritis.  It usually gets better after I eat something.  This use to happen only once in a great while, now it seems to be on a more consistent basis.  I don't ever get nauseas, usually eating makes things feel better.  The globus seems to be the most constant factor.  Its worse sometimes than others, but only rarely seems to go away. 

I've been doing allot of research lately and alot of people say that losing weight can be really benificiary to alieviating GERD.  So that is going to be my next course of action.  I'm 6'1" tall and 240lbs.  Over the past 5 or so years I have fluctuated between 205lbs and 255lbs. 

And as I look back on things the GERD seemed to bother me the least when I was on the lower end of the spectrum.  I don't think that I put two and two together at the time, but the wieght loss prob had allot to do the the alieviated GERD symptoms.  I'm really worried that if I don't find a way to control my GERD that it could lead to surgery, not now, but years down the road.   I keep expecting that this will get better at somepoint, because i have been controlling my heartburn, but that doesn't seem to be the case.  I am seriously going to put some effort into loosing wieght and see if that helps.  

I would like to go to the doctor and get looked at, but my current Job doesn't have health insurance and I make to much money to be helped by medicare.  If I thought there was something they could do or pescribe that would fix my GERD I would do it, but from everything I have read that doesn't sound like it would happen. I'm already on 40mg of omeprazole a day, and I couldn't afford something like Nexium or Aciphex, so getting a prescription for it wouldn't help.  I feel like I'm on my own with this problem and that I need to do something myself to fix it.  I thought that managing the heartburn would do that, but it hasn't.  Sorry for such a long post.  Maybe loosing wieght will do the trick, easier said than done but I am going to give it a try.