Hello,
One day about 2-3 years ago, I had lunch and it felt like there was a lump in my throat. I tried drinking something but the lump was still there. I thought nothing of it at the time. But after that day, food would get stuck in my throat everytime I ate. For example if I ate rice, some rice grains would stick. about a year passed and I finally decided that I should see a doctor about this. I told my parents (I was about 14) and they immediately made me an appointment with our family doctor. The doctor said I most likely have GERD and told me to take Zegerid. I took the Zegerid for a while, but it didn't really help. Everytime I ate, I had to drink water with my meal so that the food could go down. Since the Zegerid didn't help, I took Prilosec OTC. It kind of helped (well more than the Zegerid did).
Some more time went by. It was summer now and I was going on vacation to Japan. I figured that I should go see my doctor before I was supposed to leave for Japan the next day. He immediately sent me to do a barium swallow. The result of that test was everything was normal. The doctor told me to just continue taking the Prilosec OTC. So I left for Japan and came back after a couple of weeks. The problem was still there though; I would have to drink water for the food to go down. My family doctor told me to make an appointment with a GI doctor at Detroit Children's Hospital. I did.
The doctor did blood work and a stool sample. The blood work came back normal and she lost the stool sample. She said she would need to do an EGD to see what the problem is. She did an EGD only to find that some of my esophagus was inflammed. She took a biopsy as well. The biopsy confirmed that I have GERD and she told me to start taking Nexium. But still the Nexium wasn't helping. The doctor then ordered a barium swallow. The barium swallowed showed that everything was normal and they could find nothing wrong. I was then put on Protonix. The protonix definitely helped my acid reflux, but the food getting stuck in my throat was still there.
So here I am, a 16 year old male with this problem. I went to see another doctor for a second opinion but he said he would need to do another EGD. I'm not doing that again plus it's very expensive. When my Protonix finish, I'm just going to go back to Prilosec OTC since the Protonix is quite expensive as well.
I am so desperate to find out what's the problem. I want to enjoy eating again. I'm so skinny and need to gain weight. I'm a 16 year old male and only weigh 98 pounds. I really just don't know what to do anymore. Please help me... anybody!!! Thank you so much for reading all of this. I realize it's a lot to read.
- Justin