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Posted 6/28/2011 8:52 PM (GMT 0)
hi guys,

i am new to this board. I have been diagnosed with LPR a few months ago.

Just wondering has anyone on the board completely recovered and how long did it take?

It would be nice to hear some positive recovery stories.


Although i am suffering still, the few positive points:

i lost about about 30 lbs.
Eat much better.
finally able to quit my coffee addiction for good. (2-3 cups a day).



thanks

Post Edited (sk55) : 6/28/2011 2:56:10 PM (GMT-6)

Posted 6/28/2011 10:47 PM (GMT 0)
Sk55,
I had LPR and the only thing that helped me was to have the Nissen fundoplication surgery.
Posted 6/29/2011 12:48 AM (GMT 0)
hi couchtater,

how long were you suffering before you had the surgery?

has the surgery completely cured your LPR?
Posted 6/29/2011 5:17 AM (GMT 0)
sk55

you asked if anybody on this board has "completely recovered"

complete recovery is a tall order..... but maybe some or many here can say they have

so far, i can not...however...

i have experienced a very significant partial recovery and i have not given up hope that i may yet do better

there was a time last year when i thought that maybe i wasnt going to be around for very much longer, things were very very grim

i couldnt breath very well at all, i had real difficulty swallowing solid food and my throat was very burnt

fear hunted ...and haunted me

things have changed

today i eat a wide variety of foods that i like... but.... my first rule is always keep the meal small ( especially compared to the piggy way i used to eat).

i avoid food in cans and jars and packages with long ingredient lists and instead eat whole foods...all kinds of fruits vegetables meats and grains. i dont eat fast food..

i avoid coffee, alcohol. spearmint, peppermint, chocolate, catchup and raw "hot" vegetables like onions and garlic and hot peppers that burn... but i do eat cooked onions garlic and sweat peppers in moderation

i also almost never eat fatty meat nor bacon, salami etc, but eat tons of chicken, shrimp, salmon, lean beef and any other heart healthy protein i like, again keeping things lean...less fat

again... i keep my meals small and that included the volume of liquid i put in my stomach all at once...very important to avoid stomach distention...very important..and i sleep inclined

my throat has healed a lot and my LES is working better

can i declare a complete recovery...no far from it. but i feel like i have traveled half way back from a very dark and desperate, hopeless place of pain and fear. an i continue to get better!

my goal is to reverse barretts esophagus

while it is true my current "tools" are diet, exercise, and sleeping inclined

meds helped me turn the corner and i would go back to using medication in a heart beat if, and when i need that help

every now an then things get better... and then for awhile get worse. i can see that some day i may need surgery, or maybe not.. its hard to say... no two people and no two situations are exactly the same

but if somebody had told me last fall that i would be doing this well... i would have dis believed my ears and called m a liar, cause things back then were very very dark

gerd and lpr involve a complex interplay between genetics and environmental and behavioral factors

so depending upon a persons individual situation maybe surgery and -or medication and-or life style changes may be the "right" course of action...but so far this is the path im on

oh yes on last thing....stress...stress aggravates gerd big time for me, and so i make every reasonable effort to push the crazy part of the world away, or cope better when i have no choice

good luck to you in your journey for thats what this is

best wishes
mt

Post Edited (mock turtle) : 6/28/2011 11:21:25 PM (GMT-6)

Posted 6/29/2011 12:27 PM (GMT 0)
hi mock turtle,
How long have you had LPR?
Do you remember how it all started?
I can relate to your experiences…. I wish I found this forum earlier. I thought I was the only one suffering with this disease.

A year ago I recovered from a really bad stomach ulcer that lasted 6 months to a year. I slowly regressed back to my poor eating habits.
For me it started 3-5 months ago, I came off a bad cold when I thought I had a normal “sore throat”. At the time I remember being really stressed, drinking coffee, eating fatty foods like steaks regularly, laying down really quickly after eating. I remember having some minor gastritis and lingering sore throat for 3-4 weeks that never healed.
My primary mis-diagnosed the LPR and just gave me more antibiotics. After seeing various doctors: 2 gastro and 3 ENT. Then ENT docs finally diagnosed me with LPR. The gastro doctors didn’t seem to understand the disease very well.
The beginning was very dark. I could not eat anything solid, if I did I would be in serious pain maybe 1-2 hours later. Hardly could get a good night sleep. It was a very depressing and lonely time.
>i couldnt breath very well at all, i had real difficulty swallowing solid food and my throat was very burnt.
I remember the first ENT thought I was crazy when I told him I could only eat soup because solid food caused me great pain. I was lucky my current ENT actually had the disease, thus understand how to treat it more thoroughly.
I would say out of scale of 1-10 my suffering was close to 8-9 at the start. It kind of fluctuated sometimes you would feel okay, then I would eat something problematic then back to 9. I remember it was all very confusing.

>again... i keep my meals small and that included the volume of liquid i put in my stomach all at once...very important to avoid stomach distention...very important..and i sleep inclined
I am trying to eat small meals, sometimes I still tend to over eat.
>while it is true my current "tools" are diet, exercise, and sleeping inclined.
I just raised my bed recently it seems to be helping. I was using the pillow wedge, unfortunately 30-40% of the time I tend to fall of it.
My meds, I started taking prontix 1 day didn’t really work. I finally bumped my ppi dose to like 2 nexium 40mg 1 at 6am, 11pm. I try to take it 30-60min before meals. I also take 1generic omaprazole around 11am 20mg. With maximum acid suppression brought my symptoms down to like 6-7.
With exercise, relaxation, extremely strict diet I think my symptom’s are down to maybe 1-3. Stress does tend to make me flair; I am still work hard to control it. The diets been really hard for me, but after you suffer for so long its seems to become easier to maintain as time passes. To me I rather just be on strict diet than feel something “stuck in my throat all the time”.

Here is a fyi of my medical procedures and other idea I thought were helpful:
Barium swallow.
Transnasal Esophagoscopy (TNE)
ENT docs in general understand this disease better then gastro.
Chewing any gum with sodium bicarbonate. (I try to chew 1-2 after meals)

Thanks for your post mt, it gives me a few more idea to work on. For me I am focusing on my diet. I am trying to reverse years of unhealthy eating habits.
Posted 6/29/2011 4:57 PM (GMT 0)
sk55

much of what you describe...most of it, above....applies to me.
yes i was mis-diagnosed and called crazy an did the antibiotics routine along the way

for a time lung cancer was suspected as "spots" were seen on my chest xray...an awful time

ive had reflux since my late 20s but it was very manageable for a long time

then in the last 5 years problems mushroomed ... i blame over eating, alcohol weight gain and aging

loosing 50 lbs was a big part of improving my situation an i didnt do it with will-power...pure fear drove me not to eat

fear as the gerd turned to lpr...waking up in the middle of the night having inhaled stomach acid and the late night "snack" .... that experience put the fear of death into me

for a long time the medical people were un able to connect the breathing and lung issues with reflux...just amazing.

yes the feeling that something was stuck in my throat was pervasive for several months...fear of cancer!?

it wasnt until i had the barium swallow-fluoroscopy and the trans nasal laryngoscopy that the medical people realized it wasnt just "all in my head"

i read every link i find on the internet that reports ongoing research regarding gerd and lpr

three issues jump out

1 the LES opens inappropriately...this is called a TLESR (Transient lower esophageal sphincter relaxations) and at least part of the problm appears to be a mis firing of the vagus nerve. .there are drugs that will calm this nerve but good luck getting physicians to prescribe...they are in love with PPIs

2. hiatal hernia... often congenital but over eating and other strains on the system clearly cause equivalent damage and the displacement of the crural diaphragm. the hernia puts a bulge in the esophagus just above the les. and apparently there is a shift in the stomach position and the diaphragm which used to provide a good deal of support for the les. but after the damage it is no longer in the right position or shape to perform that function.

3. the stomach can be infected with h pylori and or irritated and injured by foods and other substances that cause it to "reject" food and fight with the les

of course there are even more issues

reflux is complex and many people have additional or alternative issues to those mentioned above. just for one example some people have problems with the pyloric sphincter that lets food from the stomach into the duodenum (an most unfortunately sometimes back the other way)

so yeah like you im reading and talking with people who have knowledge and im trying to "attack this problem on several fronts especially with diet, exercise, weight loss etc

as i get older, other health issues are closing in on me so i dont know how successful i may or may not be in this process

best of good luck to you
mock turtle
Posted 6/29/2011 10:15 PM (GMT 0)

sk55 said...
hi couchtater,

how long were you suffering before you had the surgery?

has the surgery completely cured your LPR?
I suffered for three years while my doctors tried to figure out why I was constantly coughing.

As for as the constant coughing I do not have that anymore. The only time I called now is when my allergies are bothering me because I have asthma. I do not have the heartburn anymore unless I overdo it on something extremely spicy. My hiatal hernia does not hurt me anymore. I do not wake up at night choking on acid.

The surgery is not a miracle cure but you feel so much better than you did before. I know that sometime on down the road my wrap will become looser and I will have to have it be done. But I'm hoping that it will be many years down the road. My boss's father had the surgery and his lasted for 20 years. This is my goal.
I feel if I take care of my wrap and did not abuse it it will last for many years.

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