Gerd and Kidney Stones

I'm sitting here waiting to learn for sure if I am a candidate for a surgical procedure that might help with my GERD when I saw your post come online.

One of the best things I can suggest is to keep track of what is impacting or might be impacting your GERD or what meds might or might not be doing to you is - after you see a doctor of course - to keep a journal. I'd be in a huge amount of trouble right now if I hadn't kept a journal and kept it online.

I too noticed that with the increase of meds for GERD through the last year or so that my bladder/kidneys have been affected. I have odd come and go pain and frequent need to urinate and have been checked out thoroughly and nothing is wrong. But, the symptoms are still there.

Symptoms are the same no matter what causes them but when they pile up and end up with gall bladder problems, kidney stones, sinusitis etc and they're all happening to you at once it can be difficult to tied them to any one particular thing unless you're keeping a written record - much less being able to tie them to GERD.

I'm a retired newspaper columnist so writing comes easy for me but it's a good thing for anyone to do when things are so complicated you have trouble remembering or knowing which came first; the chicken or the egg.

I hope this helps even a little bit although it most likely is not a direct answer to your question.

Carpe Diem

Headaches (never had them until the last few months), back pain right behind where my hiatal hernia is and where my esophageal stricture was till it was stretched during an endoscope about a month ago. Earaches when the reflux is really bad and pain in my sinuses if I eat anything that really makes me sick and 'always' when I first get up from lying down.

The hard lesson I've had to learn and the comments I've had to learn to dismiss is that these problems are "caused" by anxiety/depression.

Everyone has the potential to be anxious or depressed but those things cannot cause a hiatal hernia directly. Anxiety and depression did NOT cause my gall bladder to become diseased and turn gangrenous and to nearly have cost me my life.

It's easy to become paranoid about GERD and the meds and surgical options to treat it. Educating yourself is a good thing and as I said, keeping a good journal of your day to day activities has been so helpful to me. It' s good to be able to finally piece things together and give yourself a break for a change.

Hang in there and keep track of what you eat, your meds, your stressors etc. It will pay off in the end.

Carpe Diem