I know this is an old thread, but found it through a search.
Male, jsut turned 48, and this EXACT thing has started to happen.
I have suffered from GERD for decades. I was on prilosec, which put me in hospital, as it worked so well at reducing stomach acid, that it let mild salmonella head on through, and attack my small intestine. Had a visit from an FDA rep while I was in hospital, and he told me that "as many as 10% of the people that got hit like I did, die". So basically eff prilosec.
Now this is a funny part, I received some email spam, one of those little drawing ones that takes waaaay too long to get to the point, but it was on heartburn, so I watched it. Short version: It said to start eating red delicious apples (I had stopped because I assumed they made it worse). I eat a red delicious apple a day, and heartburt is 99.5% GONE. That was ~5 years ago. (maybe that will help someone reading this, I can't believe apples did the trick for me...and I don't work for the apple consortium!).
That said, around the holidays, with all the beer, coffee, sugar, junk etc, the heartburn does tend to creep back for a couple of weeks. THIS year I have started getting a sharp pain at the base of my skull, coinciding with the heartburn attacks. I searched for it, and here I am. Just thought I'd add in my "me too" as there is really nothing else on it on the internet.
P.S. if this ended up being lupus or brain cancer for anyone, please post back...if you can
