I apologize in advance if this post is long.
I am a 28 year old female and my symptoms started about
a year ago. I would wake up every morning coughing, no biggie it only lasted a few minutes or so and I was on about
my day.
The beginning of June I went to the ER with SVT my heart rate was at 235 per minute, they slowed it with medication through an IV and sent me on my way with a referral to cardiologist and appt in a month..this happened through out the month and was eventually told that it would never kill me. Okay can deal with that I suppose.
At the end of June I was eating with my family and it felt like food would get stuck in my upper throat..I could still breathe but the food wasn't going down. It finally went down but I didn't finish my dinner. I then felt like I had a huge golf ball in my throat and went to the ER had xrays and a scope down my throat to determine nothing was there. I was told I must of scratched my throat it would go away in a few days.
I waited the few days, now on a liquid diet. I went to my GP who said my tongue looked coated and started treating me for thrush for 1 1/2 months. I then got a really bad cold..not like my usual colds. I called out of work for the week. None of the medication worked and made my tongue look much worse. I was not really digging the diagnoses and was tested for anything that would weaken my immune system as thrush is a opportunistic infection. All my blood tests came back fine.
I go to my first ENT who talks to me for all of 5 minutes as his waiting room is PACKED and says I have LPR and my vocal chords are very swollen and mucus on my vocal chords. He gives me a script
for Omeprazole 40mg tells me I can swallow fine.
I wait a month and get a referral to another ENT who says my vocal chords are very swollen and agrees with LPR and puts me on ranitidine 300mg at night as well as the Omeprazole. I also have a barium swallow study which was said to be "Essentially" normal. This was with liquids only.
I go back to second ENT who performs a green dye test. I swallow water then thickened water and then an oyster cracker which hangs in my throat and takes a whole cup of water to wash down. At this point she says my vocal chords are no longer swollen but now she has no idea about
my inability to swallow..I really don't think she believed me when I first saw her.
I have a modified barium swallow test tomorrow and an upper GI endoscopy on the 17th. GI doctor said something about
esophagitis while I was there but did not go into detail.
Speech pathologist asked me if I had trouble when I was a baby so I asked my mother and she said I could only keep down watered down 1% milk for a long time when I was a babe. Not sure if that is suppose to mean anything?
I am obviously anxious. When this started I weighed around 185lbs and now weigh 134lbs. I know the next two tests may be very helpful but I have never met anyone that has severe dysphasia like me. Can LPR really cause this? Any input would be appreciated! Thank you so much for bearing with me.
** Edit** My husband has raised the head of the bed 6inches or so and I also sleep with a wedge pillow.
I have always had post nasal drip that tastes like metal? Maybe..it is very hard for me to describe and my doctors look at me like I am crazy!
Post Edited (PinkCobra) : 12/15/2014 6:14:29 PM (GMT-7)