Posted 4/29/2016 11:41 PM (GMT 0)
Hello community,
I'm 28 years old and up until February of this year, I used to exercise regularly and had a healthy appetite. I did have a bout of chronic acid reflux 2 years ago, but it cleared up after I took a 1 month treatment of pantoprazole and several lifestyle/diet adjustments.
At the beginning of February this year, I lifted weights one night, went to bed, and everything was fine. I woke up the next morning with the feeling of a crushing chest pain that radiated to my neck, back, and left arm. Not wanting to take any chances, I went to the ER, the docs ran an ECG, chest xray, and a complete blood count. My heart and lungs were fine. The ER doc suspected that I was experiencing a flare up of GERD, so I was sent out the door.
The next day,I saw a doc at a walk in clinic and was given a prescription of lansoprazole, 30mg 2x a day. I saw my GP the following week and he referred me to a surgeon. The surgeon scheduled an upper and lower endoscopy for May 13. So in the mean time, I waited while taking lansoprazole for the next 2 months and it unfortunately didn’t do much to help me. Over the course of those two months, I was probably in the most pain in my life. I had chest pain, upper abdominal pain, back pain, neck pain and headaches. I had no appetite, felt chronically nauseated, had trouble swallowing, belched a lot, and could sometimes taste my stomach acid in the back of my throat. I did all the lifestyle recommendations: elevated the head of my bed, reduced acidic and fatty foods, stayed upright after eating, waited 3 hours after eating before hitting the sac, etc. Long story short, I didn't eat well, so I took time off work and unfortunately lost a lot of weight in a short period of time. I’m 6’1 tall and was originally 185 lbs, but dropped down to 165 over that 2 month period.
At the end of March, I went back to the ER because I felt like I was going to starve to death, before any testing was going to get done. The doc at the ER ran the routine blood tests and everything was fine. Thankfully, he called the surgeon at his hospital and was able to book me an upper endoscopy for the following week. He also wrote me a prescription for pantoprazole, 40mg 2x a day. I stopped the lansoprazole and started taking pantoprazole at the beginning of this month and my appetite came back after a few days. The chest/abdominal pain and nausea remained, but slowly got better with time. I was able to eat again, so I ended up gaining back 5 lbs over the course of this month. In hindsight, I wish I asked for pantoprazole, when I first started to feel sick. I had the endoscopy done, but the surgeon didn’t find anything. I also had a negative h. pylori antibody test.
Since I was feeling better and thought I was on the path of recovery. I decided to do some light resistance exercises last Friday. It didn’t work out so well. My chest and abdominal pain, nausea, and loss of appetite came back. Now I’m back to square one.
The surgeon who performed the endoscopy did a biopsy of my duodenum to test for celiac disease. The results for that test were sent to my GP this week. I also had an abdominal CT scan done last week and the results came back this week. I went to my GP’s office today to ask the receptionist if he had looked at the results already. She told me he did and I could book a follow up for next week. I get the feeling the results for both the CT scan and the biopsy came back negative, since the receptionist didn’t call me to let me know.
I have an upcoming colonoscopy in May. I’m doubtful the surgeon will find anything.
I started receiving treatment for anxiety to calm my nerves because some people suspect that my symptoms are a result of stress. I could agree that my anxiety likely exacerbated my symptoms, but I find it difficult to believe it’s the cause.
Does anyone here have any suggestions as to what else I should do or any ideas as to what’s going on?
Thanks.