Hi All,
So I wanted to post about
two particular symptoms that are bothering me.
In a previous post I'd mentioned that despite being on my PPIs and regularly following a GERD diet, I made a "newbie" mistake of doing "vacation" eating for the last 8 days; as in, "vacation" eating like I did pre-GERD.
At any rate, during those 8 days I didn't really feel my symptoms pick up, but after I returned from vacation and started eating the GERD diet again, it's like the symptoms had been waiting to rev up all week, and they hit me the day after my return. I lost my voice for 2 days, but now it's back; but more bothersome, I've had a painful headache centered on my temples; my sinuses feel like they're under so much pressure and pain that it makes my teeth hurt; etc.
So two new symptoms, one started yesterday and one this morning. When I was brushing my teeth yesterday, as I leaned over the sink, this light brown/dark yellowish liquid came out my nose! As in, I would say that I had a runny nose. But this wasn't the "clear" color that it usually is, nor was it yellow/green-ish as it is when you have an infection. I leaned over the sink and as I did, a whole bunch more came out. Just from the right nostril, which is always the side that has had issues when I have sinus/seasonal allergies. It wasn't painful, and it didn't appear to be blood; I just wonder if it was stomach acid or some other gross thing.
So my new symptom today: blood. My GERD/LPR is giving me lots more mucus and phlegm, and post-vacation, this symptom has increased (the phlegm and mucus). But as I got up today and spat some of the phlegm out into the sink, it was quite bloody. Not as in gobs of blood, but there were a lot of blood "streaks". Sometimes in the past 6 months with GERD / LPR I wake up and I might have some blood in my nose, say, when I blow my nose. But I would get this often anyways with allergies or dryness in winter. I had my endoscopy not long ago and they didn't see anything nasty like a cancer, so I'm not concerned about
that. But I'm just kinda weirded out, I guess, because I finished eating my "vacation diet" last Monday (today is Saturday), and it's like my digestive system began punishing me on a "delayed response". So while I feel that I'm actually getting better day by day (which feels like an eternity at this point), the blood weirds me out. Does anyone know why this might be? Would stomach acid in the esophagus or throat cause this kind of a symptom? And if YOU had this happen, what would you do? Would you wait it out and toss it up to part of the healing process, or would you go to the doctor ASAP?
Boy, I've learned a good and hard lesson this time: it's never going to be a good idea to depart from the GERD diet for days on end. "Cheat" foods I'd done in the past, but maybe once or twice a WEEK, with seemingly no consequence. But for anyone who's new to this and who would contemplate the stupid move I took, I'd caution them against it!
