kitanzi | Where'd I put the warranty card on this body, anyhow?

Current Mood: cranky

Where'd I put the warranty card on this body, anyhow?

Right, long story short(ish), I've been having stomach problems for a couple months now. Two weeks ago I had a EGD done to find out what was going on in my esophagus and stomach. Yesterday I had the follow up visit.

Diagnosis is severe acid reflux, causing considerable erosion to the esophagus, and a sliding hiatal hernia. Treatment between now and another followup visit in four weeks is a strong anti acid medication, diet modification and weight loss. Possible future treatment includes surgery, but let's hope not.

So, ideally, I am now not supposed to eat anything I might actually want to eat - that should make the weight loss easier. As far as I can tell, the ideal diet for this (which I do not expect I will follow perfectly) is bland and fat free, with minimal spice or acidic foods. I should eschew chocolate, alcohol and caffeine. I should eat small amounts, slowly, and chew it as thoroughly as any cow could dream of.

No, I'm not really happy about this, how could you tell?

Neither of these are especially uncommon conditions. Does anyone out there have a good resource for recipes, foods and suggestions that won't leave me wanting to solve the whole problem at the source by simply cutting my throat?

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

Have you been tested for sleep apnea? I was having problems with acid reflux, but went in for a sleep study because I was having a hard time staying awake during the day. It turned out the treatment for sleep apnea (a CPAP) also took care of the acid reflux in my case.

As far as food is concerned, get thee to a good dietician. With luck, your Dr. can recommend one. Be ready to have only one good meal a day and plan on essetially snacks for the other two. Learn to love green beans.

You are right to be feeling cranky.

By and large, according to ACat, I don't snore or show signs of sleep apnea. He would know, since he has it, or did until he lost weight. Any study right now would be problematic since hayfever season just hit like a freight train, and Georgia is making it's yearly attempt to kill me. I most certainly do have breathing trouble now. *sigh*

Correction - apparently I snore more than I realized, but he says it still doesn't sound like sleep apnea to him. And between winter colds (more than usual) and Georgia Death Pollen Season, I suspect I've been snoring more than usual lately.

Wish I could offer more than encouragement.

I will take that, with gratitude. :) I spent a ridiculous amount of time today full of targetless anger and self pity.

The thing with the giant list of OMGNO foods, is that every one of them is a food that worsens someone's GERD, but they definitely aren't universally evil. Your diet does very little to determine how acidic your stomach is, so what you're worried about are foods that make your stomach gurglier and more prone to sploot acid out the top. You can test this. Have the evil food, and see if you have gut sorrow. Do this several times on different days, so you know it really is the food, and not random hernia fun times. If it really, consistently makes your gut sad, then you know it's one of the foods on your particular list. If it doesn't, yay, food can still taste good. Meanwhile if you do find a favourite food is making things worse, it's not 100% either. Have it in small amounts - I'm talking bulk, not calories, so the richest chocolate ever but not at the same time as a huge glass of milk - and then stay sitting upright or standing or just not doing power yoga afterward.

Meanwhile, stepping back from the food, if you've never been on a proton-pump inhibitor before, which is hopefully the kind of strong anti-acid they're deploying, you may be amazed what kind of difference it makes, and it may negate a lot of the need for diet modification at all. In some people the stomach contents are suddenly so much less acidic that it doesn't matter if their stomach is constantly spraying the esophagus with goo, it doesn't hurt any more. I had this experience when I had gross evil volcano reflux when I was pregnant - starting a PPI was just totally magical. I hope you have the same good luck with your meds.

That is extremely useful and hopeful advice, thank you. Gut sorrow is a dead on description, too. *grin* Yes, the medication they have me on does help a great deal, at least when I'm not going through food poisoning on top of the rest of this. (Long story, very long and miserable Saturday night.)

I will give the encouragement that I had acid reflux so bad for years that it would cause one of the nerves to my heart to spasm and my heart would actually skip a beat on a regular basis. I had thought I would be on various anti-acid meds for the rest of my life and would still need spot antacids (like the chewy Rolaids) when I did something silly like, say, drink a beer.

My doctor here in Indiana put me on Aciphex, which was pretty expensive, for 2 months, and I started eating yoghurt on a regular basis - at the end of that course of treatment my esophagus had healed and my reflux is so well under control that I very seldom (as in MAYBE once a month) have any heartburn at all, no matter what I eat.

For the weight loss,

ladyat and I can recommend Weight Watchers Online without hesitation or qualification. They not only have a great support system without having to change your daily routine, they have EXCELLENT recipes that can be filtered by various special dietary needs. There's a monthly fee, but it is definitely worth it.

Intending to do that again myself once I can actually walk again. :)

I may not go to the online version (I used to actually go to meetings), but I know the system at this point and may go back on it. I suspect that there is also a group here that could help with it as well.

I never knew that about you, and that is definitely hopeful. I'll keep that medication in mind, and yogurt is something I can start trying right away.

Be careful of the yoghurt until the reflux is starting to be under control - the dairy can exacerbate the problem until you're starting to heal.

Oh, and I might not have been completely clear - at the end of the 2 months I went off the anti-acid meds and no longer take them (except I sometimes will take a pepcid type if I know I'm going to be bombarding my system.)

Edited 2012-03-28 00:38 (UTC)

I don't have a good resource for recipes, but I can suggest something else: my chiropractor (http://www.aocroswell.com/). He was able to help me a lot with my hiatal hernia and the discomfort caused by my stomach problems. Seriously, give him a try.

Also, I approve of your icon.

You're not the first to suggest that.... yeah, it's worth trying.

this may not be something to experiment when you've already got a hernia going on, but here are some opposing viewpoints:

the kind of food most likely to create heartburn is sugars and simple carbs (and possibly specifically gluten). https://www.google.com/search?&q=carbs+and+heartburn

acid splashback into the esophagus may be because the valve (which is supposed to respond to acid levels) is not getting enough acid to trigger it to close. intentionally drinking something acidic (the suggestion was a teaspoon of cider vinegar in a glass of water, but akien has had luck with a glass of juice) can trigger the valve to close. i've done this after taking pills on an empty stomach to good effect. https://www.google.com/search?&q=carbs+and+heartburn

i also suspect in another decade or so they are going to figure out that use of proton pump inhibitors cause an endemic of diseases related to mineral deficiencies. stomach acid is required to absorb calcium, magnesium, and iron. if you're thinking about taking chalky antacids, try taking a calcium-magnesium-zinc-vitd supplement instead. should accomplish the same thing and be better for your body as a whole. https://www.google.com/search?&q=proton+pump+inhibitors+mineral+deficiency

also, you deserve some *hugs* =)
i'm sorry your body is misbehaving

I agree with what I know about this. The condition runs in my family and I had issues with it myself. I went to a health food store and they said that often people are told they have too much stomach acid when they don't have enough and digestion is not happening as it should.

They suggested & I use Newton's Homeopathics "Bowel & Indigestion" tincture. It worked!!!!! And still works!!!!! I had problems with bloaty gas (and gas pain) heartburn... all that. For $13 bucks, they all went away. I hesitated to say this given the hernia thing, but klrmn opened the gate, so I'm going to step through.

It's only $15-ish bucks, so you could try it. It won't kill you. It's a tincture which stimulates the production of acid and helps things get digested.

I'm also going to join klrmn on some extra Hugs too!

The doctor did mention that a more powerful drug he might try if this started failing cause have a long term effect of osteoperosis, so that makes sense with the calcium absorption. What I'm on currently isn't a chalky antacid but a capsule. In any case, that's a good reminder (along with hsifyppah's advice) that it's always Your Body, Your Science Experiment in the long run.

That totally sucks, Honey. I don't know any acid reflux diet tricks, but I've got some 'pathy for ya. That condition runs in our family. My aunt had to have surgery and it was pretty yucky. I hope you don't have that. The weight loss will be good & I can wholeheartedly recommend food journaling with My Fitness Pal. It's free. It lets you track 6 variables of your choosing. They have a huge food database and recipe calorie calculator that's great for your old faves.

Getting an elliptical rider for the house is another great way to lose weight with ease. No impact. Put it in front of a media device to reduce the tedium. Keep feeding your brain good re-inforcement chemicals....

Your other friends have some good pointers on the allopathic tip, so I'll leave you to those. Big Hugs from here.

Thank you - good tips, and empathy is always welcome, especially with hugs. :)

Ah, well, welcome to the wonderful world of Prilosec (omeprazole), or the other PPI of your doctor's choice. Been there, done that. There are lots of other good comments upstream, so I won't repeat them all.

Yeah, weight loss helps a lot (not so much pushing things up, it seems). 10% or so down has helped me (yeah, another WW member, here). Meds help (I actually was bad enough when first diagnosed to end up on sucralfate, which more or less acts like a band-aid on the raw areas).

Lots of other stuff falls, IMO, in the "can't hurt, might help" category.

I'm pretty sure you have my contact info - please feel free to call if you'd like to talk (if you don't have the phone number, email me).

Thank you, I may do that but at the moment I'm too damn tired. Hayfever season just kicked in, in a very big way.

Sorry to hear that the Killer Hayfever Season is in sync with your innards problems. Insult to injury you don't need. :( And please leave your throat (and knives) out of it. Your throat isn't the problem, and I expect to hear you singing at ConCertino. :)

I'll mention one thing about the various non-prescription remedies suggested above. One can't always be sure that "it can't hurt" is true. Do some research on-line and / or talk to your doctor first about any OTC stuff you try. Things have side effects, especially when combined with other things. You know the word "contraindicated"?

One thing I haven't seen mentioned is the possibility that the reflux, if it comes up high enough, can go back down the other way, into the lungs. This happened to Lois, who had GERD (Gastroesophageal Reflux Disorder), and it caused an aspiration pneumonia. That's what started her almost three month series of continuous in-patient stays back in 2007 - 2008.
A simple way to help minimize the reflux is to sleep with your head and upper body raised higher than your stomach. An extra pillow or two under your head will help. Lois slept with two pillows and one of those U-shaped pillows on top of them.

I also put wooden blocks under the top three sets of legs of our Queen sized bed - 1" for the next to bottom set then 2" then 3" tall for the top set. Simple physics putting gravity on your side and making it harder for the acid reflux to go as far up from your stomach.

I hope something suggested here and by others above can help make a difference in the reflux, if not in the allergies. I'm afraid I know nothing about hiatal hernias, sliding or otherwise, just that weight loss helps and surgery is a common cure.

Hang in there, my friend. This shit can be dealt with.
Ann O.

Good and fair points, thanks. The aspiration pneumonia sounds rather horrifying. I will be careful and talk to the doctor about OTC stuff, but the suggestions about systematically trying the suspect foods to see what triggers things for me sound solid, if done carefully.

Aspiration pneumonia, AFAIK, isn't really any worse than or different from standard pneumonia, except in how it is caused. In Lois's case, she had a modified barium swallow test the day before and, overnight, some of the barium was still in her stomach somehow and it came up and went down into her lungs. It wouldn't have been that bad a situation except for Lois's chronically challenged lungs and her having GERD.

But still, your lungs are meant for air, not liquids or solids, so anything you can do to keep your stomach's contents in your stomach is highly recommended.

Ann O.

I'm so sorry you have to go through something like this!! As you know I've had to spend the last few years navigating stomach pain though probably not the same as yours. Though I've never gotten an official diagnosis as to mine, I will say, considering the most likely unofficial ones, what works for me are a combo of things that probably would have been but a number of things that would *not* have been recommended by any authorities. Since I don't want to advise going against medical advice what I will say is make changes slowly and not what does and doesn't feel right to you and your body as you go.

And while it might not be worth much, if you ever want to ask me any questions, brainstorm or get any feedback based on my experiences or personal research of what has/has not worked for me in all of the experiments and changes I've had to make (even my specifics are probably very different than yours) just let me know.

I am on your side and am thinking of you. *hugs*

Thank you, I appreciate it!

You will get used to the diet and it's easier once you've been on it long enough to feel better. Making sure you stay upright for at least an hour after eating will help with the acid reflux almost as much as the medication does. But do take it seriously, it can lead to Barrett's which is a pre-cancerous condition. My mom wound up with it because she refused to believe that her diet/drinking had anything to do with her stomach pain. Love you sweetie.

Eeeek! Okay, point taken. Love you too.

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

Where'd I put the warranty card on this body, anyhow?

Seemingly unrelated question

Re: Seemingly unrelated question

Re: Seemingly unrelated question

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

some dissenting opinions

no subject

Re: some dissenting opinions

Re: some dissenting opinions

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

Physics!

Re: Physics!

Re: Physics!

no subject

no subject

total sympathy

Re: total sympathy