GERD or something else? At a loss..
Posted , 4 users are following.
Hi all – I was hoping to find some advice or guidance on here regarding GERD.
Just a side note, I am 28 year old male who is normal weight. I never have any symptoms of GERD, rarely burping or feeling indigestion. I might feel bloated once in a while after massively overeating and maybe heart burn 2-3 times a year that goes within a few hours but I have had this problem recently – here is what happened:
6 weeks ago I was eating with my family and was eating turkey bacon in pitta, I am not sure why but I didn’t seem to ‘eat’ them right and swallowed them without chewing them much. The bacon itself had a crispy edge and immediately my throat was hurting. I assumed I had scratched my esophagus. I also had the feeling of something stuck in my throat. However I also get that sensation when I take pills (this is the only time I burp really following swallowing a pill – I think it is swallowing too much air as I do not like taking them)
I didn’t think much of it but the next few days my throat felt sore and when I swallowed it felt like there was a blockage under my right side collar bone. I tried having my back patted firmly and tried the coke trick (disintegrating a stuck piece of food) but nothing really worked. Swallowing was uncomfortable but not painful and I could breathe – I could just feel food going down my throat and kind of a fullness in my esophagus.
Due to this I stopped eating as much and was skipping out on some meals etc.
Since then there has been a range of symptoms:
The pain subsided and it was replaced by nausea, dry mouth, a tickly cough and burping more often
Then the dry mouth subsided and the nausea did a tad but I began to feel bloated after eating
Then the nausea subsided and I had hiccups when I burp and loud stomach noises alongside pain (rarely) and bloating in gut.
So currently I am either get satisfying gastric belching or these little internal burps that are accompanied by a hiccup.. I tend to get 3-4 in a row then stops. My belching seems to increase after eating food and if I move. I do not seem to get much belching if I am lying in bed. I have read somewhere that this could be due to less pressure on the diaphragm? I also occasionally get this throat gurgle which sounds like air escaping up my throat but it doesn’t form a burp. I also get loud stomach/bowel sounds almost solely when I am lying down at night.
I am a bit of a loss because even though I do eat my food very quickly but I cannot see how this would come on literally after one meal with no symptoms before. I have been under immense stress around this time and as someone with health anxiety I do wonder if the feeling of the food being caught in my throat has led to a vicious cycle of anxiety that has completely thrown off my digestive track. It is strange though as when I am with friends or more relaxed I do feel my symptoms somewhat lessen or disappear (not always but often).
I had blood work and stool test done (to check for H Pylori) but everything came back as normal. I also do not believe I have a hiatal hernia.
The doctor has put me on lansoprazole but since beginning it 5 days ago I do not feel any resolution of symptoms ( I know it can take time ) but there a slight nausea has returned. For the past 4 weeks, I have elevated my bed and I do not eat past 7pm now.
I have little to no medical background but I can’t help coming to the conclusion that I do not have excess stomach acid. My main symptom is my belching. I burp when I wake up on pretty much an empty stomach. I feel that it is gas being caused by food fermenting in my stomach, so surely that would be indicative of low stomach acid? The doctor never saw me due to corona and just prescribed the PPI, I do feel it is a one size fits all approach. I do feel I should finish the month’s prescription though. I have started a low FODMAP diet but again, I am doing it more to give my stomach and gut time to get back to normal. I am not a fan of doing it even on a short term basis as I do not feel I have food intolerances and it is restrictive.
To conclude, I do not think I have anything like GERD, Hiatal hernia, Ulcer due to the sudden onset. My doctor seems to agree and seems to feel the PPIs will just resole themselves but I am not convinced. I feel I scraped my esophagus with the food I was eating which led to me panicking over it, which in turn POTENTIALLY gave me an inflamed esophagus.. Which explains the pain swallowing and feeling of fullness. Then the stress from other reasons + anxiety about this issue has thrown my whole digestive system out of sync and it isn’t getting the time to recover and it has led to stress induced gastritis.
Feeling a bit lost with the lack of ability to see a GI doctor due to the pandemic and feeling worse on PPIs
So my questions:
-Has anyone ever experienced similar symptoms and had a resolution?
-I know PPIs can take a few weeks to work but I feel that I may be doing more harm than good – I do not understand how excess acid would cause belching?
-Any idea why my journey of symptoms suggest I have?
0 likes, 3 replies
cameron92195 james08022
Posted
hello. I'm a 25 yo Male a d had something similar happen last fall. I was sitting down to dinner with my wife eating steak tips and fries. I tried to RIP the steak with my teeth and tongue and I ended up swallowing a large piece of steak. it ended up getting stuck in my lower esophagus and it hurt BAD! i tried burping it up, tried eating butter, tried coke.. nothing worked. infact I ended up drooling bad so I drove myself to the hospital and they ended up putting me to sleep and used a camera on a tube and pushed the steak into my stomach. the doc said I had a hiatal hernia when I woke up. I went back 2 weeks later for an upper gi test and they put me to sleep, did their test with the cameras and did 13 biopsies of my stomach and esophagus. I got a call 4 days later and they said there's no sign of hernia and everything was normal. their answer was, I swallowed to big. ever since then I have had off and on heartburn, gas, burping, feeling like food is getting stuck in my throat ect. no vomiting unless I make myself because that's the only way I get rid of the feeling of something stuck in my throat. I was put on 40 mg omeprazole and it worked for about 2 months then my symptoms got worse and after doing research, taking slot of omeprazole is bad for your stomach. I'm not trying something more dialed down and natural called D-limonene. a lot of mixed reviews. idk what my problems are but it is extremely annoying to the point I don't want to eat.
tzumi56935 james08022
Posted
Hi! Some of your symptoms are similar to mine.
About three months ago, I just started feeling very weird one night after dinner. Seemed like some intense heartburn. I've experienced heartburn before but this seemed much more intense. So I looked online and really serious stuff came up which gave me anxiety episode with trembling legs and nausea.
Ever since then, I've had this weird pressure-like feeling in my upper abdomen especially in the centre, some kind of dull ache that's ALWAYS there.
My doc diagnosed me with acid reflux and prescribed some PPI's but they didn't help much. I changed many doctors and the one I visited recently asked me to up the dose of PPI's and ever since then, I've been burping like CRAZY all day. So four weeks into medications, my burping started getting worse especially after walking. Now I'm pretty sure that the burping is due to reduced stomach acid due to the regular PPI's I take.
So I'm trying to wean off the medications slowly because they're not good for long time consumption and just cause more harm than good.
Also, I don't feel much discomfort when I'm out with my friends or family or when I'm lying down. That makes me question if it's anxiety related. But I'm not sure if anxiety can cause all day upper abdominal discomfort. I mean I've heard of episodes but having a constant discomfort seems unusual. And since I don't have any other symptoms, I'm not even sure if it's GERD.
I'm planning to have an ultrasound done in a few weeks. I can update here if that helps!
How are you doing now? Did you find any solution?
Good luck!
stefanpavel98 james08022
Posted
Hi, you might find this reassuring because I believe it can be anxiety related / induced or muscle spasm / nerves related as well. I have had this very same symptoms often (I'm 22), even very bitter, acidic taste in my mouth but usually only when I think I have them and I focus on them for a little while. Try to break out of it and see if its correlated in any way to your mood, notice if you feel it more when you might think you're having them, or when your mood is down (especially if you are generally worried about it and you know the symptoms that people feel normally). You probably don't have this when your mood is up or when you do something that gives you positive emotions. I often try to fight it with my brain by forcing myself to believe that I don't have anything and that I am making it up and in a couple of seconds the symptoms go away fully, or I try to redirect the pain and imagine I am feeling it somewhere else in the body. If this works then you should see an immediate pattern between the way you think (discouraged, negative, anxious) with the level of discomfort you're experiencing physically, especially if you consciously focus/ ruminate on it too much. This made the symptoms go away completely for me as it seems that your brain is inducing either muscles spasms or it triggers the nerves around that side of your body that produces the sensations that you're describing. So notice if that makes it go way, if it its that then its anxiety related, I know it feels very real but there's actual studies that show how you body becomes more sensitive (mentally) and then gives you these sensations or triggers some of the nerves/ muscles that make you feel this way. But please do the necessary medical investigations either way if necessary, even for your piece of mind! Please try it, its been quite a revelation for me! All the best!