LPR/Silent Reflux - desperately in need of a miracle. Has anyone recovered from this?

ok good luck with that ..it's up to you of course but i just don't think a massage will be as effective as a chiropractor who is working specifically on your problem.

Thank You for wishing me luck...However you should be as open minded as you would like everyone else to be.

hi Taesha- sorry if my comment came across that way-- if you think it will help you please do it....I was only trying to say that I think the person has to be working on that specifically....but if you think differently that is fine.

I sincerely do wish you and all others luck wiht this horrible problem we all have.

Just want to report back from my visit to the specialist on Tuesday.

It turns out I had had reflux and I dont have it now. There are no signs of hernia or other LES problems.

There is scaring around the area but it is healing.

the only problém he came a cross was the cells proximal to my eosophagus aroudn my adams apple have changed (metaplasia) and are producing acid which is causing my symptoms earache sore throat etc. He says he finds this in many people and because some doctors pull the camera out to quickly they miss this area a lot of the time. He says i can stay on the ppis or have the cells Burned out if i want. He says there is no risk of cancer or barretts at present.

I dont know how my reflux stopped or why. BUt i have been lucky. Im not gopiing to change my diet and i will still také the cucumin and ph water and try to live healthy the licorice etc. I hope this helps some people. I will keep checking in with you guys.

Good luck to you all.

Good news Greg

A couple of points. Be careful, because your reflux symptoms have ceased doesn't mean you are not refluxing at all. Amazingly everyone refluxes, just some of us do it more than others.

I think it would be interesting to see which measures you are taking are helping and which are not.

Removing one of the treatments at a time may help you discover what is working and what is not.

My guess is that if you remove all you will notice the reflux symptoms returning.

I use PEPTEST to see what measures work for me

But so far so good. long may it remain so.

Best regards JPT

Dear all,

Any updates on your situation?

Dear Ggreg19477,

Can you please explaine further about your situation? You said there was a change with the cells, can yu please explaine this kindly?

Kind Regards

Mcson,

I used to have to clear my throat every few seconds and had a constant and quite embarrassing cough. With eating pretty as outlined in the "Dropping Acid" book, keeping my meals small (especially the evening meal) and drinking some pH 8.88 water to denature any pepsin from my reflux, the only symptom I have now is some mucus in the back of my throat. I think this mucus is called post nasal drip and it is much diminished though I really HATE it! The doctor said it is likely I'll alway have some because of a little bit of refluxing.

I know you didn't ask this of me, but I'm hoping good news is alway welcome.

Susan

Dear susan79492,

Yes I am happy to hear good news! It sounds that you are doing really good..

I believe you mean Jamie A. Koufman's book, if so I do not have it. However so far I have read a couple of books, articles, research and other stuff about this and I try to keep my body alkaline. Thus, I mostly eat vegs, less (almost none dairy), no alcohol, no sweets (apart from some fruits), no soda, no coffee, no chocolate and fatty food. What I have not yet tried is pH high water. In fact I drink sometimes pH 8.22 water but I do not tink that helps.

My main problem is about my voice. Especially after eating I start producing a weird feeling in my throat which in turn affects my lungs and strats caughing. Right after that occurs constant throat clearing and horseness in my voice.

I used to have more PND but I do not have it that much now.

As for the pH high water, do you drink it all the time?

Kind Regards,

Mcson,

After you eat does it feel almost foamy in your throat making you have to keep clearing your throat? I had that and it will come bak if I eat a large meal. When I had that all the time, my voice was hoarse. My voice is mostly normal now.

I'm not positive if the high pH water is helping or not. I threw everything at this problem an am afraid to stop anything for fear it will come back. I figure the water can't hurt as it does denature pepsin on contact and pepsin on the throat tissues is what causes the problem.

Susan

Susan,

Yes, my throat goes like foamy and I feel like caughing and clearing my throat. However my main problem is the voice. I am not caughing that much, I clear my throat also because I get this distortion at my voice so it feels like I need to clear my throat so that I can clear my voice as well.

I will give water a try as well. I hope it helps.

Thanks

Mcson,

I think the throat clearing is due mucus on the vocal cords. I had that really badly but it is mostly gone now. Does this sound like what you have? Of course drinking water does not flush the vocal cords (you'd choke).

If I feel that foamy bit starting, I take about a 1/2 to 1 teaspoon of baking soda, mix it in water and gargle & drink it. This is harmless if you do not have any sort of issue with retaining water with sodium or high blood pressure. This baking soda solution seems to stop the foaming. Plus, I think the pH of the solution would denature any of the pepsin in the foam. This is just a pet theory but it seems to be working so I keep it up. It will take a while (weeks, months) after you stop the refluxing for the voice to sound clear again because of the inflammation. That's it how it went for me.

Susan

Hello everybody, I have been carefully following the entire thread and there are many theories making way into the thread. Of late winter is a little bit harsh here in india and my voice has literally gone. I would like to know from my fellow suffers that has anyone of u have experienced some sort of discomfort in the ear and some typical sound when u put your finger inside. I have been experiencing this particular phenomenon for the last two years but it has not hampered my daily routine in any way. My only problem which requires immediate attention is my voice. I have been to mutiple E.N.T.s and everydoctor is of the opinion that my vocal cords are in pink of a condition a little congestion is noticed. i would also like to point out that my digestion is totally out of shape and any suggestion in this regard will truly help because i am fed up visiting doctors who right now are not able to direct me in direction which i am in need of.

HAPPY CHRISTMAS TO ALL AND HAVE A BLAST.

I have been watching this thread from afar (USA), and I can tell you that LPR doesn't respect national boundaries. I have suffered from LPR since 1997. It took forever to figure out what the problem was, because most docs just don't know it. I actually diagnosed myself from reading some research on a Wake Forest University website. Because i was "unique", I ended up in a clinical trial at Indiana University Medical Center for the Enteryx implant, which is a biopolymer that they injected into the LES to beef it up and make it close more completely. That helped alot for 12 years(not perfect, but much better than before). Then suddenly about 8 months ago, my symptoms came back with a vengeance. I went back to the IU Med Center to figure out what the h was going on. I asked them about the Enteryx implant; the doc who did the clinical trial is retired, and the new docs don't seem to know much about it. He asked me about the effective life of the Enteryx implant; I said "I suspect it's 12 years". He said "interesting". He then started selling me on the Lynx magnetic bracelet, which I saw a reference to in this thread a few months ago. It apparently has a very high success rate, but there is one small problem--once you get it installed, you can no longer have an MRI.

I had a successful HIFU procedure for prostate cancer 1.5 years ago, but my urologist is dead set against not being able to use MRI tools to monitor it. He strongly suggested "gutting it out" for a year or 2 until he was sure I was cancer-free. I also have some back issues that may eventually require an MRI.

The doc said that if you need an MRI, you have to have the bracelet removed (outpatient surgery), do the MRI, then put it back in (surgery again). So do I choose? LPR versus prostate cancer versus stenosis of the spine? Which one do I prefer? What a dilemma! I'm trying to investigate having a "booster" done on the Enteryx implant to maybe get another 12 years, but no luck so far.

I've tried everything to varying levels of success or failure, and most things (Gaviscon, pH water,DGL, etc.) work sometimes and sometimes they don't. What I'm going to say next may surprise you.

The most consistently effective thing I have found (and I must confess that I don't like it) is chewing gum! It's not 100% (nothing is), but it's way up there. Apparently from what I have read, chewing gum stimulates the flow of saliva which is very alkaline. You swallow it, naturally, and the increased saliva flow neutralizes the pepsin, thereby providing relief. Hard candy can have a similar effect, it just doesn't last very long (2-3 minutes) whereas gum can last for 2-3 hours. I only use xylitol gum to protect my teeth, and I buy it on the internet in bulk (bottles of 100). My favorite brand is B-Fresh, but I'm sure there are others. I have never been a big fan of gum chewing, and i always thought that people who did it looked idiotic. Now I am one of them. When I am around people I try to chew quietly and subtly, hoping they don't think I'm "idiotic". I will never pass judgement on people like that again. I carry a little pill box with 4-6 pieces at all times.

Fortunately, my wife is an angel and as patient as Job. And now that I'm retired, it doesn't effect my job like I have seen some people on here worry about. But I can certainly relate to it being aggravating, irritating, and frustrating as hell!

Billdubya,

I have read about the benefits of chewing gum with LPR. I've read that the alkalinity is supposed to help plus the increased swallowing that is done when chewing gum keeps peristalsis moving in the correct direction. Yes, one does have to be careful not to be obnoxious with the chewing!

Another thing I've red about is abdominal breathing for GERD (GORD). This sounds quacky but I read about it on the PubMed website so it is from a peer reviewed study. I realize this isn't this same as LPR but they are related.

Here is the conclusion cut and pasted from the study:

CONCLUSIONS: We show that actively training the diaphragm by breathing exercise can improve GERD as assessed by pH-metry, QoL scores and PPI usage. This non-pharmacological lifestyle intervention could help to reduce the disease burden of GERD.

I remember to try the breathing when I can feel the upper esophageal sphincter allowing a bit of reflux (I think I can actually feel it). I wonder if trying to breathe this way most of the time would be helpful? It does seem to help and it is free and nontoxic. Nothing seems to totally cure this thing though.

Susan

Hello Everyone

I have suffered from LPR for just over a year now and posted earlier in the year. This is an update of where I am now.

My symptoms are a feeling of a lump in the throat, tightness in the throat, croaky voice at times and some unsteadyness when it is bad (which I put down to ear reflux).

I had the camera in my throat last Dec and LPR confirmed. I stared on Omeprazole and Gaviscon. After a few months it was not doing much good but I stayed on it as the doctor said it would take some time to settle. I also started researching and learned a lot about other treatments eg alkaline water, low acid diet, lifestyle changes etc etc and tried to adopt these too. There was a lot of good advice on this site which I found helpful especially JPTs advice sheet and Thomas's book which I bought..

In June I started getting heart palpitations and this turned out to be the Omeprazole and so I stopped taking them and tried to just stick to the other things.

I also sent off for and did the Peptest which came back negative. This really suprised me as Pepsin seems to feature heavily in the present theory of LPR.

My doctor then tested me for H Pylori which was positive and I had the triple therapy that cured the infection but made no difference to the reflux symtoms.

A few weeks ago I had a gastroscopy which showed I did not have a hiatus hernia but that I did have gastitis....presumably from increased acid production. They said my LES was ok but I am not sure how they could tell this from the gastroscopy?? The advice was to try a different antacid drug.

I was reluctant to take any medication after my frightening experience with the Omeprazole but I have just started to take some H2 inhibitors which I bought over the counter and I take one when it is bad. They do seem to help a bit so I am going to go back to my GP after Christmas and maybe try a course of them.

I feel I have almost exhauseted all the tests and this may now be something I will have to live with and jist try to minimise the symptoms as best I can.

I find alcohol and fatty foods make it worse and I have cut down on caffine and never have fizzy drinks now. Stress also makes it worse.

My symptoms are annoying and uncomfortable but I take some confort from the tests not showing anything very serious (I feared throat cancer when I first got the symptoms). It sounds as if there is no easy cure and something I will have to live with and just try to minimise as much as possible.

Good luck to everyone and I will keep you posted should I be lucky enough to find a cure or find something that results in a big improvement.