Omeprazole

Hi Paul,

I been on Pantoprazole for 16 days and nothing.  Sure, I do not have the normal symptoms of gastritis or reflux.  I have chest heaviness all day long an it gets worse during the day and I do have mild acid on the bacK of my throat.  In the past I took Omeprazole 40mg twice daily with Raniditine 300mg at night and after 30 days I had to stop because it did nothing for me.  I just just changed my GI looking for another opinion and she order a Barium Swallow (Esophagram) because when I eat is when it gets really bad and I have problem breathing by just taking the first bite. (Even with water at a lower scale)   Both GI's agree that with mild gastisits/reflux I should not have this problem so hopefuly a few days after Friday I would have an answer for my problem which I had for 2 years.  I believe medications and the anti-biotics I took back then for 3 weeks started all of this. ;-(

Hi Papote, yes, hopefully you're closer to a full diagnosis.

It was simple painkillers and three courses of antibs for a problematic wisdom tooth over three months that condemned me to my trouble too. Three abscesses had to be sorted before the dentist, who was trying to save the tooth, could take it out. That was on my birthday. Two days later I realised by stomach was swollen and then the acid hell and the rest began. Couldn't believe it. That was in late 2012.

Of course had I known at that time how certain foods, drinks, minty things and stress affect the lower oesophageal muscle and damaged tissues, I wouldn't have added their negative effects to that of the meds. We live and learn too often the hard way. Prevention is always better than cure, foresight better than hindsight.

We can walk into disaster simply because, for example, we don't really know how our stomachs and digestion work. Then, when you become ill and learn about them, you see how some of the things you did helped set you up for trouble, which is always hard to bear. But such is life sometimes. And when you can't go around a thing, you can only try to bulldoze through it a bit at a time.

Then we have more than one thing in common, my problems started in Aug 2012. ;-)

How strange. But then coincidences are as numerous as they are amazing, so much so that I've reached the point where I'm hardly surprised anymore. A favourite is an aged friend's tale of how his grandmother refused to go down to the bomb-shelter one night during WWII. The family were worried sick knowing she was upstairs in danger. At last one of them went up and got her to come down. A bomb then hit the backyard. When the raid was over and they went back into the house, white-hot shrapnel had shot through the grandmother's window and set fire to her bed!