Reflux Treatment

I know asking for medical advice on a fishing forum probably isn’t the most effective thing to do here but I am losing trust in the doctors I’m seeing.

I’ve had bad heartburn for probably 10 years now which has officially been diagnosed as GERD. I very recently had an endoscopy and have been diagnosed with hiatal hernia and eosinophilic esogophagitis. I was prescribed 40mg of Omeprazole (Prilosec) daily. I’ve been taking them for about a week now and am noticing some significant side effects. Of which I spoke to the gastroenterologist yesterday about and he didn’t seem concerned. Last night and today they seem worse so I quit taking these. I also messaged the doctor with no response.

I’m feeling almost constant hunger and general fogginess. I’m also somewhat tired. Based on the official list of side effects it’s extremely rare but fatigue or dizziness could be a side effect. I googled it and found lots of forums with people claiming the same side effects, particularly hunger. Lots of these people reported significant weight gain sue to the hunger. The doc kind of laughed it off and said it doesn’t sound like a bad thing considering my reflux is gone.

I’ve read a little into some accredited studies that seem to support the hunger and weight gain and also the overall lack of effectiveness of the drug to treat the acid reflux. There is a TON of information from holistic doctors online which the gastroenterologist seems to despise.

What I’m hoping for is to find someone with a similar problem that have found a solution. I have a well liked holistic doctor who I’m going to start seeing next week but I sort of doubt their level of experience with the matter. I really don’t know where to turn at this point. Does anyone know a good, I mean really good doctor that is willing to work with my alternative treatment preferences and has had good success with this?

try finding someone in the “modern medicine” arena to treat a chemical injury,you wont so dont waste your time,I know,been living with it for sixteen years now.
I do not claim to be a doctor,that said I have spent a large share of my time studying the human body so I could help treat myself and recognize things that affect me personally.

one of the first things I learned is that the body has to maintain a fairly neutral PH balance to stay healthy.
heartburn can be treated in two ways,vinegar,or baking soda depending on your system.
not always but most often heartburn is caused by the lack of acid,not the excess of it in the digestive system so how do you treat it?
add acid to the system,the easiest way is pure apple cider vinegar ( I use Bragg’s natural cider ) mixed with water.
an ounce of vinegar to eight ounces of water then chase it with another eight ounces of water.

I would recommend you get yourself some litmus paper to check your own PH.
you will need to check it very first thing every morning.
you will need two pieces of paper,one for your urine and one for your saliva.
average it over five days to see where your pH is at an adjust it accordingly using either vinegar or baking soda in small amounts until you find a happy medium.

I found that red meats and processed foods were triggering the acid depletion in my system so I cut way back on both of those things and found my system had fewer problems with heartburn as I had been overloading it before.

I hate doctors that show no concern for the side effects,I honestly believe they hope you get them all so they can treat you with more meds that cause more problems and they and big pharma can make more money slowly killing you.
now,dont get me wrong,there are some fantastic doctors out there but sadly they are few and far between.

other than having to get stitched up a couple of times and due to the uniqueness of my situation,I havent seen a regular doctor in sixteen years now.
holistic all the way for me as they have been literally keeping me alive all of this time,I snit you not that I was supposed to be dead in september of ’03 from liver failure from chronic pesticide exposure over the course of six years.

I was actually using about a quart of brags ac vinegar a week. It was good temporary relief but it has been nearly useless the last few months. I bet I have over 100 of online research about reflux in general. I am also very well aware of the incorrect diagnosis of too much acidity.

My problem is that my stomach is incapable of keeping the food and acid in because of the hiatal hernia. I think my acid production is fine, I just need to get my stomach back where it belongs and keep it there.

My current doc wants to treat all the symptoms and the complications from the HH and ignore the root cause altogether. That’s what really pisses me off.

Your advice is still really helpful because it’s reassurance I’m on the right track. Everything you recommended is on my mind.

Funny thing. As I submitted the original post, my phone rang and it was my doctor. We agreed that I could reduce my dosage to the point where it’s effective. Huh? I told him early on that 20mg a day was more than enough and he still recommended 40mg. I’m going to dwell on it some and maybe take a 20mg every other day for a while. I also have an appointment to see an allergist next week to see if I have any allergies causing the eosinophilic esogophagitis.

Do the holistic approach and see what happens. Have some family that has done Rapha center in Rogers and had great results.

biggill wrote:

My problem is that my stomach is incapable of keeping the food and acid in because of the hiatal hernia. I think my acid production is fine, I just need to get my stomach back where it belongs and keep it there.

I know nothing about this so this is more of a question than advice. Is there not some procedure or surgery to repair your hiatal hernia?

Walleyestudent Andy Cox wrote:

vice. Is there not some procedure or surgery to repair your hiatal hernia?

There is. From the research I’ve read and what the doc says, it’s not a highly successful surgery. About 30% still have GERD.

This is all part of why I’m here. He seems disinterested in considering the surgery and more interested in treatment and and more endoscopys. It’s a little premature to assume that at this point but I want to know what the success rate is for people prescribed omeprazole to cure these issues. There’s no data on that unfortunately.

There’s very simple holistic ways to treat and cure HH. The problem is that they are holistic and are very much frowned upon and some holistic doctors truly are quacks. They kind of ruin it for the entire profession.

Have you considered Mayo Clinic? I think they are nationally recognized for the treatment of these type of problems.

dirk-w. wrote:

Have you considered Mayo Clinic? I think they are nationally recognized for the treatment of these type of problems.

Yes I’ve considered them for this. I had wrist surgery there about 12 years ago and am very aware of their excellence. My short time researching them for gastro I haven’t found anything groundbreaking. If I decide on surgery, they’ll get heavy consideration though.

I’d rather not choose them right off the bat due to the location.

I don’t know your situation, but I had issues with heartburn/reflux. I stopped drinking alcohol and have not had any issues since. I did the vinegar thing during my drinking days and that helped, but I have not had to do that since I stopped the booze.

Good luck with your reflux. It is not fun.

Have you ruled out H. pylori bacteria?

Antibiotic treatment and good to go. Common oversight for GERD.

https://www.mayoclinic.org/diseases-conditions/h-pylori/symptoms-causes/syc-20356171

Kurt Turner wrote:

Have you ruled out H. pylori bacteria?

Antibiotic treatment and good to go. Common oversight for GERD.

https://www.mayoclinic.org/diseases-conditions/h-pylori/symptoms-causes/syc-20356171

After reading through the symptoms, none of them really apply to me. My heartburn can be triggered as easily as bending over to pick something up. Pretty clear symptom for a hiatal hernia.

I have had the HH noninvasive type surgery to repair it. Had a small setback on the recovery afterwards that set my recovery back by a week but good to go after 6 weeks after. I could not finish a 6 oz steak and a baked potatoe before the surgery. I had to eat very small meals because my stomach was 80% pushed up through my diaphragm. My stomach exit point was higher than the entrance and my doctor said it could become blocked and need emergency surgery and that is a longer recovery. I now have no issues and can eat whatever I want. I suffered for 8 years with pain from reflux/gerd. Omeprazal didn’t help me one bit in my opinion. I had no side effects from it. The last 8 months before surgery I lost 15 pounds because I could only eat very small meals. That was the only good thing about it. You will loose weight after surgery because you have to avoid many foods like bread and meat. Soft foods only to start and gradually work back into a regular diet. Anyone wants more info PM me.

Well biggill I feel your pain I have the exact thing going on you have . I had the scope done and same thing hiatal hernia. That was ten years ago and no change, I keep it at bay with nexiuim and rantadine. Now I’m going back in for another scope in two weeks because I have problems swallowing food , almost had to have the hymlic maneuver last week. My doctor said she can’t fix it its up to you. Apparently I’m supposed to lose weight,no alcohol, no over the counter pain pills, ( and they are bad a couple of ibuprofen and I’m almost pucking) and chew my food till it’s liquid, and no spicy food. Apparently the acid over the years has built up scar tissue in my esophagus narrowing it for food to get stuck. I hope you can get it under control soon because it’s only going to get worse. Try the nexiuim though it’s way better then prilosec.

I guess what I’m getting at is that I have done nothing to correct the problem for twenty years, give up alcohol are you kidding me, and now I can’t hardly swallow food. So please don’t stop searching for a cure like I did.My wife is ready to shoot me!

Gino, a part of what you have I had and had my throat stretched to rid myself of the food won’t go down and won’t come back up. Extremely painful! It would hit me 1 to 3 times during a meal. For me even taking a small sip of water when first setting down would trigger it. Fried chicken was a most always.

I had 3 or 4 separate narrowing bands that they dealt with. This was an easy peasy procedure that I should have not waited to do. In the morning and out after a bit and we went for breakfast, I could not believe I could eat a meal without issue.

Yes I also have acid reflux, ulcers in the top and side of my stomach too.

Gino wrote:

Apparently the acid over the years has built up scar tissue in my esophagus narrowing it for food to get stuck.

I don’t have this problem yet but it will happen if I don’t stop the reflux. The doc prescribed something different after I talked to him. I should see exactly what it is. For now, the omeprazole works great, but the side effects from the high dose is unbearable.

I have also heard that acid blockers and ppi’s may make you feel better but they don’t actually stop the acid damage to the esophagus. Unsubstantiated info but info nonetheless.

I’m willing to make sone lifestyle changes but it’s really difficult with 2 very young kids. We eat pretty well in general. Virtually all of our meals are made from scratch.

I appreciate the responses. I will get ahold of mxskeeter when I have some time. Sounds like your symptoms are similar to mine. I reduced how much I ate because of full I’d feel and how long I’d feel that way. Sometimes 12+ hours of feeling like I over-ate. Sucks.

I had GERD also and had a procedure called Nissan Fundiplaction (SP?) done. Basically the wrap the upper part of the stomach around it self so it makes it harder for the bile from your stomach to come up into the esophagus. This cured my GERD and made life better. One side affect is you can not throw up.

Not trying to scare anyone but talking from experience, GERD can lead to lots of problems if not treated. I was told it could have been a factor in my lung disease, Idiopathic Pulmonary Fibrosis, which lead to a double lung transplant. As the bile comes up your esophagus it can get into your lungs and cause things to happen.

I would recommend seeing a doctor about getting it treated properly.

I suffered for years to. It sucked. 2 years now hitting the gym, loosing weight and changing my diet has done wonders. No pills for me at all anymore. Processed carbs where the culprit for my stomach issues. Bread, buns, crackers, ect. I can still eat those but just really limit it. Stomach quickly lets me know to back off. Meats, vegetables, basic simple foods, pile it on. Stomach is very happy with that. It still likes beer to.

Not sure if you guys issues are that simple to solve but sure hope so. Stomach issues suck.

Had acid reflux since a teen. Took tums, rolaids, limited meals in the evening. Similar problems with swallowing. Food would get stuck part way down. Finally had a scope done around at 45. They diagnosed eosinophilic esogophagitis (EE) and acid reflux.

Had the same 40mg Omeprazole Rx. Cleared it up. Then I dropped down to 20mg Omeprazole for maintenance.

After four years of Omeprazole I tried weening off. Changed my diet. Quit drinking. Never eat after 6pm. Quit coffee. Took Pepcid and Tums as needed. Lowered my spice level. I like spice.
Six months later I was anemic. Major fatigue cause by really low iron counts. My ferritin level was down to 6 when we started exploring the current cause of the problem. Normal is 12-300 for a male and I usually measure on the higher side. I was about as low as you could go without starting to take more drastic measures. I had developed a slow leak, internal bleeding somewhere.

Closing in on 50 years old and already having scoped the input, they first scoped the other end. Nothing found.
A second gastro scope found an ulcer, and what looked like EE but a lab test was negative. Dr (gastro specialist) decided the thickening and narrowing of my esophagus was a defect on how I was built. It visually looked like EE but wasn’t. No amount of diet changes were going to fix it.

Note, the first gastro scope 5 years earlier was diagnosed as EE based on visual inspection. They didn’t take a sample to the lab.

Went back to 40mg of Omeprazole for two weeks while the ulcer healed then back down to 20mg for maintenance.

Now I’m happy to start my day with coffee and be able to have a beer with a steak after 6pm, or an evening ice cream, with real cream, not the fake crap. Couldn’t do that before the meds.

Luckily I’ve not had any side effects. Hopefully a different Rx will help you.
In my opinion, it is best to try to fix it before you end up on iron pills and swallowing issues while trying to fix an ulcer.

Have you had an iron test? Hemoglobin? Are they sure that the fatigue and general fog aren’t iron related?

Get the hernia fixed.

Until then, eat smaller portions at a time and avoid large meals late in the evening. Raise the head of your bed to help keep the acid from flowing upward. Maybe try a different acid reducer like Zantac to see if you tolerate that better. The acid reducers as you noted have a LOT of side effects (as do nearly all drugs) and among them is an increased risk for dementia – so do NOT use them as a long-term solution. Get the hernia fixed, you’ll be glad you did.

Khyl

They did take several biopsies. I’m not sure if this confirms the EE or if it eliminates cancer as a possibility. I guess that would be a good question for the doc. I also have an appt with an allergist this Friday and I’ll have blood tests with my doc in the near future too.

Omeprazole is very well known for creating serious mineral imbalances after prolonged periods (12+ months). With the acute nature of these symptoms it’s certainly the prescription. And btw, Stopped taking them for a few days and the side effects went away yesterday. No hunger no fogginess. Although I felt some slight reflux yesterday. I took one omeprazole and a Zantac.

Today I’m feeling slight hunger pangs again. I’m probably done with this stuff.

Anyone need 200 omeprazole pills? I have 96 in an unopened package.

Bassn Dan wrote:

Get the hernia fixed.

Until then, eat smaller portions at a time and avoid large meals late in the evening. Raise the head of your bed to help keep the acid from flowing upward. Maybe try a different acid reducer like Zantac to see if you tolerate that better. The acid reducers as you noted have a LOT of side effects (as do nearly all drugs) and among them is an increased risk for dementia – so do NOT use them as a long-term solution. Get the hernia fixed, you’ll be glad you did.

This was my plan for the last 6 months. Eating less was by far the best way to manage the reflux. I just didn’t know that I had HH. The only time I had trouble sleeping is when I ate too much.

Just about every prescription I’ve ever been on has given me such negative side effects that I’ve had to stop taking them. I can add this to the list.

In case others were wondering, I have also stopped taking all forms of pain killers like Advil, Aleve and Tylenol for the past 6 month. They can be a source of heartburn as well. Although, the gastro said that Tylenol isn’t one of them.

My #1 priority is to fix the HH. After all it’s the root cause.

Time for a little update. A lot has happened since this started. Hopefully some of this makes sense.

I cut back on the omeprazole to about 1 a day for a while and those side effects disappeared. The GI doc also sent a prescription for some kind of steroid.

The GI doc sent me to an allergist. Before going to the allergist my holistic doc says I can’t take a steroid before going to an allergist. Good thing I didn’t go pick up that prescription.

The allergist appt revealed that I have mild asthma and I’m allergic to almost everything. Although, gluten and dairy were not among them. I’m allergic to dust mites, dogs, cat hair, grass pollen, tree pollen, soy and some other things.

They prescribed me two separate types of inhaler steroids. One of which is for taking when you get symptoms of an asthma attack. I’ve never had one but, ok. But they prescribed this one for 4 times a day. The pharmacist was thoroughly confused by this.

This morning I had appointment with my chiro/holistic doc. I agreed I would stop all these meds in an attempt to heal the HH. After all, this is really the root cause of my issues. Well, it’s close.

Here are a few videos I stumbled upon regarding HH and acid reflux. I am thoroughly convinced that ppi’s like omeprazole are bad news and can cause significantly worse health issues than they treat. Like cancer. I’m going to look up the study done on ppi’s and post it here if I find it.

In case anyone is interested, here is the study.

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/29084798

Have you tried talking to you doctors about fasting to fix the issues? Done any research on fasting? If not look into it. One show I watched talked about the damage a lot of prescription meds do to the body and stop its ability to heal itself. Fasting can help the body to reset and promote healing.

The great ronnie James dio had heart burn for 11 years or something and never got treatment. It ended up being a form of stomach or intestinal cancer. Which he died from because it was to late. His only side affect was heartburn and a doctor claiming acid reflux

Seems very logical. I have not discussed it at all. I’ve never even seen that as a potential treatment for it interestingly enough.

However, I have experimented with intermittent fasting. If you are not familiar it is basically eating all your daily intake between noon and 8 pm. Partially because I wanted to see if the 1 less meal would allow my stomach to heal. I did it for nearly 2 months but I never really found any benefit with the reflux.

However intermittent fasting did give me more energy in the mornings believe it or not.

Check out the documentary called Fasting. I caught it on prime. It covers a wide variety of fasting and longer list of results from it. Some of it gets a little out there.

There is an inhaled steroid used to threat HH. I don’t remember the name. It works by swallowing the medicine instead of inhaling it. Did they give you instructions on one of the inhalers to swallow instead of inhaling?

I have had allergies all my life, including some fruits. Can’t eat bananas. I’m weird. Until the last few years, my allergies were always seasonal in the fall. Now seasonal in the spring and fall.

About five years ago I noticed that when running would circulate a lot of air but never feel like I could catch my breath. Eventually there was a light cough after long exercise. Diagnosed with asthma.

As a side note, people would look at me like I had a foot growing out of my head when I mentioned that I love spicy food particularly because it opens up my lungs. I can breath better for hours after eating good peppers. Later I realized a similar affect from hitting a rescue inhaler.
Looking back, I probably had asthma all along but didn’t really affect me physically until my early 40’s. Getting old sucks but it beats the alternative.

Typical asthma treatment is a steroid maintenance inhaler that you inhale daily, combined with an emergency inhaler to be used as needed. If you were prescribed a third inhaler I wouldn’t be surprised if it was to treat the HH.

Kyhl wrote:

Typical asthma treatment is a steroid maintenance inhaler that you inhale daily, combined with an emergency inhaler to be used as needed.

This seems logical but they prescribed me the emergency inhaler 4 times a day.

I recently learned that HH will affect your breathing and is very likely to affect your heart. It has been directly linked to heart palpitations. So, apparently I have asthma and am being monitored for high blood pressure. Although, my blood pressure averages 125/80 in the mornings. Many mornings I find it at 117/77. It jumps significantly throughout the day until I get home from work. Especially at the dr office.

I really think my issues are stemming from the HH or what caused the HH in the first place. Chiropractors always say that you need to have a healthy gut to be healthy. It is the trigger for all health issues.

I’ve noticed that I have been subconsciously sucking in my gut constantly. Just in the past couple days if consciously focused on relaxing this and have had no issues with heartburn even though I’ve gone off all meds. Omeprazole is famous for causing a rebound effect when discontinuing use. Nothing so far.

I hope a few people find this helpful as well. I found the whole GI and allergy process very automatic and in no way personal to my actual situation. Heres some antacids and some inhalers. You should feel better now.