It's always a sickness. Always.
How many times will I abandon this blog and then come back to it months later and say "oh wow it's been a long time"? Probably a few more times. But at any rate, I haven't forgotten about Livejournal.
At the beginning of July I started getting heartburn and acid reflux. I believe the culprit was something too spicy and acidic for my body to handle, but this is just strange because never in my life have I had a problem with spicy or acidic food. One day the symptoms would be a breeze and then some days it would be horrible. I took Tums for it for about 2 days but it just masked the problems, it didn't actually solve anything. So, after a week of torture, I went to a local Pharmacist and they told me to take Zantac 75. It worked for a bit but I would still get the symptoms on bad days. So after a week on the Zantac with some results but not much, I then went to a walk-in clinic to first see if they can tell me anything. It was a waste of $20 because they said they exact same thing as the Pharmacist; try Zantac, then Prilosec, and then go to a GI Specialist if all else fails. But I just couldn't take it anymore. This acid reflux was plaguing me for so long that i finally went to see my doctor. All she did was put me on a prescription Ranitidine 150mg (the same thing as Zantac, basically) and I've been taking that for about 4 days. She also told me to east small, frequent meals every two/three hours which I have been doing (before, I was limiting myself to breakfast and dinner because in my mind it felt like the symptoms were better when I had nothing in my system). I have to take 2 pills every day for a month and then I guess we shall see what happens.
I do feel like I have improved, but just last night I had stomach pains all day pretty much. The pain is located where the LES muscle is; the ring of fibers at the base of the esophagus that opens and closes to let food into the stomach. It's like a sharp aching pain, if that makes sense. I've had it since this whole thing started but the Zantac 75 pretty much helped get rid of that, but now all of a sudden it's back and I don't know why. Honestly, it looks like I have days where it's really good and then days where it's really bad, but it won't permanently go away/heal?
Also, I've been avoiding foods that would cause the reflux to flair up but I have been slowly trying to incorperate small bits of my normal food to get my body used to it again and since I've been on the Zantac the only things I have tried are full fat peanut butter (which was a no go), and some egg whites cooked into a piece of bread that I cook/toast in a pan that I would normally have for breakfast; typically I would leave in the egg yolk as well, but they say the yolk brings on symptoms so I tried it without the yolk and even though I felt a bit of that same stomach pain it was okay. No reflux.
so...BLEGGGGGHHH. I just want to get back to my normal self. My birthday just passed on the 8th and I couldn't eat my chocolate cake :(. Chocolate is a trigger for the symptoms, so it's been killing me to not have some since it's like a staple in my life. Oh well.
At the beginning of July I started getting heartburn and acid reflux. I believe the culprit was something too spicy and acidic for my body to handle, but this is just strange because never in my life have I had a problem with spicy or acidic food. One day the symptoms would be a breeze and then some days it would be horrible. I took Tums for it for about 2 days but it just masked the problems, it didn't actually solve anything. So, after a week of torture, I went to a local Pharmacist and they told me to take Zantac 75. It worked for a bit but I would still get the symptoms on bad days. So after a week on the Zantac with some results but not much, I then went to a walk-in clinic to first see if they can tell me anything. It was a waste of $20 because they said they exact same thing as the Pharmacist; try Zantac, then Prilosec, and then go to a GI Specialist if all else fails. But I just couldn't take it anymore. This acid reflux was plaguing me for so long that i finally went to see my doctor. All she did was put me on a prescription Ranitidine 150mg (the same thing as Zantac, basically) and I've been taking that for about 4 days. She also told me to east small, frequent meals every two/three hours which I have been doing (before, I was limiting myself to breakfast and dinner because in my mind it felt like the symptoms were better when I had nothing in my system). I have to take 2 pills every day for a month and then I guess we shall see what happens.
I do feel like I have improved, but just last night I had stomach pains all day pretty much. The pain is located where the LES muscle is; the ring of fibers at the base of the esophagus that opens and closes to let food into the stomach. It's like a sharp aching pain, if that makes sense. I've had it since this whole thing started but the Zantac 75 pretty much helped get rid of that, but now all of a sudden it's back and I don't know why. Honestly, it looks like I have days where it's really good and then days where it's really bad, but it won't permanently go away/heal?
Also, I've been avoiding foods that would cause the reflux to flair up but I have been slowly trying to incorperate small bits of my normal food to get my body used to it again and since I've been on the Zantac the only things I have tried are full fat peanut butter (which was a no go), and some egg whites cooked into a piece of bread that I cook/toast in a pan that I would normally have for breakfast; typically I would leave in the egg yolk as well, but they say the yolk brings on symptoms so I tried it without the yolk and even though I felt a bit of that same stomach pain it was okay. No reflux.
so...BLEGGGGGHHH. I just want to get back to my normal self. My birthday just passed on the 8th and I couldn't eat my chocolate cake :(. Chocolate is a trigger for the symptoms, so it's been killing me to not have some since it's like a staple in my life. Oh well.