Diatribe to GERD
I turned 27 roughly 10 minutes ago (3:44 am). I've been up nearly 90 minutes. This isn't how I pictured it when I went to bed four hours ago.
You see, I woke up in what felt like a coughing fit. I bolted up, coughed, nearly gagged, and quickly stood. I had been "choking" on what felt like spit collected in the back of my throat. It wasn't spit, though. It was stomach acid.
In September of last year I was diagnosed with chronic symptoms of gastroesophageal refulux disease (GERD). The muscle at the top of my stomach is weak, which causes my stomach contents to occasionally escape. The acidic mix "refluxes" up my esophagus, a very uncomfortable endeavor. This reflux is what causes heartburn, but mine goes a step beyond bad taco night. When it's really bad, it refluxes to the back of my throat. The entire time I feel nauseated, bloated, and panicked, since feeling like I'm going to puke induces anxiety and panic attacks.
This happens almost every time I eat with major reflux episodes every two dinners, or so.
I take Lansoprazole every morning, though it seems like I need to raise the dose given the frequency of symptoms. I can rarely sleep past 8:30am, no matter how late I went to bed, because my stomach starts overproducing acid without the daily medication. One could say that my body adapted to the medicine, which is precisely why I didn't want to take it full time. Thing is, I think I would be worse-off without it.
The symptoms have been building ever since my second semester at grad school (Feb 2011, to be exact). I went through a three-week period where I had frequent heartburn and was unable to swallow without a gulp of water. It's called dysphasia - my throat tightens and it becomes physically difficult to swallow even the spit in my mouth. I chalked it up to stress, which seemed plausible as it went away a month later. It came back that September for a month, then the following March for a month. Finally, in July 2012, the reflux issues picked up and never went away.
Diagnosing GERD is basically the last thing standing on the doctor's checklist: you're left with it once other insidious diseases are ruled out. That meant an upper endoscopy last October. I'm grateful the conscious sedation was spiked with a drug that helps eliminate short-term memory because having a flexible tube the diameter of a pencil forced down my throat and into my stomach would have undoubtedly left some sort of trauma given my anxiety (I only remember gagging at the beginning of the procedure, though the sedation caused me not to care). They ruled out stomach cancer, a pre-cancerous condition, bacterial infection, and others. Don't get me wrong, it was worth the test to know that I don't have these problems.
The doctor gave me three options: (1) Take my medicine every day, instead of the recommended two week courses every 4 months (2) Drastically alter my diet to eliminate everything except a fraction of food (3) Talk to a surgeon about having an irreversible procedure that may eliminate the symptoms, but doesn't have a 100% success rate. I can't afford (3), unfortunately.
In the last year I've lost 20-25 pounds. I used to weigh close to 170 and now I'm 143. I can't physically eat the same quantity of food that I could a few years ago without feeling like I'll vomit.
When a reflux episode starts, there's nothing I can do except wait for it to end. This usually takes 20-40 minutes of nausea, bloating, and, in my case, panicking. It's ironic that I spend so much time panicking about throwing up because GERD has never once caused me to become physically ill. I've felt incredibly close a number of times, but it always stops short. For that, I'm grateful.
Reflux happens regardless of the food I eat. It sometimes happens a few hours after I eat, which I guess is when my stomach is emptying. I've learned to let it settle in the morning before taking my medicine because I've practically regurgitated the pill within seconds of swallowing.
I've had to learn the hard way which foods are good and which are not. Hot soup, for instance, destroys me. This one has been hard because I LOVE hot soup. Creamy foods, like creamy soups, stews, and chili also end poorly. Hot food in general have a negative reaction (strangely, if I take leftovers and eat it cold I'm a lot better with it). Spicy foods are REALLY bad. Anything with curry powder makes it feel like I have a sock balled up near my tonsils. Sometimes, it's not even the food. If I eat too fast I usually get symptoms. Sometimes I can eat something that usually reacts poorly and I'm fine and other days, like right now, I wake up with terrible reflux having not eaten anything in 7 hours.
Nothing has ever impacted my day-to-day life as much as GERD. It's strange how much it's changed me in the last year. It's strange that I can hardly remember what it was like when my stomach acted "normal". It's usually not so bad that I wake up at 2:15 and am not asleep by 5am (like this moment), yet that's what happens when I throw caution to the wind, eat at a fantastic restaurant, and pace myself so I could eat about 3/4 what I could three years ago.
I suppose that last part is the difference. I don't want to be afraid of food. I eat what I want, yet acknowledge the risk of what may happen. I do little things like eat smaller meals more often, but I don't want to, say, skip celebrating my 2-year-dating anniversary because I'm scared of what will happen.
Like it or not, this is probably not going away in any permanent capacity (at least for the next 2-3 years before I earn enough to consider the surgery). The only think left is to shake hands and learn to live with it.
You see, I woke up in what felt like a coughing fit. I bolted up, coughed, nearly gagged, and quickly stood. I had been "choking" on what felt like spit collected in the back of my throat. It wasn't spit, though. It was stomach acid.
In September of last year I was diagnosed with chronic symptoms of gastroesophageal refulux disease (GERD). The muscle at the top of my stomach is weak, which causes my stomach contents to occasionally escape. The acidic mix "refluxes" up my esophagus, a very uncomfortable endeavor. This reflux is what causes heartburn, but mine goes a step beyond bad taco night. When it's really bad, it refluxes to the back of my throat. The entire time I feel nauseated, bloated, and panicked, since feeling like I'm going to puke induces anxiety and panic attacks.
This happens almost every time I eat with major reflux episodes every two dinners, or so.
I take Lansoprazole every morning, though it seems like I need to raise the dose given the frequency of symptoms. I can rarely sleep past 8:30am, no matter how late I went to bed, because my stomach starts overproducing acid without the daily medication. One could say that my body adapted to the medicine, which is precisely why I didn't want to take it full time. Thing is, I think I would be worse-off without it.
The symptoms have been building ever since my second semester at grad school (Feb 2011, to be exact). I went through a three-week period where I had frequent heartburn and was unable to swallow without a gulp of water. It's called dysphasia - my throat tightens and it becomes physically difficult to swallow even the spit in my mouth. I chalked it up to stress, which seemed plausible as it went away a month later. It came back that September for a month, then the following March for a month. Finally, in July 2012, the reflux issues picked up and never went away.
Diagnosing GERD is basically the last thing standing on the doctor's checklist: you're left with it once other insidious diseases are ruled out. That meant an upper endoscopy last October. I'm grateful the conscious sedation was spiked with a drug that helps eliminate short-term memory because having a flexible tube the diameter of a pencil forced down my throat and into my stomach would have undoubtedly left some sort of trauma given my anxiety (I only remember gagging at the beginning of the procedure, though the sedation caused me not to care). They ruled out stomach cancer, a pre-cancerous condition, bacterial infection, and others. Don't get me wrong, it was worth the test to know that I don't have these problems.
The doctor gave me three options: (1) Take my medicine every day, instead of the recommended two week courses every 4 months (2) Drastically alter my diet to eliminate everything except a fraction of food (3) Talk to a surgeon about having an irreversible procedure that may eliminate the symptoms, but doesn't have a 100% success rate. I can't afford (3), unfortunately.
In the last year I've lost 20-25 pounds. I used to weigh close to 170 and now I'm 143. I can't physically eat the same quantity of food that I could a few years ago without feeling like I'll vomit.
When a reflux episode starts, there's nothing I can do except wait for it to end. This usually takes 20-40 minutes of nausea, bloating, and, in my case, panicking. It's ironic that I spend so much time panicking about throwing up because GERD has never once caused me to become physically ill. I've felt incredibly close a number of times, but it always stops short. For that, I'm grateful.
Reflux happens regardless of the food I eat. It sometimes happens a few hours after I eat, which I guess is when my stomach is emptying. I've learned to let it settle in the morning before taking my medicine because I've practically regurgitated the pill within seconds of swallowing.
I've had to learn the hard way which foods are good and which are not. Hot soup, for instance, destroys me. This one has been hard because I LOVE hot soup. Creamy foods, like creamy soups, stews, and chili also end poorly. Hot food in general have a negative reaction (strangely, if I take leftovers and eat it cold I'm a lot better with it). Spicy foods are REALLY bad. Anything with curry powder makes it feel like I have a sock balled up near my tonsils. Sometimes, it's not even the food. If I eat too fast I usually get symptoms. Sometimes I can eat something that usually reacts poorly and I'm fine and other days, like right now, I wake up with terrible reflux having not eaten anything in 7 hours.
Nothing has ever impacted my day-to-day life as much as GERD. It's strange how much it's changed me in the last year. It's strange that I can hardly remember what it was like when my stomach acted "normal". It's usually not so bad that I wake up at 2:15 and am not asleep by 5am (like this moment), yet that's what happens when I throw caution to the wind, eat at a fantastic restaurant, and pace myself so I could eat about 3/4 what I could three years ago.
I suppose that last part is the difference. I don't want to be afraid of food. I eat what I want, yet acknowledge the risk of what may happen. I do little things like eat smaller meals more often, but I don't want to, say, skip celebrating my 2-year-dating anniversary because I'm scared of what will happen.
Like it or not, this is probably not going away in any permanent capacity (at least for the next 2-3 years before I earn enough to consider the surgery). The only think left is to shake hands and learn to live with it.