The Indignities of Middle Age, Part 2: Stomach
In part 1, I mentioned gastroesophageal reflux disorder (GERD), which is basically a fancy way of saying that stomach acid is regularly up the esophagus. Basically, it's acid reflux taken to the next level.
So a little backstory - basically my entire life, I've thrown up in my mouth occasionally after eating, usually after really large meals. It never hurt, it wasn't super common, and since it had been happening quite literally as long as I could remember, it never occurred to me that this wasn't normal. It's not like Americans are terribly forthcoming about anything around puke, piss, sweat, shit or really anything that comes out of our bodies, so to the very limited extent that I thought about it I just figured that people weren't mentioning it. When I started dating M, she said quite authoritatively "that's not normal" but it was never causing issues so I didn't worry about it too much.
Then, during the height of COVID, I had some extremely painful coughing that went on for weeks. It typically only happened when I woke up in the morning, but it felt like I was getting knifed every time I took a breath, with some substantial stomach pains just for fun. Multiple COVID tests came back negative, so eventually I went see my personal nurse practitioner. Apparently this is a reasonably frequent problem, because she immediately realized that when I lay down, stomach acid was going up my esophagus and the fumes were getting into my lungs. Once I stopped lying down in the morning, it would go back to my stomach and the pain would subside.
I got a prescription to tame my stomach acid, a list of foods to avoid and an appointment with an endoscope. That appointment turned up a hiatal hernia, which basically means the valve between my stomach and esophagus doesn't work right. Given my lifetime of symptoms, it probably never has.
The hiatal hernia is small and not nearly serious enough to try surgery to correct it. Fortunately, the combination of prescription plus avoiding certain foods plus not eating for several hours before I lie down for bed seems to be keeping this sunder control. The prescription stopped the knife-like coughing almost immediately, and all three methods together greatly reduced the incidence of stomach pain. I have a separate prescription to take "if my stomach hurts a lot" and I've only had to use it 2-3 times.
The downside is that this isn't really going to have a permanent fix. Over enough time there's a chance that the prescription may reduce the amount of acid my stomach produces to the point where I no longer need the prescription, but the dietary changes will have to stay in place more or less forever.
Now, eating earlier in the evening isn't too tough, but I've been advised not to consume caffeine, carbonation, chocolate, spicy food, mint and alcohol. I never drank much caffeine anyway, and thankfully chocolate and mint don't seem to cause too much trouble when I do have them, but spicy food, carbonation and alcohol definitely are not good for my stomach. I had one scotch at the Super Bowl party in the middle of the afternoon, and even that hurt a little. The last time I had a beer (May 2022) it felt terrible the next day, and not in a "well I earned that" hangover sense, in a "somebody just kicked me repeatedly in the stomach" sense.
So my middle aged stomach is more or less limited to water out of all the things I like to drink. My curries are now ordered at a spicy level of 3/10 instead of 8/10. Alcohol is basically gone except for cooking with wine. Pain is a powerful motivator.
So a little backstory - basically my entire life, I've thrown up in my mouth occasionally after eating, usually after really large meals. It never hurt, it wasn't super common, and since it had been happening quite literally as long as I could remember, it never occurred to me that this wasn't normal. It's not like Americans are terribly forthcoming about anything around puke, piss, sweat, shit or really anything that comes out of our bodies, so to the very limited extent that I thought about it I just figured that people weren't mentioning it. When I started dating M, she said quite authoritatively "that's not normal" but it was never causing issues so I didn't worry about it too much.
Then, during the height of COVID, I had some extremely painful coughing that went on for weeks. It typically only happened when I woke up in the morning, but it felt like I was getting knifed every time I took a breath, with some substantial stomach pains just for fun. Multiple COVID tests came back negative, so eventually I went see my personal nurse practitioner. Apparently this is a reasonably frequent problem, because she immediately realized that when I lay down, stomach acid was going up my esophagus and the fumes were getting into my lungs. Once I stopped lying down in the morning, it would go back to my stomach and the pain would subside.
I got a prescription to tame my stomach acid, a list of foods to avoid and an appointment with an endoscope. That appointment turned up a hiatal hernia, which basically means the valve between my stomach and esophagus doesn't work right. Given my lifetime of symptoms, it probably never has.
The hiatal hernia is small and not nearly serious enough to try surgery to correct it. Fortunately, the combination of prescription plus avoiding certain foods plus not eating for several hours before I lie down for bed seems to be keeping this sunder control. The prescription stopped the knife-like coughing almost immediately, and all three methods together greatly reduced the incidence of stomach pain. I have a separate prescription to take "if my stomach hurts a lot" and I've only had to use it 2-3 times.
The downside is that this isn't really going to have a permanent fix. Over enough time there's a chance that the prescription may reduce the amount of acid my stomach produces to the point where I no longer need the prescription, but the dietary changes will have to stay in place more or less forever.
Now, eating earlier in the evening isn't too tough, but I've been advised not to consume caffeine, carbonation, chocolate, spicy food, mint and alcohol. I never drank much caffeine anyway, and thankfully chocolate and mint don't seem to cause too much trouble when I do have them, but spicy food, carbonation and alcohol definitely are not good for my stomach. I had one scotch at the Super Bowl party in the middle of the afternoon, and even that hurt a little. The last time I had a beer (May 2022) it felt terrible the next day, and not in a "well I earned that" hangover sense, in a "somebody just kicked me repeatedly in the stomach" sense.
So my middle aged stomach is more or less limited to water out of all the things I like to drink. My curries are now ordered at a spicy level of 3/10 instead of 8/10. Alcohol is basically gone except for cooking with wine. Pain is a powerful motivator.