Life Moves Forward

It’s been a couple of months since I’ve blogged and I’ve had some breakthroughs. The biggest discovery I’ve made is that I’m lactose intolerant. I’ve cut out all milk based products and I’ve started to feel so much better. I’ve tried a couple of days without my medicine but you don’t realize everything that has milk in some form in it. This has been the hardest change for me because of my love for cheese and ice cream. I’ve been occasionally slipping in some things I love and it doesn’t bother me as much but overall we’ve made major food changes in the house.

The doctor changed my medicine to Nexium because the insurance company wouldn’t cover the Zegerid without me trying Nexium first. I’ve also been taking magnesium because of some things I’ve read about the potential link between GERD and the lack of magnesium and zinc missing from my body. The verdict is still out on whether or not it’s working so I’ll let you know in another blog post.

My weight has leveled out at about 15 pounds lost which is pretty good. I’ve started walking again this week so hopefully my weight will start to go down again since I’ve got my eating under control and starting to feel better.

A few things the doctors asked me to stop eating were chocolate, sugar and caffeine. I’ve found I definitely can’t have chocolate…even the smallest amount causes a lot of pain. As for sugar and caffeine I’m ok. I can have small amounts of sugar but not every day. I actually had caffeine yesterday for the first time in 4 months and didn’t have a reaction to it; I was so excited. There’s a great new water called Avitae; which has natural caffeine in purified water. It tastes just like regular water to me. I believe it’s the acid in soda pop that causes irritation to people with GERD.

Overall the last 2 months have been successful for me and I’m starting to feel so much better. If I can stop taking the Nexium I definitely will but I’ve come to the understanding I may have to keep taking the medicine and I’m ok with that.

Stay tuned to more GERD adventure.

There’s Hope!

I went in for my yearly physical on Friday and I’m glad I did. We talked about GERD for a while. My biggest question was why does this happen all of a sudden? He said looking at my results from my endoscopy that he believes I had an infection that I may still have causing my GERD to get inflamed. By calming down my acid reflux it would allow the infection to heal. I explained what symptoms have not gone away even with my changes and he agreed my medicine’s not strong enough and it needed to be changed.

Today is my first day on Zegerid 40mg and so far so good. I can tell there’s been a lot of inflammation in my esophagus over the last month because my esophagus is sore. Recently I had pain when I would eat anything but today even though I’m careful my pain is minimal.  

The doctor said that if the Zegerid works when I come in for a 2 month check up we could work on a plan to help me stop taking the medicine. I was relieved someone was finally hearing me. With today being a good day I finally feel like I have hope.

Hello? Is this thing on?

The last week has not been fun! My symptom’s have gotten worse again. No matter what I eat or how much I’m hungry within an hour and have pain. I’m taking Zantac at least once to twice a day on top of my Prilosec just to not have severe discomfort. It makes me feel like my medicine isn’t even working.

I have my yearly physical on Friday this week and it can’t come soon enough. I know if I call my specialist they’re going to tell me just to eat my safe foods. Well what do you do when the safe foods aren’t safe anymore?

You’re Too Young

Today we had my husband’s brother and family come over for a Christmas lunch. I was talking to my sister-in-law and found out that my oldest niece, she’s 17, has GERD. My sister-in-law mentioned that they think she’s had it since she was born. When my niece and I started talking and comparing notes she said she wasn’t given any restrictions just medicine but wasn’t eating much because she had pain with certain things. She’s very tiny already so I worry that she’s not getting enough food. I showed her the restrictions that doctor put me on and she wanted to a copy. Also, my husband is going to make me some blocks to lift the head of our bed up and he’s going to make her a set too since she has most of her pain at night.

This went to show me that this condition knows no age. I hope that I’m able to help my niece with information when she needs it.

No Cookies?!

I’ve been trying for a few days to get more information from my doctor to understand what’s causing my stomach to be over acidic. They said they don’t know why but that if I follow the diet and instructions, I finally received yesterday, I wouldn’t have any pain. When I looked at the list I realized I’m doing things right except when I experiment with new foods, but I still can’t help but think there’s got to be a way to occasionally eat things I do like in small quantities; a occasional cookie maybe.

I did eat a cookie yesterday and was so miserable by late yesterday afternoon I had to do something. I stopped by the pharmacy on the way home and asked the pharmacist about what else I could take for quick relief. The pharmacist was very helpful and I found out I can take Zantac and any liquid antacid on top of my Prilosec. Can we say excited?! I bought both to see what works. When I got home I took a Zantac and within 30 minutes I felt better; now a must have in my purse. I was surprised how quickly it worked. I ate a light “safe” dinner last night and actually slept well last night.

I found a great breakfast item this week too! I’ve eaten a lot of yogurt lately but I like variety in my food. I have a habit of being nauseous by the time I get to work in the morning and it’s hard to calm down my stomach. I’ve started eating a banana before I leave the house and it holds me over for a while. About an hour after I get to work I have an Ensure to drink (takes me about 30 minutes to drink it) and it holds me over for the rest of the morning so if I have meetings I don’t have to worry about eating all the time.

One of the things I’m researching is what causes extra acidity in my stomach and what I can do to change it other than just changing my eating; I believe there’s a connection.

The Days After

Since my procedure was on a Monday I knew I had to be careful for a couple more days because it was Thanksgiving weekend. I ended up getting through the first couple of days but not without some pain. I would experiment at night but not with a lot of success. The 2 main things I had to stop immediately was Diet Pepsi and chocolate but it wasn’t easy. I ended up being successful (getting through the caffeine headache) and haven’t had much caffeine free soda since then only occasionally and it actually doesn’t really taste good. The other interesting thing I found out is that soda in general doesn’t sit well for me because of the acid.

Over the last 3 weeks without really working out I’ve lost 7 pounds. Since I’m eating a lot smaller meals more often it’s helped for me to control how I feel. I’ve found eating about the size of my fist is the best.  The opportunity to eat more is everywhere around me and it’s out of habit to do so I’ve had a lot of left over food around me.

I’m not feeling well

About 6 months ago I started not feeling well. If you were to ask me I couldn’t tell you why I just didn’t feel well. One of the crazy things that I mentioned to both my OB-GYN and Family Physician was that I thought I was perimenopausal because I was getting hot flashes. I was told no because that was really my only symptom. During the next 6 months I didn’t have any energy and was tired all the time. Granted I’m not a small person but I’m not obesely over weight either; as a matter of fact I’m up to the same weight I was in high school. The really frustrating part was I wanted to workout and get back into shape but every time I went to the gym I was tired and it took me a couple of days to get the energy to workout again. Some of the things I didn’t realize I was doing was taking Tums like candy before bed till my husband brought it to my attention.

I ended up going to the local Med Check because my doctor didn’t have any openings and I was running a slight fever and the swallowing was getting worse. After waiting 3 hours (which is crazy to wait) to see the doctor she looked at me and said there was nothing she could do for me that I needed to see the Gastroenterologist; which was the last place I thought I would need to go.

When I went to my personal Gastroenterologist, Dr. Harrison, he wasn’t surprised that they sent me to him since he handles what I call the human plumbing system. After he examined me he explained that he wanted to do an endoscopy procedure on me as soon as he had an opening. He thought he would have to dilate my esophagus to open it back up because the acid may have damaged the esophagus.

I got in to have the procedure done the following Monday but started researching over the weekend. Because I was having a hard time eating I starting using some of the techniques I was reading about and cut my meal portions down and started eating a lot more throughout the day; it helped.

On Monday morning I went in for the procedure that took about 15 minutes and was pretty out of it most of the day. The doctor told my husband that I should be fine and back to normal by the next morning but I wasn’t. From the dilation of my esophagus I was very sore and when I drank anything but water it actually hurt. The medicine Dr. Harrison put me on was just over the counter Prilosec but not just for 14 days but indefinitely. I think that scared me more than anything because I don’t want to be on any meds indefinitely.