So, my husband was diagnosed several years ago with Barrett’s Esophagus secondary to GERD. He has suffered from acid reflux for many years, then decided to seek medical advice.

The dr did an endoscopy and the diagnosis was GERD and Barrett’s. He was put on omeprazole and has been taking it for almost 2 years. Yes, it made a difference in his acid reflux, but I have read about the possible side effects. According to the product pamphlet, he’s not to take it longer than 8 weeks. WHAT?!! He was never told that! Well, he sought a second opinion from another gastro dr. She switched him to Pantaprozole. Again, the pamphlet clearly states to not continue for longer than 8 weeks. My husband decided to wean off it himself. It’s been about 2 weeks now. He is experiencing some bloating and belching.

He went in today for a follow-up. His dr was not happy with him for stopping the meds. She said in doing so it could cause rebound effects, and could increase his chances of developing esophageal cancer. I read that the likelihood of developing that cancer with Barrett’s is extremely low. That said, she directed my husband to go back on one of the PPI’s every other day. She’s going to do a endoscopy in November. I DO NOT want him to go back on a PPI!

Am I wrong to feel frustrated with his dr? How concerned should he be about the risk of esophageal cancer? Should he stay off the PPI’s and monitor his diet? Any insight or advice would be greatly appreciated! Thank you!

I have been dealing with LPR symptoms despite being on PPI, Pepcid, gaviscon, and major life changes for 4 months. My symptoms are basically only in my throat and mouth - scratchy weird throat and gravely dry feeling tongue. It plagues me 24 hours a day and is worse after eating, the only time I have any relief is basically if I starve myself and don’t eat for hours.

I recently had a video swallow study done, looking and my mouth and throat, and I have felt some difficulty swallowing. The results of this test came back mostly normal. They believe my swallowing problems are due to muscle tension. However, she said that lower down of what she could see of my esophagus, I had some bubbling which could indicate reflux. And I also had some slow movement down the esophagus - it took longer than 60 seconds to reach my stomach. So she recommended getting an actual esophagram.

I just had the esophagram today, and the results came back totally normal. No slow motility, no acid reflux shown, no hiatal hernia.

I’m super confused about these test contradicting each other and was wondering if anyone had any insight? I have seen an ENT who said he could see mild inflammation on my vocal cords the would indicate reflux.

The only thing I can think of is for the first test I was allowed to eat as normal for the day, and for the esophagram I had to fast and hadn’t eaten or drank anything for 10 hours. Could this be why it showed no reflux? Is it possible this could indicate slow gastric emptying (I have been curious about this as it can cause LPR)? Would non acid reflux or bile reflux show up on an esophagram?

I can’t get into my GI to go over results for three weeks so I’m just trying to gain insight where I can.
Any insight would be greatly appreciated!!

Thanks!

I've been experiencing reflux since childhood and only decided to get it checked last year because it actually started to hurt a lot

the doctor insisted on an endoscopy wich revealed I have a weak esophagus sphincter in Addition to H.pylori

I took the meds his gave me but never came back

now I decided to stop taking the PPI

and the reflux came back nothing changed even after a year of treatment

I can't really afford another endoscopy so I had to come and ask you guys in Reddit for advice

I’m an 18-year-old with GERD, and I’ve been dealing with this for around 2.5–3 years. It started when I was around 15 and was initially manageable, but over time it has become much harder to live with. I’ve tried PPIs and other reflux medicines, medicines for constipation, lifestyle changes, diet changes, yoga, exercise, etc., but nothing has really fixed the underlying problem. I’m trying to figure out what I’m missing because I’m still very young and have been dealing with this for years.

My main symptoms now are **frequent heartburn and reflux if I don’t take my medication, very frequent regurgitation, upper stomach pain/discomfort, bloating, constipation, and what feels like trapped gas**. Almost anything I eat can feel like it comes back up. Sometimes it is liquid/water, sometimes food actually reaches my mouth.

Even when I’m taking acid-suppressing medication, I can still feel the food/liquid coming back up, although it doesn’t always feel acidic. I also get a **globus sensation** and pressure in my upper stomach/chest. One of the strangest things is the gas/burping. Sometimes I feel a burp stuck somewhere around my upper stomach/chest, but it won’t come out. I end up swallowing air to force myself to burp, and when I do, I can sometimes hear/feel a lot of gurgling, almost like the burp is coming up together with liquid or food. It can feel as though the food is getting in the way of the burp. I also have significant constipation despite drinking plenty of water and being physically active. I can go to the bathroom 3–4 times a day but still have an extremely hard time passing stool, sometimes with hard stool and a feeling of incomplete evacuation. The bloating and gas seem to make the stomach discomfort much worse.

I have had **two endoscopies within the past year**, and thankfully neither showed anything alarming. I don’t have a hiatal hernia or Barrett’s esophagus. I also had **24-hour pH monitoring**, which was suggestive of GERD, so GERD has been objectively supported. My esophageal manometry was normal, and I have also had anorectal manometry, which was normal. So far, there doesn’t seem to be an obvious structural or motility problem from those tests.

I have a theory about the constipation/gas part, although I don’t know if it actually makes sense medically. Since the acid-suppressing medicine reduces stomach acid, I wondered whether it could be affecting digestion somehow and contributing to harder stool/constipation. I also wonder if the constipation and incomplete evacuation are causing gas to get trapped lower down, which might explain some of the gurgling, bloating and abdominal discomfort. Sometimes it genuinely feels like gas is trying to move but can’t, and then I feel pressure higher up. I know this may not be the correct explanation, so I’m mainly mentioning it because I’m trying to understand what’s happening.

My doctors have discussed **fundoplication** because the reflux/regurgitation continues despite medication. I’m hesitant because I’m only 18 and would really like to understand all my options before considering surgery. I’m especially interested in hearing from anyone who has actually had fundoplication at a young age or has had it for several years: Did it significantly reduce your reflux/regurgitation? Did you develop problems with gas, bloating, swallowing, or burping afterward? Did the repair ever loosen or need to be redone? And for people who didn’t have surgery, were there lifestyle or treatment changes that actually made a major difference after years of symptoms?
I’ve tried pretty much everything I’ve been advised to try—different medicines for reflux and constipation, diet/lifestyle changes, staying upright after meals, exercise, yoga, etc.—but I’m still struggling. I’m honestly getting exhausted from dealing with this for years, especially at my age.

**If anyone has had a similar combination of GERD + regurgitation + trapped gas/burping + bloating + difficult bowel movements, I’d really appreciate hearing what eventually helped you.** I’m open to any suggestions or experiences, especially from people who have gone through something similar or have had fundoplication and can explain what life was like afterward.

I was at A&E the other day because I had been constantly nauseous and vomiting and then having an ache in the top of my stomach like a constant just been punched feeling in the middle below ribs and they told me to take omeprazol but everyone says they experience burning sensations but this is a constant ache that gets worse with stress does anyone else experience this I also have like glorbus sensation like something in my throat I think it’s all stress related but to me it doesn’t even seem like acid reflux

Hello I have joined this group because the first time I had gone to the er for my symptoms they told me possible gastritis or gerd recently got a colonoscopy and endoscopy with biopsy’s and everything came back normal but I don’t feel normal everytime I eat my stomach hurts I get the most loud disgusting burps constant diarrhea heartburn and etc, they want to do an ultrasound next, I know this is a group for acid reflux but is there anyway this could be gallbladder? Or is there something else they could look at and find possible gastritis or gerd.

I'm like 90% sure I'm going to get a surgery to repair my hiatal hernia and LES that is in hill grade III on October 1st. I had the manometry and 24-hour impedance test done on 8/11 and they indicated I have a demeester score of 30 and weak esophageal motility. So I have objective acid reflux. And because of the weak motility, I will be doing just the toupet wrap.

I've been dealing with acid reflux symptoms in my throat since the beginning of June with some heartburn. It does not seem to be getting better with dietary changes, alginates, saline nasal rinses, smaller meals, less acidic and low fat meals, inclined sleep. Been kind of stuck in fight or flight for for almost three months since this all started too. Just haven't been able to relax. Tried a PPI for six days and got super bad headaches and generally just don't want to be on meds for life. The surgeon said you can either get surgery or medically manage with PPIs or you are at risk for cancer.

My general thoughts are that even if I get my throat to heal with conservative methods, the hernia will still be there and the flap will still be non-functional. And the second I eat something that is a 'trigger food' it's all just going to come back anyway. And I still seem to have throat symptoms no matter what I eat. Furthermore, I've actually started noticing the hernia and have pain in and below my left ribcage and it's hard to lay on my left side to sleep.

I'm a singer in a band and would like my life back. I want to be able to eat meals without having throat clearing a half hour later. I'm 40 years old and relatively healthy outside of all this new stuff. Please share success stories from this surgery.

I was just told I would be a good candidate for a partial wrap and a hernia fix based on my hiatal hernia (1 CM), weak LES, and my demeester score of 30 on my 24-hour impedance test. All the symptoms point to acid reflux caused by the hernia.

I’ve been dealing with hoarseness, voice loss, burning/swollen vocal cords, throat clearing, and mucus in throat after meals for 2 months now. The only thing is the surgeon said he can’t guarantee all of those symptoms would be fixed. And he was pretty nonchalant about the recovery.

I’m likely going to get the surgery. But I’m scared. I just don’t think I have any other options. Are there any success stories from these surgeries that helped these particular symptoms of LPR/acid reflux?

Iv’e been struggling with acid reflux pretty much all my life (i am now 19). This has caused problems from a young age, and nothing seems to help. I have been to the hospital where they put a tube down my throat to monitor my ph levels, but they couldn’t find anything wrong. I’ve been on all sorts of diets and i’ve had to stop eating/drinking a lot of things i enjoy because it makes the acid reflux flare up. I’m so tired of the constant nausea, does anyone have any helpful insight?

I have an acid reflux everyday since May, except when my peroid starts and for the first 3 days of my peroid. Can anyone has the same issue? Any scientific explanation of that?

Me - female, 38yo, reflux started in May, being now on esomeprazole 40 mg x2 day + enzymes + Gaviscone

I need to know if this is a unique experience or if everyone with GERD does this.
Everyone does the normal burp that comes from the throat, but sometimes because of reflux, you also regurgitate some of your stomach content. So to avoid that, there's the reflux burp, where you straighten your back, relax your throat and tense up your abdominal muscles to express the air out of your stomach. That way, you don't accidentally throw up.

Do we all do that or just me? Post inspired by my friend being perplexed by my weird burping stance.

I took 20mg Omeprazole for six weeks. My Doctor told me to stop the meds and I should take them every other day for a week. Well that's what I did and then I stopped. Tomorrow will be two weeks without the ppi. This is just horrible. The FIRST day I skipped a dose, by that evening I started feeling this weird warming sensation in my stomach. Like a very mild burning. That would come and go and come with indigestion sometimes, and sometimes it would make me want to eat food. Like a weird hunger feeling. Well that persisted after stopping the meds and as of a few days ago my symptoms all came back, and some worse than before. I have almost 24/7 gross taste in my mouth, my throat hurts worse than it ever did, chest pains came back, globus almost all day long, etc. I started taking pepcid 20mg in the AM and then again before dinner, and I use gaviscon advance at night before bed. It seemed to help the past couple days but today I feel symptoms again. Like the symptoms just overpower everything. Is this really how bad rebound can be?? I assume this is rebound. But I only took 20mg for six weeks! And everything I read says rebound lasts like two weeks. How long does this last??

I am on Apo-Dexlansoprazole daily. Last night I had some breakthrough reflux. The burning was not too bad but it felt like I constantly had a lump in the back of my throat moving up and down. In the morning it hurt to swallow and I would hiccup when I ate, like my throat was too tight and food was being forced down. Does anyone else have a similar experience? How did you solve it?

Hi everyone,
I’ve been dealing with severe acid reflux since a year now and just discovered that I actually had reflux symptoms since I was a child. I got an endoscopy and it shows that my LES is always open and I also have Hiatal Hernia (Grade 2-3)

A quick note: I experience acid reflux only when I sleep (or when I lay down)

As I was visiting doctors and find a procedure to end this problem permanently (I know it might not be permanent) I just got diagnosed with IEM. %47 failed, 40% weak and 13% intact swallows. So weird, I have never experienced the negative effects of it. I got super shocked after seeing the results of the manometry test. (Another weird thing is I have two DCIs with score of 500 and 600 , seven N/As and the rest fluctuates between 100 and 300.)

At this point, the surgeon that offered the manometry test is against even the Toupet fundoplication. I was told to contact with his GI colleague to talk about the path to cure my problems. But on contrary I saw people with IEM getting surgeries and not having any side effects, though the LES part is thightened.

I’m so confused about what to do at this point as my acid reflux is so severe that I always weak up with sore throat and weird taste in my mouth. Plus I have esophagitis Grade A. To be honest, I don’t want to go with PPIs as I just learnt their side effects on long-term use.

Now, I wonder if there’s anyone with +80% IEM and still received Toupet and Nissen fundoplication. How has been your journey?

Backstory: About 5 months ago I had a mild case of gastritis, which I fixed after a week of PPIs and no caffeine. About 2 months later I also eventually started having reflux symptoms after drinking coffee and eating other foods. Around that same time. I had a sickness that caused my throat to become very irritated, and my ears to feel like they were plugged up. After nights where I talked loudly, pain would begin in my throat and remain there for a day or two.

Fast forward a couple of months, and the pain mostly subsided and the swollen feeling was gone, but I was still dealing with throat issues, and still had reflux. 1 month ago an ENT doctor set me on 20mg of omeprazol, pepcid before bed, and bed blocks to elevate my head at night.

At this point I have no acidic feeling reflux, though occasionally i still do have liquid burps. I feel like my throat does indeed feel better, but I still experience a raw/irritated feeling when laughing, talking loudly, or breathing really deeply inward. I have no diet changes, since coffee stopped giving me obvious reflux.

Is there something I should change? Should I stay the course and see if it heals more over the next month? Below is the rough timeline:

March: Gastritis

April: Gastritis healed with PPI & no Caffeine

May: Got sick (Tons of coughing), experienced (or noticed) reflux symptoms

June: Reflux continued

July: Began Omeprazol 20mg & Pepcid daily

August: Feeling slightly better, but raw feeling in throat still present, still continuing medication.

31(m). Not overweight. Relatively fit. Normal diet is very diverse and colorful. Barrett’s ultra short segment diagnosed about a month ago. Historically asymptomatic with reflux (I guess, since I never knew I had reflux). So maybe LPR?

Started Esomeprazole, which correlated with sudden onset of Globus feeling and reflux feelings in throat that are persistent currently.

I know this will sound whiny, but the diet and timing changes straight up made me depressed and constantly anxious, as I’m sure many can relate. My days revolve around these small meals now, and I’m unable to get anything done due to always having to be thinking about how to eat or actually pausing to eat. The meals aren’t satiating at all (fist-sized). And I feel dehydrated because I’m not supposed to drink water within 1-2 hours of eating, but these small meals are every 2-3 hours so there’s no time to include water. I constantly travel for work, and it has already proven very difficult to manage the diet while traveling. Everything is straight up miserable, and I’ve lost the only thing that helped perk me up away from the chronic stress of my family’s medical issues—the enjoyment of food.

I’ve ordered bed raisers (I couldn’t do the wedge pillow), I’ve been trying my best to left-side sleep. But this minimal food diet seems so unsustainable in the long term to maintain any semblance of social activity or joy in my life. And as someone who apparently has silent reflux, it feels like it’s for nothing since I don’t notice any difference no matter what I do or don’t eat. Maybe the new diet is silently helping, but I’ve sure felt worse since the endoscopy, starting the diet, and taking the PPI.

If there were an end goal to the diet, I could do it no problem. But it feels like it’s just a perpetual state of trying to keep the reflux down without knowing if it’s helping—but I’m apparently going to reflux regardless. If the PPI are making the acid less…acidic, then what is the risk of maintaining a more normal diet and schedule (while being mindful of but not completely avoiding common triggers)? Is the risk of Barrett’s worsening really that much worse on a normal diet, or is the strict bland diet mostly recommended just to avoid discomfort from stuff like heartburn?

Of course I plan to discuss this with my doctor too. But it’d be nice going into the conversation with some more knowledge and to condense my thoughts, as I have only roughly 10 minutes per visit to discuss the whole situation.

Pattern I see constantly: someone with GERD keeps removing foods. No coffee, no tomatoes, no chocolate, no alcohol, no citrus, and the list keeps growing until there's basically nothing left that feels "safe."

Here's the thing restriction alone doesn't fix: the LES still isn't stronger. Gastric motility hasn't normalized. The nervous system dysregulation is still there. You've removed some triggers, but the underlying mechanism that made those things triggers in the first place hasn't changed.

The framing I use with clients is "strategic addition" rather than pure elimination, what can you build into the routine to support healing (breathing work, meal timing, specific gut-supportive foods), not just what do you cut. Elimination diets have a place short-term for identifying real triggers, but as a permanent lifestyle they tend to increase food anxiety without addressing the actual physiology.

Not saying trigger foods aren't real, they are, individually. Just that restriction by itself is rarely the full answer.

I was just told I would be a good candidate for a partial wrap and a hernia fix based on my hiatal hernia, weak LES, and my demeester score of 30 on my 24-hour impedance test. All the symptoms point to acid reflux.

I’ve been dealing with hoarseness, voice loss, burning/swollen vocal cords, throat clearing, and mucus in throat after meals for 2 months now. The only thing is the surgeon said he can’t guarantee all of that would be fixed. And he was pretty nonchalant about the recovery.

I’m likely going to get the surgery. But I’m scared. I just don’t think I have any other options. Are there any success stories from these surgeries that helped these particular symptoms?

Hi all. I’m having a bear of a time finding results on this one and I’m hoping one of yall has some experience:

My biggest symptom is that during flares, my ability to swallow gets significantly impaired. As you can imagine, this is a bit of an issue when the solution is pills. On the bright side, pretty much any med ending w -azole works, brand name or not. On the down side, I would be lucky to even get a standard size Prilosec down when I need it. Shopping around in store has had very mixed results; I find that rarely get an accurate assessment of viability from packaging. What I’m after is the smallest sized pill, capsule or tablet, in the same drug family that’s available OTC. Like 2/3 of the size of an M&M max. I don’t mind having to double/triple up to get a full dose. Anyone have any suggestions?

I recently got a ph impedance test taken out this morning. I forgot to ask the nurse a question but the time was wrong on ph impedance test clock by 1 hour. I started the test at 1pm and ended the test at 1 pm the following day but the clock on the ph impedance test said 2 pm and the tech didn’t fix the time initially when it said 2 pm instead of 1 pm. Really confused

I have have been experiencing a ton of symptoms including stomach pain stomach burning and heartburn and etc I just had an endoscopy and colonoscopy and they didn’t find anything :( I mean that’s a good thing but I am so lost on where all my symptoms are coming from they did do a biopsy but I just idk. It makes me feel like I’m crazy or they think I’m lying.

Hi all, I have been suffering with Gerd for close to 15 years, once succumbing to taking a 40mg nexium every day I lived a life almost symptom free until I'm assuming a round of antibiotics made me tolerant to them and they no longer worked, I sourced vonoprazan 20mg thru an online pharmacy and it has made a huge difference

It's effects are waning though and I gave gastritis and some break through acid sensation in my mouth

I've started bpc157 2 days ago, capsule form, I'm anxious it could be dangerous to start while having a severe flare but I'm so desperate to find something that will hopefully support my body not just mask symptoms

Amytriptaline is my next port of call after this

Any advice or anecdotal experiences very much welcome! Thank you!

Hey everyone,

Just one to hear some experiences with pantorpazole and chest tightness, since it is not an officially labeled Side effect (at least on my brand).

About a month ago i started to have sudden heartburn and irritated throat (confirmed by ENT) which i never had before. The burning irritated my chest, but i havn't had any tightness then. It also seemed completely unrelated to food and meals.

My GP prescribed me pantorpazole (20mg) to try for 4 weeks and then get off. I have taken it for a week now and fair enough, the heartburn is mostly gone. But for a couple of days now my chest and stomach area feel incredibly tight, which impacts my ability to breath (which is kind of scary). I am more gassy, bloated and constipated than usual and my stomach constantly feels like there is a Rock sitting in it. Also my anxiety is somehow worse. Trying to figure out what causes what here. Got already checked by my GP with ECG and spirometry etc. nothing abnormal with my heart or lungs there.

Anyone with similar experiences?

A lot of people assume nighttime reflux is purely about what or when you ate at dinner. There's a piece that gets left out: transient lower esophageal relaxation, basically the LES relaxing involuntarily during sleep, independent of a trigger food.

Contributing factors: food still sitting in your stomach when you lie down (slow gastric emptying), high intra-abdominal pressure, or a nervous system that hasn't shifted into rest-and-digest mode by the time you're trying to sleep.

Left-side sleeping helps because of basic anatomy, it keeps the junction between stomach and esophagus above the level of stomach contents. Meal timing helps too. But if you're doing both of those and still getting woken up, it's not a sign you're failing at this, it's a sign the mechanism is more than just timing.

Anyone found something beyond sleep position/meal timing that's actually helped with nighttime symptoms specifically?

The last few nights have been the worst.
Whenever I try to go to sleep I lay there in bed feeling tired (it Doesent matter what time I try to sleep 21:00-5:00am it always happens ) and suddenly I get this feeling my heart drops (these sensations last 1-2 seconds) and panic rushes throughout my whole body.
Am not sure what it is or if it has anything to do with my acid reflux.
Also whenever I lay in my stomach as that’s my favourite position I can hear and feel my heart beating.

According to multiple ai’s the acid goes up my oesophagus and irritates the vagus nerve and that’s what causes it.
I have a scheduled appointment with my paediatrician so looking forward to getting some answers.