For all those using OTC Omeprazole, ask your doctor to prescribe it for you. My wife has taken it every day for years, and when it was prescribed for her after an ER visit, we found that the cost for a prescription was a tiny fraction of the OTC price: around $2 instead of $18. When the ER prescription ran out, she asked her PCP to prescribe it, which she did. If only we’d known years ago.
I had similar problems as the OP, and Llama’s “cure” is also the steps I took to eliminate the issue; reflux free for 5 years now.
Mine was, like Llama’s, a combination of diet and timing of my evening meals/drinks before going to bed. I also began taking a dietary supplement of probiotic acidophilus.
If my wife’s diabetic supplies are an indicator, I expect a protracted fight with the insurance company which will probably refuse to pay for the particular brand of ‘durable medical goods’ I’d end up getting prescribed. Then if/when I go to use it, I would never be able to get to sleep wearing some strange mask and end up getting tangled up in cords, straps, and hoses as I roll around completely sleepless all night.
Now maybe that wouldn’t happen, but since I was sort of a borderline diagnosis my fears tipped the scale to opt out.
Megadittoes to the above.
Reflux certainly can be a temporary problem. I had an annoying case of it years ago, to the point where I was temporarily on a PPI. Then it went away and has never recurred.
Lifestyle changes (including avoidance/limiting of trigger foods, not eating late in the day, elevating the head of the bed etc.) are a good idea before concluding that meds are needed.
I try to eat early in the evening. It’s much more likely to wake me up if I’ve gone to bed with my stomach churning its contents around.
Sadly, weight is definitely a contributing factor, there’s a ton of literature on it. I’m not sure if it’s because being overweight causes sleep apnea, which causes reflux, or if they are independently influenced by weight. I know that when I lost a bunch of weight (and kept it off! Yay me!), my reflux disappeared. However, I know that’s easier said than done.
My boyfriend is weird and can lose weight rather easily. He lets his weight creep up until he starts getting reflux, and then he gets annoyed by the reflux and loses it all again.
I agree with trying pillows, limiting late night eating, cutting back on late night booze before moving to medications. In my limited experience (and that of those around me), you become dependent on the medication pretty easily and then it is of limited use.
Nissen fundoplication for the win. Reflux? Gone. Ability to burp? Vastly reduced. Ability to vomit? Much more difficult and usually painful. However, did I mention: Reflux? Gone?
I get acid reflux once or twice a month while in bed.
It usually occurs after a late dinner. I try to eat several hours before I lie down for bed.
I had bad reflux and lost 35 pounds, and after that didn’t have any reflux for several years. My weight crept up slowly to the BAD weight and the reflux came roaring back. I actually think it’s pressure that does it since I carry all my excess weight in my belly. Anyhow it’s a great diet aid. If my weight starts to creep up I have that horrible wake-up-with-a-throat-full-of-ACID, and I start cutting back on snacks immediately.
The only times I wake up with the contents of my stomach burning up into my mouth are when I totally overindulge with food and drink. I’m not out of control so that might happen twice a year. Otherwise my reflux is just pain and misery all day. When I smoked, when after I quit. When I eat spicy foods, when I eat bland foods. When I am heavy, when I am skinny. It seems to happen all the time. I’ve been on prescription Prevacid for a long time. It was like a miracle to me. I got my life back. But apparently that’s one of the bad medicines that is trying to kill me so I’ll have to go back to a specialist.
Good for you.
I’ve had patients, whom after fundoplication lost their ability to burp or vomit comfortably, and even had trouble swallowing foods. But they still had reflux.
I had some stomach pain which the doctor thought could be an ulcer or GERD. I stopped the caffeine and it largely went away, then one time it came back (could not resist the coffee) much worse. I have taken some probiotics and mastic gum every day since and lost weight and had no issues whatsoever since (many months ago) despite returning to drink caffeine.
Lots of good info in the thread. I’ve not much to add except to mention that middle-of-the-night-you-can’t-breathe-and-your-trachea-is-aflame is an extremely unpleasant way to wake up.
It’s only happened to me a handful of times, and not recently, but the one commonality with all of my episodes is that I ate something - usually something substantial - shortly before going to bed.
Good luck,
mmm
Good for you. I know 4 people including myself who’ve had it done, all with excellent results and considerably-improved quality of life 5-15 years on. Are you suggesting it is a less than reasonable procedure for the OP to look into? Because I would, respectfully, disagree.
Please disregard my snark if there was none intended from you–limitations of written media and all that.
No snark intended. I truly meant it was good for you that you had such a good outcome, because that’s not always the case.
My point is that it’s not a cure-all procedure and that there’s a significantly higher percentage of patients who regret having this particular elective procedure than for other (unrelated) elective procedures.
Do I tell my patients not to have the surgery? No. I refer the appropriate patients to the surgeons who do the procedure, so they can discuss the risks and benefits. But I like to make sure they know there’s a real possibility that they won’t get the results that were advertised. If the patient goes ahead and has the procedure knowing that, it’s ok by me.
Apologies. I’m a defensive prick by nature, but I’m working on it. Should get a handle on it in another 30 years or so.
Prior to getting on omeprazole, what you describe happened to me probably 3-4 nights a week. Waking up choking, my lungs aflame, hours spent waiting for the burning to quit so that I could try to get some sleep. One night, it was so bad that I mixed up a heavy solution of baking soda and water, then pursed my lips and attempted to inhale/aerosolize the liquid to neutralize the acid that was hissing and popping in my chest.
I finally went in and found out that I had a hiatal hernia, and the valve that closes the stomach off from the esophagus just no longer works. The acid reducer helps considerably, and I can’t eat large or acidic meals in the evenings. Generally, if I haven’t eaten yet by 7, I will skip dinner altogether.
Of course not! If you did, you’d miss out on the fun of pronouncing “Nissen fundoplication”.
Nissen. We put the fun in fundoplication.
Sometimes, we get lucky, as I did, and it’s the simplest of solutions that work. I wrote a more detailed note of my GERD elsewhere, which I had for 25 years and on medicine all during that time, but for the last 17 months been free of it all. I lost about 10 lbs, and that was all that was required. I eat everything now, no problem, and on no medicine of any kind.
All GERD sufferers problems vary, and it won’t work for everybody, but one question all should ask themselves, is, was there a time in your life you didn’t suffer from it, and if so, what was your weight then? Others may benefit from that along with a change of diet too, backing off sodas, sauces, certain foods that may trigger it.
I had always assumed on my 5’10" frame that 154 # was a reasonable decent weight. It wasn’t.
My story is similar to many already posted in that I believe being overweight was a significant factor in my acid reflux problems.
I had recurring (3-4 nights a week) nighttime acid reflux for a few years. I went to a doctor, had an endoscopy, was diagnosed with some minor damage to my esophagus and also a hiatal hernia, and was prescribed a strong PPI drug. The drug was expensive and my insurance stopped covering it after a year, so I started taking over-the-counter Omeprazole daily (also not covered by my insurance, but it was not terribly expensive to buy the generic stuff at Walmart or Kroger). The PPI drugs helped but did not completely eliminate the problem. At the suggestion of my doctor I raised the head of my bed several inches by stacking some boards across the frame underneath the box spring there. Eventually I started sleeping in a reclining chair every night for a couple of years to keep my head and chest elevated. That helped reduce the reflux problems, but was not great for my back and neck.
Then a few years ago I changed my diet (which was largely fast food and LOTS of soda, so I eliminated both of those) and exercised more and lost a lot of weight (60+ lbs). That made a huge difference. I have had very few acid reflux incidents since then, and in those cases it usually involves eating a large meal or certain ‘triggering’ foods relatively late in the evening.
I was able to quit taking Omeprazole, too. I had heard some cautions about long-term use of PPI drugs, so I decided to see if I could do without. The first time I tried, I tapered down over a few days, but apparently not slowly enough as I got very severe daytime heartburn/reflux as a result. So I went back on the drug for a while and then later tried again and weaned myself off it more gradually. This time I had no withdrawal effects and have not taken it again since.
TLDR: Losing weight (or, at least, a healthier diet) seemed to greatly reduce my acid reflux incidents.