Got a hiatal hernia? Tell me about it.

In My Humble Opinion
1

I’m going in to see the doc in a couple of days about ongoing stomach issues.

In the meantime, I’ve been doing the symptom lookup thing online and damned if I don’t hit every bullet point for hiatal hernia and reflux. We’ll see if I’m right, but first I have to go to my PCP before I can get a referral to a gastroenterologist. It might be awhile therefore before I get a diagnosis.

Does anyone else has a hiatal hernia? What does your doctor have you to do deal with it? What works for you? I’d like some relief while I’m waiting.

2

I have a hiatal hernia and GERD. I used to be in pretty constant pain.

I used to keep antacids at my desk and pop them like candy. I would also buy liquid antacids and gulp them straight out of the bottle, which I kept in our fridge. Barring that, I had dollar store Omeprazole or Ranitidine, which worked just fine for me. I was taking the pills so often that I started getting worried about side effects, like calcium loss.

I finally wised up and went to the doctor. She put me on 40 mg of Pantoprazol (Protonix) once a day. When I still had pain, she upped the dose to twice a day. Now I’m fine and have no pain.

Hope that helped!

3

My mom has it. She takes Prilosec. I guess Prilosec has magnesium in it which helps it work. She once purchased generic Omeprazole and it didn’t work because no magnesium.

She still has to be careful of what she eats - tomatoes, citrus, red meat, greasy foods, coffee are all still problems.

I don’t know if she’s ever tried anything different. No wait…she was on Nexium for a while but her insurance stopped covering it.

I don’t have HH but I have GERD and I had to try 3 others before settling on Pantoprazol as my lifesaver. Prilosec and Nexium and Dexilant didn’t work for me.

She also has to shop around for the best price on Prilosec. It’s not cheap but she can’t go without it.

She claims that apple cider vinegar works for her if she has flare-ups. Also chewing gum. Gum works for me for my GERD. I had a super-collossal flare-up once and I took straight baking soda to fix it. Also I keep Tagament around and take it if I feel sick before bed. It keeps the “night acid” at bay.

4

Have you tried a bed wedge? I got one at Bed Bath & Beyond and it was pretty helpful. I also used it when recovering from my hysterectomy. Sleeping with my upper body elevated made it easer to get out of bed when my core muscles weren’t yet back up to snuff.

5

Looking online at what the doctor will probably suggest, I saw the recommendation of elevating the head of your bed a bit. I ordered some doodads online that will do that. Hope I don’t slide to the foot of the bed every night!

And I’m midway through my taperdown of coffee. I’m now drinking 50% of what I have always drunk, and in another week or less I’ll be at 0%. This was the most unkindest cut of all! I love espresso, and drink two double shots every morning. Goodbye as well to Asian milktea and chocolate.

6

My wife has it. She takes Losec (Canadian version of Prilosec) and avoids eating too much at a sitting. No problems since.

7

My gastro doctor prescribed Nexium and I haven’t had acid reflux since. I still get the reflux from time to time because of my rather small hiatal hernia, but it doesn’t have the acid in it.

8

For me, the weird part was having to go under a local anesthetic and have a camera put down my throat. At least that’s what they say they would do. I don’t recall anything, and only a little of my ride home. No real after effects from that, though I did not like going about 12 hours without food. Four hours is usually the max for me.

It was diagnosed as a hiatal hernia, and I was put on 40 mg of PANTOPRAZOLE. Within a few short weeks the majority of the symptoms were gone.
Only drawback to that medication is at the start, I was getting some brutal headaches which slowly diminished.
I believe the medication will not cure the hernia completely, and if you want it cured, then surgery is required. I may go that route in the future as I don’t like taking pills. But in the meantime, I’m fine with the way it’s gone.
I was on vacation for a couple of weeks at one point and forgot to take the PANTO with me. Upon returning, with no real symptoms, I didn’t bother with the pills, but sure enough within a couple of more weeks, they came back, and quickly. So it was back on the meds, tolerate the headaches for about a week or two, and I’m good again.

9

I tried Nexium, didn’t do squat, which was good because it’s a lot more than that (Rx) 40mg Omep’s I take. Having said that, I usually tell people that if you’re taking a PPI, it’s worth asking your doc about getting a script for it. Your insurance company may cover it and then it’ll go towards your deductible. My insurance company only covers RX only ones, so the 40mg omeprazoles are covered.
While we’re talking about PPIs another thing to keep in mind is that if one isn’t working, keep trying others. It’s strange the way one will make you’re heartburn totally disappear while another one…might as well be a sugar pill. On top of that, you can be taking one that works perfectly for years and one day it’ll just stop working, then you might have to find a new one or, in my case, just take a break from it for a few months and start it up again. They seem to be strange that way.

Also, FTR, if you (the OP) end up having to do an endoscopy, it’s nothing. All the stuff they tell you about a ‘twilight sleep’ and ‘you’re still away but won’t remember it’, don’t worry about it. They’ll say ‘this’ll make you feel tired’ then you’ll blink and wake up in the recovery room. I had three inside of a month and after one of them my throat was a bit scratched up, but other than that, they could have just knocked me out, woke me up having done nothing and I never wouldn’t have known. Don’t put it off because you’re worried about it. As far as medical treatments go where you have to be sedated, I can’t imagine there being anything easier than an EGD.

10

Omeprazole works fine for me; my hiatal hernia is almost entirely under control, though I can’t really drink wine without pain.

My father’s has gotten worse in old age; as more of his stomach has creeps up, his hiatal hernia has given him all-natural lap-band surgery, and he’s lost quite a bit of weight as a consequence. But this symptom didn’t start showing up until his early 70’s.

11

For me (again, no hiatal hernia, just debilitating heartburn), it’s craft beer that really gets to me. And it’s off an on. I can always drink cheap domestic stuff but every few years I’ll have about 6 months where I can’t touch anything craft. Within a few sips I can feel the pain gurgling up into my throat. At that point I’ll stop and switch to water. I don’t know if it’s the water or the time, but after about 40-45 minutes it clears up. Might even be some kind of allergy or sensitivity flaring up. I do have Oral Allergy Syndrome, I should try paying attention to the time of year it happens. I’ve always assumed it’s the hops doing it, but that’s probably me combining the bite of the hops with the pain of the heartburn, but stouts and dopplebocks do it to, maybe it’s the malt. Wheat is on my OAS list, but Optimator is the last one that did it to me and I don’t think there’s any wheat in that (and I don’t think I’ve ever had a problem with wheat beers). Probably unrelated to the OAS.

12

Some 25 years ago, I was diagnosed with a hiatal hernia, esophagitis, and GERD. For me, I do not have heartburn (20% of GERD patients don’t have heartburn), and I sleep quite well at night. Basically still eat all the foods I want to. Just on occasion, my stomach makes too much acid, and I reflux meals out. Sometimes it would all come out, other times, it was a slow process lasting hours, which the latter was generally when I was taking a break from the medicine.

I was prescribed Prevacid in 30 mg (or generic form), and did that for about the first 20 years. When the OTC 15 mg generic equivalent of Prevacid came out, at first I thought I’d double up on them, but that wasn’t necessary. I just did the 15 mg a day, in fact, it helped me considerably, and was much better. My reflux episodes were reduced to about 2-5 times a year, when before that, it was about 2-3 times a month when on the 30mg.

I never take the medicine every day, although my doctor preferred that I did for the most part. But on the bottle it also says, not to be taken for more than two weeks at a time, or something close to that. You have to figure out your own plan.

Although I can eat what I want to, certain foods seem better for me than others, and don’t require me to use my medicine as much. Some have got off the medicine entirely by changing up their diet, and it also helps by keeping your weight down, not smoking, and limiting your alcohol consumption. Sometimes I go three weeks with no problems without using my medicine before I starting using it on a daily basis for a week or two again as a preventive strike. I do pretty good without taking medicine which involves generally avoiding BBQ and some spicy foods. However, I buy jalapeno peppers by the gallon about every three or four months or so, and it seems to have no effect on me. Go figure. Also enjoy my beer just fine, but never have been much of a drinker, 2-3 beers and I’m good. One thing I’ve learned is that every individual is different that has GERD.

Anyway, life is good, and GERD doesn’t mean much, to me, anyway. There are surgeries that are more advanced than ever, that I’ve heard are helping more people get off the medicine entirely. The old type of surgery for it was a bit more risky, and sometimes made it worse. My doctor always thought medicine was the way to control mine, and I think that’s all I’m going to ever need is to take it on occasion. If I was a younger person today, just getting diagnosed with it, I’d seriously look at some of the new procedures they have out.

13

It’s interesting to me how a medicine works fine for one person and does nothing (or worse) for someone else. Before I got the Nexium prescription, my PCP had given me a sample of some other thing to try. It not only didn’t help the acid reflux, it made me sick to my stomach.

14

You need to take PPI’s for a few days to get them working. The reason the bottle says not to take them for more than two weeks is because they don’t want someone taking them for something that isn’t plain old heartburn. That is, someone might have some stomach pain, take prevacid and find it goes away and two years later find out that the prevacid has been masking ulcers or a gallbladder issue or something else.
Tylenol, Advil, Aleve etc all say the same thing.

15

Thanks for all your replies. My “forbidden foods” cutdown seems to help a lot.

Here’s a weird thing: while lying down and reading at night, I’d feel a slow pulse up my throat, and then a lump constricting my throat. This would repeat about every ten seconds. I put my hand on my larynx and I could actually feel a physical movement in there that was not my own doing. This freaked me the heck out. I started wondering if it wasn’t some horrific tapeworm or something that was causing my trouble.

Consulting Dr. Google again found reflux advice that said that this involuntary throat constriction is your body’s way of keeping reflux out of your windpipe. Your throat does the same thing when you’re trying not to cry - the “lump in the throat” constriction. Whew.

16

I haven’t been diagnosed with hiatal hernia, but I do have long-standing reflux - food “repeated” on me even when I was a child; heartburn itself set in when I was in my late 20s.

I’m a long term proton pump inhibitor user as a result. About 3 years ago, I started losing my voice - it turned out the reflux had gotten enough worse that it was causing severe hoarseness. Doc did an endoscopy, no hernia (he’d done one 2-3 years before as well), just worsening reflux.

I’d assume the first line of defense would be a PPI; they don’t jump to a surgical approach if they can avoid it.

The endoscopy was no big deal - you skip breakfast, they sedate you, you wake up. The “other end” I had done at the same time (well, 10 minutes later :D) was the bigger pain what with the prep and all…

17

Avoiding trigger foods is certainly something they counsel you to do. You can have reflux without the heartburn sensation - that’s what was going on when I started losing my voice a couple years ago. It can also mimic sinus symptoms, coughing, asthma, etc.

If you truly have long-standing GERD, a daily PPI is still a good idea. Google “Barrett’s esophagitis” some time. There are certainly concerns e.g. calcium absorption, but by and large the benefits are worth it.

About 5 years back, when I spent several months being persuaded by my primary care doc that my symptoms were worsening reflux (and increasing my dosage of Prilosec to a scary level), I went to a gastro. By the time I saw him, the problm had been rediagnosed as a medication side effect and the symptoms stopped, but he suggested the upper GI anyway because of the risk of Barrett’s since I’d had reflux for so long. I made my husband go in a couple months later. My gullet was fine. My husband, however, has Barrett’s. He’s on the PPIs for the duration, as esophageal cancer is not the most fun thing in the world.

18

I had a hiatal hernia and severe reflux. When they did an EGD, about all I can remember of it was that it looked like someone lit my insides on fire with all of the long-term acid damage. About 15 years ago, a fundoplication fixed everything.

Last month, I had an EGD and mercifully, no Barrett’s or charred-looking areas, and for the most part, everything is normal and healthy, except for something called a Schatzki’s ring, which is a narrowing of the esophagus near the stomach.

19

I’m reviving my thread to note that I’ve seen a gastroenterologist, and I’m going in for an endoscopy tomorrow morning. I was getting a little nervous about the procedure and wanted to re-read this thread to comfort myself a bit.

I did elevate the head of my bed, forswear coffee and tea, and I avoid eating anything within a couple of hours of bedtime. All this helped, at least for awhile, but the symptoms returned and are still with me. I’ve taken omeprazole for years, and for years it seemed to work very well, but I think it has stopped being effective. Perhaps the gastroenterologist will give me a scrip for something different.

The endoscopy will take place at 7 a.m. tomorrow morning, so the fasting won’t be much of an issue. I’ll have some bland, comforting chicken pho afterwards.

20

Good luck. As you’ve already seen from the thread, it’s definitely something that can be dealt with if it turns out to be the hiatal hernia.

The endoscopy itself…well, I don’t remember it. It was done under a twilight drug. I remember the doctor coming in, and then I remember being in the hallway afterward, demanding pancakes from my then-wife (and yes, we went for pancakes right afterward). I had a little bit of a scratchy throat for the rest of the day, but that was the extent of my discomfort.

Enjoy your well-deserved post-procedure pho, and here’s hoping your days of discomfort are near an end.