Anyone have G.E.R.D??

I have GERD but i have found the exact opposite to be true....as I've lost weight, it's gotten better.

But I've noticed i have some trigger foods that will inevitably lead to an episode, like tomato sauce. I also noticed that if i eat until I'm full, i have problems.

Once I figured out my trigger foods, staying away from them or having very small amounts helped a lot. But it took some trial and error to figure things out.

There are over-the-counter meds you can take that help, like prilosec. But if you have more doctor appointments coming up, i think the best thing you could do is talk to them about your situation. And maybe take some otc meds to prevent the worst symptoms until then.

Good luck

I have recently been diagnosed with GERD. I don't think mine is weight related. Per the doctor, I have cut my coffee habit in half and take Omeprazole (Prilosec) once a day along with watching my trigger foods (mostly spicey foods). I haven't had any flare ups in three weeks (fingers crossed). I hope your doctor can help you get your symptoms under control:)

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I also have Gerd, but was diagnosed when I was overweight. I took prilosec for awhile, but found I don't need to anymore. Losing weight and change in diet (cutting way down on acid foods) seems to control it.

Eliminating coffee, alcohol, spicy or acidic foods worked for me. In conjunction with a few weeks of taking Zantac as needed and before bed. I took the Zantac before bed every day for three weeks whether I felt like I needed it or not, in an effort to ensure healing was happening.

As a past pharma rep that sold Nexium and Prilosec, these are some helpful hints.

-Losing weight absolutely helps (after you make sure you don't have a hiatal hernia)
-If your symptoms are mostly at night when you sleep, prop up the bed a few inches (if possible) at the head so that gravity can help
-I forget which side you need to sleep on and it will also help (sorry, I stopped the pharma biz a while ago), but again, it is a gravity thing with the shape of the stomach and how it empties out, so sleep on your side (one side will make things worse, and the might help)
-Avoid trigger foods which include raw onions (the whole family), tomato and based products, acidic things (OJ, vinegar, etc), spicy things, fatty and greasy stuff, minty things, etc.
-For quickest relief (and cheapest, but not the longest lasting relief), grab tums or the like.
Zantac is the next quickest, but lasts a little longer than Tums (also a bit more money), and the most expensive is the class of drugs that belong to Nexium and Prilosec (includes Prevacid) but these last the longest as well once you take it every day for at least a week.
-Avoid eating 3 hours prior to bed (or drinking milk), or have at least that amount of time before you sleep
-Avoid eating until your stuffed and eat smaller meals more frequently (you may have a pro-motility disorder) which means it takes longer to get food through your system than most people combined with a "relaxed esophageal sphincter" which makes you get heartburn.

Hope this helps and provides some relief!

Edited for this comment: No drug or therapy is 100% for 100% of people so be prepared for some experimenting with your trigger foods and lifestyle changes. Good luck!

FYI, Tecta is another of the class with Nexium, Prevacid, and Prilosec.

I have horrible GERD. I take Protonix for it but want to come off of it because long-term PPI use can be harmful for your gut. Losing weight usually helps most people with GERD. Avoid foods high in citrus, fatty foods, tomato sauce, chocolate, coffee, peanut butter, alcohol, pepper, garlic, raw onion, spicy foods, peppermint. They are the most common trigger foods for heartburn.

It's possible that you don't have GERD, it might be that you're fighting the stomach acid when there really isn't an overabundance and your body is overcompensating by producing more acid. My friend started with heartburn and was taking medication to stiffle the symptoms which in turn caused her symptoms to flare as she didn't actually over produce the acid she was underproducing. Anyways she started taking betaine hydrochloride and has been fine since. This is fairly cheap at health food stores. This article explains what I'm trying to say....
http://naturopathconnect.com/articles/stomach-acid-reflux/
It might not be what's happening but it could be worth a shot I know several people that have benefitted from Betaine. Anyways goodluck!

Love_Is_My_Fuel wrote: »

Perhaps it's not GERD that I have...who knows!! It doesn't matter what I eat, the symptoms are there for me 24/7 and only worsen through the day. I never felt these symptoms when I was close to 300 lbs. I eat no fried food, lower carbs..high protein..lower healthy fats...my diet is clean and low processed foods. It's very frustrating that the doctor can't figure out what's wrong with me...trying to take care of my 2 year old son through the day before my daughter gets home from school....horrible days!!

My GERD is 24/7 when unmedicated and unfortunately does not respond to either changes in diet or weight loss (106lbs lost at my best and no change in gerd). My diagnostic tests have never showed a particular cause for it but several members of my family have had similar problems so I assume it is something hereditary. The only thing that controls it for me is acid reflux medication. I am currently on prescription Prevacid and it works great for me. In the past, I also took OTC Prilosec and it was a great help when I had no medical insurance but it is fairly expensive over the counter. I took the generic store brand of it for a while because it is cheaper and just as effective as the name brand. Before OTC Prilosec was available, I took the Pepcid complete tablets. They were able to control it for about 22 hours a day and are cheaper than OTC Prilosec or Prevacid. My suggestion is to get whatever over the counter medication you can afford for now to try to control it. You don't want it to just keep going on since the refluxing acid can do a lot of damage to your esophagus. And get back to your doctor as soon as you are able to see what other suggestions they can give you.

It's not diagnosed but I got something similar in July ten days after a very stressful endoscopy, which had caused a lot of anxiety and stress. I ate something fairly late at night (which I've done before many times!) and like you haven't been the same since. It's been awful - almost everything seems to be a trigger food! Weight loss doesn't affect it (I was fine at 226lbs!) and I was also on pills but have come off them as I was worried about the long-term effects, so now I just take them occasionally. It is incredibly upsetting and frustrating. This time last year I could eat whatever - now most things are off the table!

The endoscopy showed nothing, by the way (it was for severe gastric reactions that they have lazily labelled IBS...) but I can't help think the stress and trauma of it contributed. I had a barium swallow a few months later (in September) which showed reflux. I have never had reflux before, not like this. It scares me how a body can change in such a short space of time. I suspect this is around for good, depressingly... got to learn how to cope!

My primary GERD symptom was shortness of breath, particularly at night. It started all of a sudden in August 2008, and it took forever to identify the cause. None of the medications I tried seemed to help. I hoped that losing weight would make a difference, and it did, eventually, but only recently, when I got to 190 lbs from a high of 255. Weight loss itself is one factor; diet is another -- I eat MUCH healthier now. I also tend to eat earlier these days -- mostly because I get kind of savage if I wait until later in the evening. I still get heartburn, but nothing that a couple of Tums won't fix, and the shortness of breath episodes have almost entirely disappeared.