Lenin

A friend of mine has a pouchlike outcropping in the middle of his esophagus...God, what was that called???...that trapped food on the way down and caused coughing as a glob of food stuck midwway down, almost every meal. It was elusive but was finally spotted on a barium scope (even the endoscopy missed it.)

Ah-HAH, remembered it: it was called ZENKER'S DIVERTICULA. He took a couple years of Prilosec and now it only rarely catches food.

Dan,
First order of business: get a simple H.pylorii test. If this infection is at the root of the problem, then several weeks of a triple or quadruple antibiotic cocktail will cure it forever. It should be suspected with any problem of the gastric plumbing. It's commonly the cause.

If you haven't already done so, you should have an upper GI series of X-rays or an endoscopic examination to rule out any irregularities...but get the H.pylorii bloodtest first.