so i am really having another down night. Since i have gotten really sick this summer my friends are getting slimmer and slimmer. People ask me how im doing. I wish i could honestly tell them im happy and doing fine. But in reality im terrified of everything happening. I only have one friend who understands that i really am sick and that if im complaining, i just need someone to give me a hug and just listen. How do you guys stay so strong? I try. i have tried to stop complaining and try to just be chippy all the time but thats not me and im tierd of lieing. I am in high school and i know most of them just want to party but i dont understand why known of them can even show true emotion for me.
Just need to get this off my chest and i know on here i wont be "the complainer" when im just saying how i feel. I have lost most of my hope. I want it back.
Hi Em55! First of all Big Hugs from me!! You aren't alone. Do you have acid reflux trouble too? I feel like you do to. This is the only place I can come to and vent. People understand me here. You can talk to us here anytime.
I feel like I am pushing people away from me who don't understand acid reflux or anxiety disorder. It's all very real. You can share your heart here in trust us.
Thanks! that is why i joined. I havent been diagnosed yet, a tech that was testing me for asthma said he thought i might have a hiatal hernia or a growth in my chest on top of acid reflex. How you said about pushing people away,, that is what im doing. I just want my friends to listen, not argue, and say what they are really thinking. I have pretty much lost two really good friends within the last two days. Im just scared and they dont understand.
Hi Em! Well you have us to talk to. We understand because we are going through the same things. Even though we are all different ages, we have a common bond. We really understand. I understand your fears. I have been feeling rotten all during the holidays. I am waiting for a call from my doctor to have my endoscopy scheduled. I have never had an procedure done before so you can see why I am very nervous. I just keep praying, and have people praying for me. I wish I dealt with physical problems better but I tend to think the worst. Maybe it's because of too many bad TV shows. Thats why I try not to watch the doctor shows.
I hope you are feeling better today. I am sorry about those 2 friends. It's a shame that they can't be more understanding. I hope they will be. Maybe things will change. Hang in there!
Thanks Em55. It is scheduled for Jan. 9th. I just found out a bit ago. I pray God will help me be calm and that I won't die from the sedation. I have never been sedated or put under. This is just a part way semi'awake thing they say. I think she said they will use demerol. I did have a bit of that during my labor with my first daughter years ago. I seemed to be fine then. So I shouldn't have a reaction to it now. I hope. Eeh gads! I just want this over!
Your welcome! Im sure you will be fine,, if i have to get one done i will be a nervous wreck. I am young and i have been pretty healthy my whole life. I dont even get shots, so are they giving you any IV's??
For my breathing test for asthma that i took a few days ago,, they wanted to take a blood gas test which involved a needle into my wrist, and i have arthitis(yess i am 15 and way to young to have all of this sstuuff!) and i had to refuse because they wouldnt even let my dad come back with me while they did it!
So are you going to be half awake during the endoscopy,, An old friend last year at school had to get one done and she said she was asleep the whole time and woke up in recovery. I hope thats what they will do with me!! Is this your first test you are having done for the reflex?
Hi Em! Yes, this is my very first test for reflux. I have never been officially diagnosed with it. I know I have had it off and on for years. I am now 44 and have two grown daughters that are 19 and 21.
The lady on the phone said I would be sedated with dimeral. I would not be put completey under. Thank God! I am scared. I have never had a procedure or a surgery. So I guess that would explain some of my anxiety. But I also have anxiety disorder so this sets it off.
I also suffer from IBS from time to time so actually thought while they have me knocked out maybe they want to look up the other end and do a colonoscopy. LOL! But maybe not! I just want it all over with and to find the relief I need.
I can't help but think our problems are caused from stress. I really feel for you honey. With your parents situation...these are things you should never have to deal with. Our world it changing and times are tough. But you shouldn't have to carry the weight of the world on your shoulders. You will be ok! I sure pray alot!! We may lose our house due to the economy but I know the Lord will always take care of me. And you too! So try to cast your cares on Him!!
Hi,, Okay. I am hoping i will only have to do one tests and not different ones. I live outside of a small city, the hospital here doesnt do any type of hard procedures. That will be a strain on our money for me to go down south to get one done but we thankfully do have medical so that part will be covered.
what is IBS? I know that a lot of my problems have been from stress. Our house almost got burned down twice by wild fires and that is when i got really sick and i have since. My coaches could tell (which i thought was pathetic) that it was too much stress and why to unhealthy for me to be trying to play. That was a reality check for me that it was showing.
Zantac has helped me incredibly. My chest pain is not as bad on it. My cough which was really bad never ending, finally isnt that bad. I still cough a few times a day but nothing compared to before. I am taking it twice a day. There are home brands which are cheaper and work just the same except the persciption home brand was making me sick.
I know my parents will make everything work out fine. They always have. I know i will have a house, my grandma and uncle paid it off for us when they tried to forclose us last year.
Good luck.
No wonder you have felt bad. The house nearly burning down and the foreclosure part. That was nice of your grandparents to step up and help out. I don't have access to any help for ours I am afraid. But that's ok. It's just a house. We can live somewhere else when the times comes. I know most likely foreclosure is inevitable. We will survive. We are survivers. But it does stress any normal person out. Wether we like it or not.
You are so young! I hate to see you go through this. I just want to see you happy and healthy and doing all the fun things a 15 year old should be doing like playing your sports. I know you will get better! You are young and healthy. You have all that on your side!
IBS is Irritable Bowel Syndrome. It is when one minute you can be constipated and the next have diarrhea. Not fun. Sometimes you can just feel your intestines or tummy just rumbling. It's like things don't always settle right or make it out nice and smooth. To put it politely. lol
I do hope you don't have to deal with this.
As far as the chest pain. Is that from your reflux? Or from maybe coughing so much? DO you get alot of mucus in your throat with this? That is how I know mine is bad. Just a bad post nasal dripping and mucus in my throat and then a little burning right between my breasts in the sternum area. Lately I have little twinges of pain on the upper part of my tummy. It's like sore. Can you relate to any of this?
YEa i am happy 2008 is over with and new years eve will give me a little insight to how my 2009 is going to be. I think i might have anxiety issues also. I have put that on the back burner for now. I have other things to worry about lol.
Dont worry about me. I deal with it and just need at least a few of my friends to help out and stick with me. I am kinda glad i am going through this though because it is further giving me an idea of who are my true friends. Im so sorry about the ibs. I usually never have diarea but i am usually pretty constipated. I try to eat really healthy and find something to help with that but i think i am going to have to get on fiber sure or something and let the doctor know. That might have something to do with all of this going on.
My old doctor just told me it was from coughing but as im getting less coughy(lol), my chest pain still has days it is horrible. It has kept me home from school because i couldnt sleep all night it was so bad. It is right under my left breastbone and sometimes on the right or in the middle.
I do get the mucus feeling. I usually dont have mucus that i can like cough up a bunch, but always having to clear my throat. I believe it is lpr symptom but not positive. for about a week i couldnt even bare to touch my whole stamache area. It was as sore as it has ever been. Not sure if that is the same as what you were asking about but i have had days and still do when my chest is just a crimpling pain. I almost went to the hospital but decided to let time pass and see if it would get better and slowly it did.
Very wierd. not sure why that happened.
Hi! Ya I have days where the upper part of my stomach is just tender of sore. Just below my ribs. I am not to used to that symptom. So that makes me think...gee is this getting worse? Where all are they going to find little ulcers? I can handle that. I just don't want it to be cancer or something. But it is a pain to deal with. I was feeling so much better last night. The this morning I woke up with the relux back again. The sore feeling in there and a case of irritable bowel. What is it about night time? I just wonder if all that acid gets going and just goes up or down and wreaks havoc. I am beginning to hate mornings. Is it that way for you?
Mornings are for sure not the best time of day. The last week or so i have woken up with a sore throat. Hurts really bad to eat,, trying to eat some toast right now and im coughing and throat is really hurting. I thought i might be getting sick so i have been taking 12 hour decongestants on top of the zantac. I will ask the doctor tomorrow about the sore stomach area. I hope that doesnt mean it is getting worse but i know mine is. It has since last year greatly! That was my main concern that this wasnt asthma cause asthma usually doesnt progress like this. I wasnt surprised when they ran the tests and found out i didnt have asthma. Nobody knows your body better than you do.
Ulcers are usually found somewhere by the stamach i think, but could also be in the lungs or somewhere but its rare. During the endoscopy i think if they find one they will pull a sample off of it to test it and make sure there is no cancer starting or present. Do you have to like eat slowly to try and like digest the food. I have noticed expecially in the morning, it takes me about 20 minutes just to get down 3-4 pieces of toast. I live 20 minutes from my bus stop and it takes most of the way to get it all down and i sometimes feel really crappy after i eat. can u relate at all?
My grandma has some acid problems as well and she heard that if you sleep on your left side it helps the acid to stay down,, but i cant. The other morning i woke up to a sharp painful pain in my left side and i was on my left side. It was much better after i got up but it was very painful. Last night i was on my left side watching tv and had to turn over because i could feel it comming on. Im scared that that is not normal. If it is suppose to help, and helps her, why is that side so sensitive to being touched or laid on?
Hi Em! It's all so different throughout the day., I woke up with mucus. Ugh! But got up slowly.. had a banana and some whole grain cereal and water. Took some vitamins etc...I thought hey those stomach pains are gone, and the anxiety and depression. I felt ok....
So then I just worked out on the treadmill for a fast walk of 30 mins. I felt really good and was breathing ok. But then I stopped and got off of it...to get back on here. Then I feel like I was trying to get a full breath in. Taking big deep breaths. Ugh! The mucus is thick. Good grief! I honestly had simmered the mucus down a couple of days ago with the Prilosec. But the side effects were bad! So I quit. This is day 3 without anything.
So what do you think I should I do? I have some Zantac. Should I start it? I am afraid of side effects. Do you have side effects from it at all?
I know how you all feel. I was told by my boss yesterday how "self centered" I was complaining all the time. I HATE when I do that but you would think as much as I cough and can't breath good that he would be more understanding. It's certainly not like I do it on purpose and I'm sure I drive everyone around me crazy including myself! My poor husband has learned to ignore me, thankfully. I've just stopped taking any meds for my LPR because they weren't doing me a bit of good. I'm fine as long as I sit real still and don't move but I literally can't do anything without feeling the need to sniff and cough. Sometimes to where I'm exhausted. Especially lately with all the Christmas stuff going on, eating everything (which, doesn't seem to make much difference anyway) being off schedule and not getting enough rest. I know all of my symptoms have to be reflux related since with the cold weather we've been having that there shouldn't be anything for me to be allergic too. Also, taking every allergy med under the sun doesn't make a dent. Not even the nasal meds. The feel like I'm choking every morn when I get up until I get all the mucus and crud out of my nose and throat. No burning at all. Just sniff and cough.
Yea i think you should try the Zantac. I took this before i even knew anything about acid reflex. I would take it every once in a while usually at night when my stomach would be uncomfortable and it has always worked with no side effects that i notice. It may be a little different for each person but i am also allergic and non responding to alot of medicine and this has been my only relief in the last year.
Charberry,, yea it sucks to have people around you that just dont understand. I think some people think that it is in our heads, and that we really just complain a lot about nothing. A lot of people didnt believe me at first that i was having trouble breathing, but i had my coaches stand up for me when my face was turning like blueish from not getting enough air and they would be mad at me for over doing it. Now im at the point when i dont get asthma attacks at all, and im hoping to be back to basketball next year after i get this under control!If i end up having the surgery i think i will be out for a while.
Im feeling better now that i have taken the zantac and sudefed 12 hour.
Once that settles in im able to eat and actually digest some of it.
Good luck guys!
just remember that other people dont understand unless they have dealt with something like this.
Hi ladies! I am right here with ya. I understand Char. I just want to sit still and take slow deep breaths. Today was good in some ways hard.
I woke up kind of ok...but like I said had a good breakfast and then worked out. After that tons of mucus and trying to get a full breath in. You know when you fell normal you don't concentrate on your breaths. When you have mucus of swelling you feel like you notice each breath is it is on your mind as you are breathing. It becomes you main focus and I begin to panic. I hate this most of all.
Then I took our house guest ,friend and her kids to the mall. We had a great time. But after being there awhile I was feeling the mucus and then I panic in crowds. I just wanted to get back home to my house and my blanket and laptop. It's like my security. Does that make sense?? So I have anxiety tied in with this acid reflux. Somebody help me! Grrrrh! I am so frustrated!
Hi all,
I'm right there with you. I've been officially diagnosed with reflux for about 5 years. I can honestly say that I've had ups and downs during this time. When it is under control, it isn't so bad, but I have had several really really rough years, first about 2 years ago, then this past year. I've had 2 endoscopies so far. The first one was my first procedure ever. I was nervous going in, but the procedure was so quick and easy that when I had my second one I just took it as a routine thing to do. Thankfully I had no findings during both procedures. The endoscopy only shows if there is damage or a hernia, not whether or not you have reflux. They were necessary though because both times my reflux was really flaring up my asthma. I would cough non-stop (probably to the annoyance of everyone around me). I even ended up needing emergency breathing treatment once. It is scary. Especially this last time when everything that was working just stopped working.
The procedures that were most beneficial to me were the Modified Barium Swallow and Esophagram, the 24 hr. pH, and the Manometry. My Pulmonologist prescribed the Barium Swallow and Esophagram. I had to swallow various things with barium--a fizzy pill, liquids, soft foods, solids, etc... They then watched, on an x-ray type machine, as I chewed and swallowed. This test showed a hernia that I hadn't had 2 years earlier. It also showed that I was refluxing acid and food back up from my stomach. It showed how the acid was coming up to my lungs. It was after this that my Pulmonologist told me that I would never get my asthma under control until my reflux was under control. (Ironically, I hadn't had any asthma or reflux symptoms the week of the tests. Makes me wonder what they would look like when things are bad.) The Manometry test confirmed that my lower esophageal sphincter was not closing properly which allowed the refluxing to happen. The pH test confirmed both times that I had frequent episodes of acid coming up. In fact on the second time I was tested I was feeling pretty good that day and I ended up scoring as having extremely severe reflux.
Anyway, all of these tests helped me work with my Dr.'s to determine a treatment plan. The tough thing is that things work for a while, then stop working and we have to try other things. Though they don't cause significant relief, here are a few things you should try if you haven't already: sleep with your headboard propped about 6 inches (not fun sleeping on an incline, but helps some- propping on pillows will only scrunch your stomach and make things worse); try supplementing with Gaviscon (not the strawberry-banana though- yech); continue watching your diet and avoiding the following--fatty, greasy or fried foods, spicy foods including onions, peppers, tomato based products, caffeine drinks like coffee, tea and colas, citrus foods and drinks, chocolate, alcohol and nicotine; don't eat at least 3 hours before laying down; avoid tight fitting clothes and belts; try not to bend over a lot it scrunches your stomach too.
Don't give up after trying one PPI. I've literally been on all of them and found that I can't tolerate some. For me, Prevacid Solutabs twice a day works best. I found that Nexium gave me severe stomach problems and diarrhea. In fact, after being on Nexium for one month, my digestive system was out of whack. Now, 7 months later I've officially been diagnosed with IBS-A. I can really relate with your stomach pains too.
I know I put a lot in this response. I just wanted you to know there are others going through the same stuff. Things aren't always bad, but it seems like the bad times really do last for long periods. Em, I can relate with your issues dealing with others about this. There are times that I think people at my work don't really believe that I'm truely sick. I think some may actually believe that I'm faking all that coughing. It's a tough thing.
I'm going to post another response to share my EGD experience. I hope it will help.
Just wanted to share my experiences with getting upper endoscopies done. While both experiences I had were similar, one was done at a hospital and the other done at a testing center just for upper and lower endoscopies (colonoscopies). While the procedures were done the same, I had ALOT more wait time before and after at the hospital. I know that not every doctor does it the same, but I think the general procedure is pretty similar for all. My intention in sharing this is to help ease your minds, not to scare you. I wish you the best as you go into having your procedures done. Please let me know if you have any questions.
First, they have you not eat anything after midnight before your procedure. My second appointment was in the early morning, but my first was early afternoon and I was really hungry after that. If you are taking medications, ask your doctor about whether you can take them with a sip of water on the day of your procedure. It depends on the medications. Once you arrive, they will have you complete some paperwork and possible make some sort of a payment. While some of the paperwork can be concerning, it is pretty standard stuff. Once they call you back, they will have you remove your upper clothing and put on a gown. They also had me remove my shoes and put on their socks with non-stick soles. Once the gown is on, they come back and put a needle in your right hand with the connection that they will use to administer the sedation medication with. When ready, they will move you to the procedure room. I was wheeled in once and I walked the other time. Once on the bed in the procedure room, they will connect you to a monitor to measure your blood pressure and oxygen. They will also put an oxygen tube up against your nose. All through this, they are talking to you and explaining what they are doing. They then had me turn onto my left side. When ready, the doctor came in to see if I had any questions. They then put a plastic ring in my mouth. The ring holds your mouth open and keeps you from biting on the scope. They then administered the medication. I was out both times before they could finish telling me. The next thing I knew, I was wide awake and they were wheeling me into another room. It is really wierd how fast I went from being out of it to being wide awake. They sat me up and offered me something to drink. This I found ironic. They offered soda or OJ which are both reflux triggers. I opted for just water. I then got dressed and waited for the doctor to come in to tell me what he found. They can tell you then if they saw any redness or damage. They might have also done some bioposies. Those make take several days to a week to get results from The doctor also gave me any treatment instructions at that time also. I then scheduled a follow-up appointment one week out to discuss any test results and further review the findings and plan out my treatment. The first time, there was no soreness in my throat, the second time I had a bit of soreness. Both times, I ate a good meal immediately after. They will tell you not to drive during the day of the test. I think that is really just precautionary. I never had any problems.
God Bless you MountainReader! What you posted is what I needed to hear. I have been so frightened about my first endoscopy that is only a week away. A week from tomorrow. I guess I am worried I will be allergic to the sedation or that I will feel the tube and choke on it. I just haven't been sedated or obviously had a tube down my throat.
It's just the mystery of the procedure being done and also what they might find. My reflux seems to be based with tons of Mucus covering my throat, lots of throat clearing, some pain from time to time in the sternum, and the feeling that my throat is thick and feeling like I can't get a full breath in. I feel like maybe I have asthma but have never been diagnosed with it. I have an allergist I see because I have tons of allergies. He has never said that I have asthma. How do I know if this stuff is going into my lungs?? That really scares me.
I have had bad coughing spells this fall with colds...I was wondering if I developed acid reflux due to my allergies and the fact that I went through about 4 bags of cough drops. I would cough so much and about loose my breath. I thought I would die because I couldn't get a breath in. I got codeine cough syrup but that made me sick.
I am trying to figure out how I ended up with all these problems. Thanks for your help! Big hugs from me!
Losing friends cause of this. 
Not fun. Sometimes you can just feel your intestines or tummy just rumbling. It's like things don't always settle right or make it out nice and smooth. To put it politely. lol
