hi, i was diagnosed with GERD 2 weeks ago. I'm really glad to have stumbled upon this forum as it helped me a lot on the "what to do/eat" and "what not to do/eat" area of my life. I have just a short question...if the cause of the acid reflux problem is actually the loosening of the muscle of the lower esophagus then why dont the doctors prescribe drugs which can help tighten it, the moment they diagnose you with GERD?rather than PPI's which after reading from this forum is not that effective for long term treatment. I was just wondering..

Simple: they don't exist.


Well, some pro-kinetics are thought to maybe help tighten (but not definitive). Reglan is an example but lots of people apparently have severe psychotic episodes with it.


Essentially, the technology just doesn't exist. It's true that, even now, medical science doesn't have the answer to everything.


My hope is that in my lifetime, researchers will come up with a way to tighten it WELL, either medicine or surgically (fundo is unreliable and often leads to other problems).

Thanks for the information. this is kind of depressing.. it seems that there is no quick relief for this disease. I wonder why this has to happen to me. I've always been very conscious of what i eat.

It seems like there's ways to strengthen almost every muscle in the body through exercise except for this one? I wish there was a cure rather than just a cover up of symptoms.

i dont understand eithier,i mean the nissn came out in 51,all they have done with that is made it larascopic now..they give out ppis for life but people like me break through them..i dont understand this at all...

outlaw-

what is nissn?

I know what you mean Outlaw... they need to come up with either a better way of tightening the LES and/or develop drugs that PROTECT the laryngeal pharygeal mucosa and cartilage from bile/acid/pepsin's effects. Not just prescribing PPI's to reduce acid. That scares the &$#@ out of me being on PPI's long term with possbility of gastric atrophy, gastritis, polyps, and even precursor to stomach cancer. I know Mayo offers the endoscopic suture of the LES but I haven't read anything on it's effectiveness, has anyone? Didn't they also tighten the LES by making small laser "cuts" to tighten? That even sounds too risky. I think we as a sounding board with LPR should make some noise to the teaching/research hospitals and media. This isn't getting enough attention in my mind.