Orange Lightning
12-08-13, 20:04
This is a copy-paste of a post I made on a different forum. It relates to my concerns about LPR reflux, and how I'm trying to put together a list of 'evidence' based on some CBT techniques. I'd really appreciate any input you can offer into this, especially if you have suffered similar symptoms yourself for at least 6 months. Thank you! :yesyes:
********
Well, how very ironic. I have an ENT appointment tomorrow after 4 months of waiting (good old NHS) and now I'm starting to wonder if they're going to find any evidence of LPR at all? The reason? In my desperation to get some clear results, I broke my diet all day, and enjoyed some of the foods I used to eat most of the time, although I will admit I was very scared about what would happen if I ate them! The strange thing is... I feel pretty good, and I really delayed taking any Gaviscon too..!
This was my menu today;
- Weetabix with milk and alkaline water. I also took Cimetidine, although it hadn't taken effect at this point.
- 2 Bagels with ham, ready-salted crisps, a banana, alkaline water and an oat-syrup flapjack.
- A small pepporoni pizza (thin crust, less tomato than usual), followed by a little ice cream, a banana and a glass of milk.
And these are the symptoms I usually experience;
- Burning throat under the Adam's Apple, usually only in the morning and evening for some reason.
- Clearing the throat, occasionally with ear pain.
- Sore/Raw throat, which lasts all day but can go away temporarily with hot drinks or foods like Oatmeal.
- Constant belching, usually when moving.
- Lump in throat, but only after belching.
- Utter anxiety
It took half an hour into eating my evening meal for me to notice any burning in my throat, and even then it was not the pizza that caused it to appear, but from drinking a small glass of warm water. Furthermore the burning prevented me from feeling a sore throat and there was no mucus or belching. Changing my body position, especially sitting down and leaning back, really helped. To try and fix things though, I had the ice cream and banana I mentioned above. Guess what? The burning immediately stopped, and only returned after I had a glass of milk 15 minutes later. This time I took the Gaviscon Advance - I use tablets as the liquid is too pricey for me - and that also got rid of the symptoms, but only for about 30 minutes, then the burning returned.
Can anyone help me with this puzzle please? It would be very handy to discuss this with my local ENT tomorrow, and I'm still going to request a Restech ph test - I'll need to travel to Bristol for it, but that's fine - to be on the safe side, but maybe my burning is caused by something other than LPR? Might be a silver lining, or I might be just naive. XD
EDIT: A few other useful pointers to help:
- Cimetidine usually prevents me from burning, but it only works for up to 4-5 hours a day. Bizarrely it works better than 3 different PPIs at double dose..!
- Sometimes I still experience burning despite the Cimetidine and special diets. For example I travelled up north for a job interview, and burned the whole time I was driving despite only drinking water and eating plain bagels.
- Some foods make me burn one day, but not the next. Digestive biscuits are a good example.
- The other day I began to feel burning immediately after swallowing some Lasagne. Alkaline Water not only didn't stop the symptoms, it made them 10x worse for the evening, and even Gaviscon Advance couldn't stop it.
- opening my mouth or taking a deep breath can temporarily relieve the burning for a few seconds. Even starting to chew a Gaviscon Advance can help sometimes. Certain positions like crouching make it worse.
- Since the top half of my throat and my tongue don't burn, I assume I'm not bringing up acid. In fact sometimes I only feel burning at the bottom of my throat after 'swallowing a burp' back down... just in case.
- I did a rapid spit test from RDBiomed's "Peptest" kits (give it a Google!) 2 months back, and during that time I ate a similar diet to today. Only one of the 3 samples contained pepsin, and it was a low amount, which according to one research paper falls into the "natural" amounts some 'controlled' samples reflux without the influence of LPR (i.e. minimal harm, less than 35 n/mg, I think that's the right measurement!)
********
Well, how very ironic. I have an ENT appointment tomorrow after 4 months of waiting (good old NHS) and now I'm starting to wonder if they're going to find any evidence of LPR at all? The reason? In my desperation to get some clear results, I broke my diet all day, and enjoyed some of the foods I used to eat most of the time, although I will admit I was very scared about what would happen if I ate them! The strange thing is... I feel pretty good, and I really delayed taking any Gaviscon too..!
This was my menu today;
- Weetabix with milk and alkaline water. I also took Cimetidine, although it hadn't taken effect at this point.
- 2 Bagels with ham, ready-salted crisps, a banana, alkaline water and an oat-syrup flapjack.
- A small pepporoni pizza (thin crust, less tomato than usual), followed by a little ice cream, a banana and a glass of milk.
And these are the symptoms I usually experience;
- Burning throat under the Adam's Apple, usually only in the morning and evening for some reason.
- Clearing the throat, occasionally with ear pain.
- Sore/Raw throat, which lasts all day but can go away temporarily with hot drinks or foods like Oatmeal.
- Constant belching, usually when moving.
- Lump in throat, but only after belching.
- Utter anxiety
It took half an hour into eating my evening meal for me to notice any burning in my throat, and even then it was not the pizza that caused it to appear, but from drinking a small glass of warm water. Furthermore the burning prevented me from feeling a sore throat and there was no mucus or belching. Changing my body position, especially sitting down and leaning back, really helped. To try and fix things though, I had the ice cream and banana I mentioned above. Guess what? The burning immediately stopped, and only returned after I had a glass of milk 15 minutes later. This time I took the Gaviscon Advance - I use tablets as the liquid is too pricey for me - and that also got rid of the symptoms, but only for about 30 minutes, then the burning returned.
Can anyone help me with this puzzle please? It would be very handy to discuss this with my local ENT tomorrow, and I'm still going to request a Restech ph test - I'll need to travel to Bristol for it, but that's fine - to be on the safe side, but maybe my burning is caused by something other than LPR? Might be a silver lining, or I might be just naive. XD
EDIT: A few other useful pointers to help:
- Cimetidine usually prevents me from burning, but it only works for up to 4-5 hours a day. Bizarrely it works better than 3 different PPIs at double dose..!
- Sometimes I still experience burning despite the Cimetidine and special diets. For example I travelled up north for a job interview, and burned the whole time I was driving despite only drinking water and eating plain bagels.
- Some foods make me burn one day, but not the next. Digestive biscuits are a good example.
- The other day I began to feel burning immediately after swallowing some Lasagne. Alkaline Water not only didn't stop the symptoms, it made them 10x worse for the evening, and even Gaviscon Advance couldn't stop it.
- opening my mouth or taking a deep breath can temporarily relieve the burning for a few seconds. Even starting to chew a Gaviscon Advance can help sometimes. Certain positions like crouching make it worse.
- Since the top half of my throat and my tongue don't burn, I assume I'm not bringing up acid. In fact sometimes I only feel burning at the bottom of my throat after 'swallowing a burp' back down... just in case.
- I did a rapid spit test from RDBiomed's "Peptest" kits (give it a Google!) 2 months back, and during that time I ate a similar diet to today. Only one of the 3 samples contained pepsin, and it was a low amount, which according to one research paper falls into the "natural" amounts some 'controlled' samples reflux without the influence of LPR (i.e. minimal harm, less than 35 n/mg, I think that's the right measurement!)