Acid reflux/gerd

I have never really had terrible acid reflux. I got the occasional nasty burp after eating chili or pizza but nothing bad. A few weeks ago I had a severe coughing fit after choking on a piece of food. Then I developed a cold and have been coughing a lot and really hard. Like hard enough to give myself headaches.

Now for the past week I have been having crazy acid reflux, lots of heartburn, and burping. I have even woken up in the middle of the night with a burning acidic feeling in my mouth and throat. This also induced much coughing. I am concerned about this. I have never experienced this ever. I get looking at things like gerd and what causes this. Then that leads to things like hiatel hernias as a cause for gerd. So then I start worrying that I have a hiatel hernia because pressure form coughing may cause that. Then my mind goes to well my severe coughing for the past several weeks has created a hiatel hernia which is giving me the reflux issues. It is all just a bit frustrating. I have no idea where this reflux came from. No changes in my diet or anything.

I saw my doctor today about the acid reflux and they said to try and make some dietary changes and not eat late at night and see how that goes. If no success they will give me omprezole to help. Anyone care to share any experience with this situation? Any advice?

Your doctor has it spot on. No late night eating and cut out foods that are fried, fatty, processed, sometimes dairy, chocolate and shop bought pies as well. Alcohol can be a trigger too and you will notice a difference.

I hope you are right. Unfortunately I read stuff about how hers can cause esophageal cancer and freaked myself out last night after my OP. Apparently it is not really noticeable until really late. I rarely drink alcohol and don’t consume too many fried foods. I do have a tendency to eat late at night so I am hoping that is the cause.

I didn’t have the acid reflux wake me last night which is good but now I am thinking back to all the times I felt like a lump was stuck in my chest after eating and all the other things and am wondering if I had this going on longer than I think. For example, I didn’t eat after 8pm last night and was burping all the way up to he’s time. I have been up for 30 minutes this morning and have already burped twice. They are not wet or causing food to come up that I can tell but what the hell am I burping for. Apparently excessive burping can be a sign of acid reflux/gerd. I never knew that. I do that all the time.

Eating late (after 6pm), especially a bigger meal or known reflux inducing foods will definitely aggravate gerd/reflux.

Positive thoughts

Any updates? I've had a severe "lump in throat"/"hot burning rock in middle of chest" feeling for two straight weeks every day. My doctor prescribed omeprazole and checked out my heart. My heart is fine, so she ordered an endoscopy/gastroscopy. I'm obviously not looking forward to that, but I'd love to know what's going on. The omeprazole isn't working and I'm following all the rules about not laying down for two hours after eating and bla bla bla. It's painful and uncomfortable every day and the only thing that seems to give a tiny bit of relief is chamomile tea. I have to sleep with my bed super elevated and only on my back. I'm afraid of esophageal cancer of course, also a hernia, also an ulcer, but mostly that this thing will either kill me or that I'll have to live with it forever.

Sorry to be dramatic; I'm in a bit of an anxiety spiral about this.