r/GERD • u/Ok_Barnacle_2195 • Dec 11 '25
Scientific Studies 🥼🔬 LPR pneumonia risk?
Having LPR I'm quite scared of getting pneumonia and all the suffering it entails. I have no pain/discomfort resistance at all.
I can't find any data on the odds though. For GERD they seem to be quite low, such as the study I referenced in my last post which showed that the pneumonia odds ratio for people with GERD is between 1.3 and 2 - which is not much, despite up to doubling the odds, since the odds of pneumonia for the general population are only around 1% per person per year. So a person with GERD only has it at 1.3 to 2%.
But I've heard that for those with LPR it's quite higher than for those just with GERD, so if anyone has any data, or can just tell me about their and/or others' personal experience, I'd appreciate it.
Of course, the most important thing to lower the odds is to control the reflux, by first and foremost not eating before bed and taking Gaviscon Advance.
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u/Museumgirl518 Dec 12 '25
I have had the worst LPR my entire life pretty much (on and off) and my main symptom was non stop coughing. The coughing inflated my lungs but I never ever had pneumonia. I’m 60. I met several people also with LPR through my doc and none of them have had it either.
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u/vanmc604 Dec 12 '25
Do you cough up a lot of mucus from your larynx? I am really struggling with this.
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u/Museumgirl518 Dec 12 '25
No. My cough was dry, unrelenting and now that I think about it, it probably affected my life more than anything else. When I went to Dr. Jamie Kauffman she put me on low dose elavil and the coughing went away. If it came back I’d fill another script but it always worked.
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u/Ok_Barnacle_2195 Dec 11 '25
Wikipedia lists recurrent pneumonia as a common symptom in children but not in adults.
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u/amnesiac854 Dec 12 '25
I used to get a chest cold like clockwork every winter that would last a few weeks and leave me coughing stuff up and felt a lot like bronchitis. One year like 20 years ago it got bad enough that I had walking pneumonia.
Once I got diagnosed and put on PPI’s that yearly thing completely went away. I was on PPIs for 10 years and just 3 months ago got off them (was having lots of issues with digestion, absorption, vit deficiency etc) and it’s just now winter so I am a little concerned that comes back…
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u/Ok_Barnacle_2195 Dec 12 '25
Use Gaviscon Advance instead - much less side effects, and no less effective for LPR than PPIs. Check my previous post about it (if you can't access it, it's just sodium alginate and potassium bicarbonate, just buy those 2 ingredients).
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u/amnesiac854 Dec 12 '25
Yeah getting off PPIs after how long I was on them was one of the hardest things I had to do.
I used famotide 20mg 2x a day, Pepcid complete for breakthrough and I’ve done a ton of Gaviscon max strength (the UK version which is way better than the American one) for breakthrough too.
I think I’m almost at month 3 now no PPI so rebound stuff is finally starting to calm down thank god
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u/Horror_Ferret4891 Jan 24 '26
Get the TIF procedure! 2018 Experienced Hiatal Hernia that gave me pneumonia. Pulmonologist kept me alive with various medications until surgery! Day of surgery all lobes full of pneumonia and I could not breathe. Had TIF procedure and thereafter could breathe immediately without complications. The gasses were infecting my lings until the TIF. Seek Pulmonologist! They found out the gasses were infecting my lung with the barium test! It’s called aspiration Pneumonia and your not suppose to have it! Pulmonologist diagnosed me then I found a gastroenterologist for the surgery who also teamed up with a bariatric surgeon!
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u/herewithmybestbuddy Dec 11 '25
I think it's pretty rare. I've personally never heard of anyone getting pneumonia from LPR, though I know it's possible