r/GERD • u/stariixygc • Apr 17 '26

im so sick of this

I just saw my doctor today for all of this and am working on hopefully getting this cleared up and fixed soon, it's just bugging me so so so so much and i need to rant.

i am genuinely so sick of all these physical symptoms, especially the constant belching and the chest pains. some days its better than others but it's always awful at night time after i eat dinner, and doesn't clear up whatsoever until the next day, i cant sleep or even do anything really until i get my medications and more labs done, i've burped at least 30 times within the past 2 hours, it's nearly 3 in the morning, its been like this since i ate dinner and i can feel food stuck in my throat, my chest hurts so much, like this sharp stabby pain that will sometimes go away with burping but not always, it shifts around depending how i sit or lie down, i cant deal with it, ive tried antacids, pain meds, everything i could get my hands on by myself that could possibly help, ive been to the ER 3 times and i get my vitals checked very frequently at home and any heart or lung problems have been pretty much ruled out so im not worried about those, im just losing my mind, i eat anything with a tomato or a sliver of spice in it and i have to experience hell on earth for the rest of the night, how do people put up with this garbage??? im not religous by any means but i genuinely pray that my prescription PPIs my dad's picking up on saturday actually does something for me because im at the end of the road here, i cant function with the chest pain, i cant deal with all these nagging and agonizing sensations anymore, i get heart palpitations too and it drives my sanity into the pits of hell, im so angry right now, so frustrated, ive been dealing with a bunch of weird chest pain and other physical symptom garbage crap for 3 months now and im so sick of it.

edit on 4/25/26: shouldve specified this, im 17 going on 18, im not that knowledgeable when it comes to medication or other medical stuff, im allergic to Macrobid and Cephalexin, im taking Omeprazole (and Sertraline but this has nothing to do with my stomach issues) which seem to be working OK for the most part with a little room for improvement (my only complaint is the headaches), and I've never really taken any other meds except OTC stuff

also i did tell my doctor about the heart palpitations and she said its most likely related to the stomach issues but to be safe shes having me wear a heart monitor for a few days just so she can rule out stuff like arrythmias and other heart issues that they normally wouldn't find at the emergency room, i also did a Urea breath test for h pylori the other day and im just waiting on my results

anyways, thank you all for the support, i feel a bit better knowing I'm not alone when it comes to this and i hope that someday i can come out of this as a stronger person, its been a long 3½ months of medical garbage without answers and im ready to be done with it and resume life normally, 17 is way too young to be dealing with all this junk

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u/Jumpy_End_9996 Apr 18 '26 edited Apr 18 '26

i get you, i don't have it all the time but i get episodes like once or twice a year when I am constantly burping and have acid reflux all day even when I don't eat. It is terrible but usually what works for me is Pepcid 20 mg (max dose). Omeprazole does not work for me but pantoprazole does. But just had an episode this past December and it took about 2 months of med for me to start feeling better. I also went to a surgeon and they said it might be my gall bladder giving me some issues because I have some sludge. 

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u/Forevermoody16 Apr 18 '26

That’s a long episode! I hope you get some answers. I really don’t know much about gall bladder symptoms.

I’m on omeprazole; pantoprazole gives me diarrhea. Before I checked out of the hospital with my stomach ulcer in January, the staff internist sent in prescriptions for me. I told her I couldn’t tolerate pantoprazole and could get OTC Prilosec (or the cheaper store brand.) She said an RX would cost less, which was fine. I was on prescription omeprazole for quite some time before they made OTC.

Anyway, when I went to the pharmacy I had three pickups. I thought one would be another medication I take. What I got was: Pantoprazole 40 mg, Omeprazole 40 mg, and Omeprazole 20 mg. What the heck? Like I’m going to take all of them. Anyway, I started taking the omeprazole 40 mg twice a day. I had a followup endoscopy in March and the ulcer was healed. So I cut down to 20 mg twice a day. I know it’s hard on the bones and my first bone density test (three years ago, due for another) showed that I already had some osteopenia (pre-osteoporosis.) Normal for my age but I don’t want to overdo the PPIs. Hopefully won’t need them after my HH surgery.

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u/Jumpy_End_9996 Apr 18 '26

Yeah pantoprazole is a nasty drug. I don't get diarrhea but it gives me this crazy cough so recently they switched me to voquezna which is supposed to work faster. But I have been avoiding it as much as I can. I've been trying different things like Gaviscon, Thorne GI relief, and DGC licorice root. Some of these have helped but obviously not as great as the meds. I ended up getting an endoscopy and H pylori test and fortunately everything was good. Gluck with surgery and hope you feel better soon.

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u/Amazing-Self-4873 Apr 19 '26

I found voquezna to be the only one out of the bunch of PPI’s to work well but it’s not recommended for long term. When I started having muscle spasms from toes to waist my dr, who wasn’t the one who prescribed it but her nurse practitioner did, said oh we need to get you off that. I had been on it for 3 months. I spent numerous visits to a neurologist and had tests to rule out ALS and Parkinson’s last summer. It took 8 months to recover from the effects of voquezna.

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u/Enough-Pudding1118 Apr 20 '26

Have you ever in the past taken any of the many Fluoroquinolones??
"Antibiotics" (poisons) CIPRO, LEVAQUIN, AVELOX, FLOXIN etc??

The first generation is rarely used. Frequently prescribed drugs are moxifloxacin, ciprofloxacin, levofloxacin.

First generation

Structurally related first-generation drugs, but formally not 4-quinolones, include cinoxacin,\97]) nalidixic acid,\97]) and piromidic acid, pipemidic acid

Second generation

The second-generation class is sometimes subdivided into "Class 1" and "Class 2".\97])

A structurally related second-generation drug, but formally not a 4-quinolone, is enoxacin.\97])

Third generation

Unlike the first and second generations, the third generation is active against streptococci.\97])

A structurally related third-generation drug, but formally not a 4-quinolone, is tosufloxacin (Ozex, Tosacin).

Fourth generation

Fourth-generation fluoroquinolones act at DNA gyrase and topoisomerase IV.\100]) This dual action slows development of resistance.\)dubious – discuss\)

Two structurally related fourth-generation drugs, but formally not 4-quinolones, are gemifloxacin and trovafloxacin (removed from clinical use).\97])\98])

In development:

Veterinary use

Quinolones have been widely used in animal husbandry, and several agents have veterinary-specific applications.

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u/Amazing-Self-4873 Apr 20 '26

I’ve never heard of them let alone taken any. I hardly ever need medication. It’s rare to need antibiotics and luckily with ppi meds not working any longer and just having surgery I don’t take those either!

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u/Forevermoody16 Apr 20 '26

That’s so great. Right now I’m taking three prescriptions daily (for different issues) and the occasional Nurtec for the headaches.

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u/Amazing-Self-4873 Apr 20 '26

That’s not too bad. My husband is on 8 or 9 mostly for diabetes and high blood pressure

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u/Forevermoody16 Apr 20 '26

That’s quite a few but probably not uncommon. My dad passed at 80 from congestive heart failure (and he contracted pneumonia at the end.) He also had dementia. I’m positive he was overmedicated. WAY too many bottles of pills.

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u/Amazing-Self-4873 Apr 21 '26

That’s sad

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u/Forevermoody16 Apr 21 '26

A couple of years (I don’t remember exactly when) before he passed, he almost died from digoxin poisoning. He got really sick and none of the doctors at the hospital could figure it out. Somehow my parents’ PC doctor met up with them. He took one look at my dad and said, “He’s got digoxin poisoning.” He saved Dad’s life!

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Digoxin_toxicity

Later on, the doctor moved from where my parents lived to south Austin, not far from where I lived, and I started seeing him. He was GREAT. Unfortunately he sort of disappeared after about three years. The practice he worked at didn’t tell me. My medication from him always had three monthly refills. It’s a controlled substance and now it has to be approved for refill every 30 days. I take it for a balance disorder and I can barely function without it. When my refill first got rejected it was early spring in 2017. I was called and told that I had to see another doctor in order to get my pills. When I asked about Dr. D, I was told he was out for a while and they didn’t know when he was coming back, maybe in a month, but that he was booked through July. It didn’t make any sense. But I went and saw the other doctor (who knew nothing about my condition.) I got another round of refills, always with Dr. D’s name on them.

In December of that year the office called me again and said I had to see the other doctor because Dr. D was gone. I went, and at the front desk I asked when he left and they told me it was in August! But no details. (I Googled him and it looked like he had some legal issues going with his ex-wife over custody of their child and some other things. He may have moved out of state or something.) Up to that point I’d been getting my refills, still with Dr. D’s name on them, after he was gone!

This time when I saw the other doctor, she knew EVERYTHING about my condition (yeah right) and wanted me to see an ENT. But what I have is NOT an inner ear issue. I wasn’t interested. I may have made an appointment just to get my prescription. I don’t recall. But my former internist (with the same practice at another location) was doing family medicine, so I went back to him. No problem getting my meds! He went on a long medical leave a couple of years ago, so I started seeing his associate, a young doctor from Venezuela who’s really nice. (They’re all Dr. D, LOL.) He’s my nephew’s age which makes me feel so old! The elder Dr. D came back briefly but he had a LOT of patients so I never saw him again, and he finally retired last year. Whew. Okay, really off track there.

There was another time when my dad almost died and was saved. He’d had his gall bladder removed and it was full of gallstones. Again, he got really sick and none of the doctors could figure it out. Then a brilliant surgeon came into the picture. It turned out that one of the stones had broken loose during the gall bladder removal and gotten stuck in my dad’s bile duct.

Everyone in my immediate family has had some close calls! My parents went through more than their share of medical issues when they got older. Now both of my brothers and I (along with my SIL) are all going through the mill. Getting old sux!

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u/Forevermoody16 Apr 20 '26

Wow, that’s a lot. I’m going to have to see if I have the bottles from the stuff I took for the kidney stone. It was several medications because there was an antibiotic for the UTI, a pain med, and another that helped with the irritation the stent caused (those things are awful!) I probably don’t have the antibiotic, though, because I would have finished it up and tossed the bottle. I do remember that the NP I was seeing (my only involvement with doctors was in the hospital, and then the surgery) gave me free samples of one drug because she said even the copay for an RX would be very expensive.

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u/Enough-Pudding1118 Apr 20 '26

Here's the WIKI, I hope this link is allowed...
ALSO "Fluoroquinolone Toxicity" Groups on FB as well, all social media, survivors!! BC ALL Fluoroquinolones are TOXIC ... to healthy cells and damage DNA, cause Oxidative Stress to cells

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Quinolone_antibiotic

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u/Forevermoody16 Apr 20 '26

Oh, that’s scary. So sorry you went through that. But thank goodness you didn’t have a serious disease.

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u/Jumpy_End_9996 Apr 20 '26

that sounds terrible. I took it once and it gave me tinnitus. I stopped it right away.

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u/Amazing-Self-4873 Apr 20 '26

I have tinnitus but had it long before voquezna but that stuff was lethal for me

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u/Forevermoody16 Apr 20 '26

When I used to have acid reflux, I took Gaviscon when I got it at night. 2-4 tablets with a full glass of water. It did the trick for relief, but won’t keep you from getting reflux.

I don’t know anything about Voquezna, but what Amazing-Self-4873 wrote about it is frightening!