Acid Reflux

[Mitzi]

Hi everyone:

I'm back with another question. My 15 year old daughter is the celiac and we're new at this. About one month gluten free. It was her stomach issues that caused me to schedule an appointment with the doctor. She was treated for acid reflux for 6 months before the endoscopy.

Right now she's taking 80 m of protonix (sp??) and 150 m of zantac. She has been on this since before the biopsy and continues to need them. She describes the feeling as "hot and bubbly". Food does help settle some of this and at times her stomach feels "fine". Although she's tolerated so much for so long I'm not sure she knows what a stomach without issues feels like.

I would really like to get her off this medication at some point. I'm wondering if anyone else has gone through this? The other weird thing is that typically acid reflux is made worse by eating spicy foods or acidic things like spaghetti sauce -- Those do not make it any worse. Does this mean its something else?

[momxyz]

I was diagnosed with acid reflux a few years ago. I was having these "pings" in my chest that scared me. I had an EKG, full stress test - everything in that direction was fine.

I have never had the "hot" feelings you describe but I had been having occasions where food just didn't seem to want to go down my esophagus. Not painful but very uncomfortable and I couldn't eat anything more for several hours. Sometimes this was accompanied by regurgitating mucous (sorry if TMI). This was not caused by spicy foods in my case either! My doctor said acid reflux was the most likely cause of everything I was experiencing.

I was treated with Protonix for several months. My doctor said I could go off it when I was comfortable, and I did. The scary sensations in my chest never recurred, but every once in a while I have that feeling of food getting stuck and regurgitation.. But its so infrequent now that both my doctor and I agree I don't need to be on the meds continuously.

[curlyfries]

I was on Prilosec.....it was a prescription then....for years. I was diagnosed with acid reflux when I had a constant feeling of something stuck in my throat. Also had horrible heartburn.

I am now completely free of these symptoms. Been off medication for a couple of years.

[Darn210]

Acid Reflux with regurgitation was my daughter's main symptom. She was put on Prevacid which helped but didn't completely eliminate her problems. That's when she was tested for Celiac (among other things). She stayed on the medication for a few months after going gluten free. After coming off of the meds, she would occassionaly have symptoms (although not as bad) which we treated with the Pepto Bismal antacid tablets for kids. It was worse when she was most physically active (PE, soccer games, etc) We even went back on prevacid for awhile (along with another medication for gastroparesis). We were trying to figure out if she was having problems with another food and took her off of everything so that we could see how much the medication was masking. Turned out the occurances remained about the same even though she was no longer on the meds. After about 8 months (and soccer was over at this point), it finally started getting farther and farther between "spells" Symptoms were finally gone after about 10 months. I think it just took that long for her system to return to normal. Running seemed to excacerbate the problem as did ketchup. She figured the ketchup thing out herself and cut way back on her intake.

When I myself had acid reflux issues . . . and I let it get pretty bad and wasn't even using any over the counter stuff . . . the doc told me that since the digestive system was all inflamed (paraphrasing here), that it couldn't even handle the amount of acid a healthy system could. I had to lower my acid levels enough to heal and then could slowly wean myself off the meds. I know it took me twice as long on the meds as he estimated it would.

My hubby is on some big time acid reflux meds and refuses to change his diet to come off the meds. He's a big boy and can make his own decisions. I did get him to agree to be tested for Celiac but it came back negative.

[chiroptera]

I would definitely suggest she do a food diary. My daughter also has intolerances to casein (the protein in milk) and eggs as well as gluten. So unless she is off of all three her gerd continues. When she was just gluten free it was better, but she still suffered. Gluten could really be part, but not all of the problem.

[Mitzi]

Acid Reflux with regurgitation was my daughter's main symptom. She was put on Prevacid which helped but didn't completely eliminate her problems. That's when she was tested for Celiac (among other things). She stayed on the medication for a few months after going gluten free. After coming off of the meds, she would occassionaly have symptoms (although not as bad) which we treated with the Pepto Bismal antacid tablets for kids. It was worse when she was most physically active (PE, soccer games, etc) We even went back on prevacid for awhile (along with another medication for gastroparesis). We were trying to figure out if she was having problems with another food and took her off of everything so that we could see how much the medication was masking. Turned out the occurances remained about the same even though she was no longer on the meds. After about 8 months (and soccer was over at this point), it finally started getting farther and farther between "spells" Symptoms were finally gone after about 10 months. I think it just took that long for her system to return to normal. Running seemed to excacerbate the problem as did ketchup. She figured the ketchup thing out herself and cut way back on her intake.

When I myself had acid reflux issues . . . and I let it get pretty bad and wasn't even using any over the counter stuff . . . the doc told me that since the digestive system was all inflamed (paraphrasing here), that it couldn't even handle the amount of acid a healthy system could. I had to lower my acid levels enough to heal and then could slowly wean myself off the meds. I know it took me twice as long on the meds as he estimated it would.

My hubby is on some big time acid reflux meds and refuses to change his diet to come off the meds. He's a big boy and can make his own decisions. I did get him to agree to be tested for Celiac but it came back negative.

How old is your daughter? It sounds very much like mine who is 15. Her sport is Volleyball which also can but doesn't always makes it worse. When they do running and or some other "conditioning" it gets worse every time. I'm glad to know it will get better. Too bad these sports end up being almost all year long. I know volley ball is in full swing right now for school and then club ball starts. Yipee!

I do have to say that hearing this has eased my mind and I'll stop wanting to see results too fast. I think the food diary suggestion will be worth the few minutes it takes to log also.

[Darn210]

How old is your daughter? It sounds very much like mine who is 15. Her sport is Volleyball which also can but doesn't always makes it worse. When they do running and or some other "conditioning" it gets worse every time. I'm glad to know it will get better. Too bad these sports end up being almost all year long. I know volley ball is in full swing right now for school and then club ball starts. Yipee!

I do have to say that hearing this has eased my mind and I'll stop wanting to see results too fast. I think the food diary suggestion will be worth the few minutes it takes to log also.

My daughter was 6 at the age of diagnosis. It did take a lot longer to recover than I expected. About 6 months into it she had a major glutening. I don't know how much that added to our recovery time.

[chiroptera]

My daughters (twins) are nine. Looking back they had gluten intolerant symptoms for years but about two years ago many problems, esp. the acid reflux with one of them and severe stomach pain with the other started.