Acid reflux ruined my life

[[Jd...]]

Slightly clickbait but not completely off either.  Since this sub forum is about health in general I thought I’d post something that I think probably affects more of us than widely know and the cascade of how things happen 

I have struggled with acid reflux off and on for maybe 20 years and am just now seeing the domino effect. 
I always thought acid reflux was a condition of too much acid in the stomach so I just took tums or rolaids and never really gave it much thought. In reality acid reflux is a defect of the lower esophageal sphincter (les) allowing the acid to creap upwards into the esophagus burning the tissue.  So for many years I took Tums which yes do work but they work by decreasing the acid in the stomach so when the reflux happens it doesn’t burn as much.  What happens though when you decrease the acid in the stomach and increase the ph of the stomach it causes the LES to malfunction even more and it stays open so you need to take more and more acid reflux medication.   Also when your ph in your stomach is off it causes you to not absorb a lot of  important vitamins and mineral. In my case it was iron.  I was taking heart burn medication which raised my ph in my stomach thus decreasing my iron absorption and on top of that the one thing that significantly blocks iron absorption is calcium. Tums = calcium carbonate 🤦‍♂️ so I probably was not getting any iron in and it depleted my iron stores after so long.    One of the many symptoms of a bad vitamin or mineral deficiency is anxiety.  People talk about when you are stuck in fight or flight and always think it’s a mental health condition when many times it’s a medical condition. Your body is telling you something is wrong and counseling can’t help you because something actually is wrong. 
so fast forward I start having bad anxiety and I thought it was because of work related stress. Hindsight is 20/20 and now I realize it prob was iron all along.  I was prescribed Wellbutrin initially.  A lot of anti depressants also block iron. So now I’m taking another medication that blocks iron 🤦‍♂️ and have two major panic attacks and was then prescribed benzos and we all know how that sh@t show plays out.   I’m now 21 months off and still piecing my life back together.  But I can’t imagine how my life would have been different had I known what I know now and had an intelligent dr

 

Edited September 19, 2023 by [Jd...]

[[Em...]]

My friend also has really bad chronic acid reflux ever since being on and coming off SSRI’s and subsequently being prescribed PPI’s. I think these drugs do so much more to the body than we can even imagine. I am sure as the body and gut heal, it will ease up. I think we all wish we could turn back time and do things differently…

Edited September 19, 2023 by [Em...]

[[Jd...]]

If your friend could use to lose a few pounds tell him to do it.  I’m 5 9 and weighed about 185 which wasn’t terribly obese but my ideal body weight is probably 165lbs and 20lbs of extra fat is all it takes to put some additional pressure in the abdomen thus pushing the acid through the LES. I could have fixed that problem all along just by choosing to be a little thinner 

Edited September 19, 2023 by [Jd...]

[[Em...]]

@[Jd...] no my friend is very underweight from suffering the damage from these meds. 

[[Jd...]]

Yeah I lost a lot of weight also when first tapered off.  Gained it back though and reflux back my reflux I don’t remember being as bad when I was underweight