My Early Symptoms of GERD & H. Pylori

My early symptoms

It all started around December 2020 of last year. At the time, I was a hefty 160 pounds. I’ve never been that heavy for my 5’2 frame. I was headed in that direction since I was eating sweets and especially baked goods.

We had a neighbor who had a business in her house that offered us all her goodies to try, and of course, I couldn’t say no. 

About 6 months prior I had gone to the doctor and they said, I was going through other issues like prediabetes and high cholesterol.

Coincidentally, diabetes does run in my extended family back in Peru, but no one in my immediate family suffered from it. So I definitely needed to keep my health more under control.

I guess my body couldn’t take all those sweets/goodies and pretty much all the delicious food I was indulging in. Being Peruvian, food it’s a part of my culture, but apparently I need to make some better health choices.

Fluttering due to heart palpitations?

Back in December is when my weight climbed to the highest it’s ever been. Around that same time, the doctor recommended that I lose 15 pounds to manage my health issues. I did try to lose weight gradually and I dropped from 160 to 150 pounds. I was also getting this odd sensation in my chest.

It felt like my heart was skipping a beat. Like a fluttering sensation in my chest and whenever that occurred, I felt like a small bit of anxiety. 

So that continued periodically for a while. Trying to figure out why I was having these strange feelings petrified me to say the least, to know that something could be wrong with my heart.

I did have trouble sleeping and have read about heart arrhythmia being the culprit in that area.

I went back to the doctor and they performed an EKG and found nothing. I had a regular heart beat, nothing out of the ordinary. I was baffled. I know that there was something wrong with me, but couldn’t figure out what it was. 

Although my symptoms were intermittent, I would occasionally feel the fluttering sensation with anxiety here and there.

There has also been a few times that I’d wake up in the middle of the night and would feel a tingling sensation in my arms, legs, neck. It was a pretty stressful time for me. 

I just tried to breathe deeply, let those symptoms subside. I kept telling myself there’s nothing wrong, this is me just being paranoid. Since that time, I did manage to drop a few more pounds, but the fluttering feeling continued.

What my diet looked like

I felt like I had a decent diet plan. I would eat a good breakfast with eggs, fruit, coffee, and bread. Normally, that’s what my breakfast consisted of. 

I would snack on 3 tangerines a day, chips, and a banana. At lunchtime, I started to control my portions and it consisted of chicken with potatoes, rice, and salad.

The salad consisted of lots of lime juice with olive oil, salt, oregano, and garlic powder, very typical of my homeland and just how I liked it. 

Although it seemed pretty healthy, it was probably a lot of food that I was consuming throughout the day. 

On occasion I would indulge in sweets of course.

I did make some effort not to eat in the evening or very late, but most of the time I had to get my last small meal of the evening in. 

Heartburn was very consistent

I was noticing that my weight didn’t fluctuate much but stayed at 148 consistently. This was an improvement since I’ve lost about the recommended weight.

Time had gone by and was getting other symptoms. On many evenings, if I ate too much of certain foods, I would get heartburn. 

This was very abnormal cause I never had consistent heartburn. It would be pretty uncomfortable and often would have to take Pepto Bismol or an anti-acid. It helped for some time. 

My symptoms continued for months with constant heartburn and reflux here and there. It consequently, affected my sleep significantly.

I’ve had sleepless nights on many occasions because I needed to elevate my head a little. I also at that time, was heavier for my size and was experiencing sleep apnea. And with the constant heartburn, I needed to keep my head elevated, almost to the point of sitting up. 

There is this wedge inflatable pillow to help elevate your head that the doctor’s office had recommended to try with people facing acid reflux or heartburn. You can find it here.

Funny to think of sitting up-right while sleeping, but it was the only thing that helped me sleep.

This is another wedge pillow that has saved me from spending whole a lot of money on a new bed. I literally just place it under the mattress and raises the incline significantly by 8 inches.

It helps me sleep without running into reflux and sleep apnea. This wedge pillow I got was on Amazon.

I felt constant heartburn, reflux, occasional tingling sensation in different parts of my body, backaches in my shoulder blade, fluttering sensation in my chest all were going on for months.

My symptoms made a turn for the worse one afternoon

There was this one occasion where the fluttering with anxiety got so bad, it was going nonstop. I remember snacking on some Chex before that episode when I started to feel the flutter more like a pounding sensation in my heart. 

My back was aching, my neck was tight, I also felt a bit of asthma-like symptoms. Then as I was setting the table with my kids, I began eating the meatloaf that I had prepared.

All while I was feeling these unbearable symptoms, I took a bite of my food and was having trouble swallowing again. It was like a spasm in your neck that was weak and aching. 

That alone made me feel more nervous because I couldn’t even eat my food. Finally, after everything that I was going through, I felt like I was having a heart attack, so I had my mother-in-law drive me to the ER and admitted myself. 

GERD Gastroesophageal reflux disease

To my surprise, after being admitted my prognosis was that I had GERD. Gastroesophageal Reflux Disease. People with GERD can develop heart attack-like symptoms when it gets really bad.

And the doctors told me that I was not the only one that thought they were having a heart attack. 

If you know what GERD is, it’s a very uncomfortable condition, that affects the lining of your esophagus repeated heartburn and acid reflux.

Other symptoms feels like a sharp pain behind your shoulder blade. You can also get heartburn and acid reflux coming up in your chest and neck.

Although I haven’t felt or tasted the acid come up in my throat, I do get a sensation of my neck starting to tighten whenever there’s a flare up. It gets triggered by the types of food I eat.

It’s also due to eating too fast or too much and you often get a sensation of food being stuck in your throat. It’s very uncomfortable.

Untreated GERD can often lead to complications. And around that time, I guess I was down playing what GERD actually was, because it can become acute or chronic in some people.

There is a list of things I should’ve been staying away from that could’ve contributed to my GERD symptoms. 

Foods to Avoid to Help Manage My Condition

One food that I loved the most that will immediately cause heartburn is anything acidic. I ate lots of tangerines and salad with lots and lots of lime juice.

It’s just something that I’ve always been accustomed to and that’s never changed about me. I prepared my meat or chicken stews with potatoes, rice, and my signature salad. 

The different acidic foods that I was eating, could’ve been one of the main contributing factors. Also, I did eat a whole lot for my size, and that only made my GERD worse. 

In addition, being overweight, over eating, and eating too quickly can lead you in that direction for GERD symptoms if you’re not careful.

So the hospital put me on Pepcid, to see how well my symptoms improved. It’s also an h2 blocker that reduces the acids in your stomach. I immediately felt much better after that, to the point of having no symptoms at all for a while.

Things were not over yet..

A month had passed, and it was about June 2021, and I went back to my old eating habits. Eating whatever and whenever I wanted. I ordered Chick-fi-la after some time. I was eating the number 5, grilled chicken sandwich with wedge fries, and tropical fruit punch. 

I was so hungry that day, that I pretty much inhaled my food. I tend to eat pretty fast especially when I enjoy my food.

So while I was taking big ole bites of my sandwich, I started to have trouble swallowing again, which kinda scared me a little. The food doesn’t get stuck in my throat I am just having trouble getting that muscle to move.

Like a spasm. It was very uncomfortable and knew my condition was not over yet.

More uncomfortable GERD symptoms

My thoughts were that I am still dealing with these symptoms. At least I wasn’t having the fluttering feeling in my chest anymore. Not to mention, there was always a sharp sensation in my shoulder blade whenever I ate.

I thought for some time since I am always slouching on my computer, that it was starting to affect my back.

After that day, I felt my symptoms more constant. With the usual symptoms, neck tightening with an aching feeling. Most of the time, if I am not careful with what I eat, or if I eat too fast, or too much, then I would also get symptoms.

I started feeling more miserable as those days went on because I was not getting better!

Medication for GERD

I saw my Primary Care Doctor and I told her about the tightening in my throat and very aching feeling that made me feel the most uncomfortable. 

She prescribed omeprazole which is another PPI (Proton Pump Inhibitor) to help with uncontrollable stomach acids. I also mainly went there for a referral to see a gastroenterologist, because it ‘time’ overdue.

I felt I was putting off seeing a specialist far too long and needed to quickly get onboard at this juncture.

I started taking the medication, but I felt like I immediately got a really bad cold after that. And no, it wasn’t COVID.

I know it was probably a coincidence since as soon as I started taking the medication I developed a trickling of mucus build-up in my throat. Then it evolved into a full-blown cold. Got my whole family sick and my son developed strep throat. Could be a coincidence though…

So I discontinued the medication while I was sick.

Fast forward, four days later, my symptoms continued with heartburn and more discomfort and neck tightening sensation almost all the time. I had my good days, but when it was bad I was miserable and it felt like, will this be my end?

Finally Seeing an Gastroenterologist

It was July 20th, I finally was able to see a Gastroenterologist after almost a month. 

These 20 days were gradually depleting me of everything. I felt so worn out, tired, hungry, in pain, depressed, and hopeless. 

I was dropping a significant amount of weight during that time about 15-20 pounds.

I didn’t care who I saw even though I really wanted to see a Doctor as opposed to a Nurse Practitioner, but there was no available doctor for another 2 months. I just could not wait that long. 

So I walked in desperate for help, and met with a Nurse Practitioner. It was a tall young women in her mid thirties. 

It was a highly reputable doctor’s office, and trusted that these doctors will take care of whatever I was going through. 

My husband told me to write down all my symptoms on my phone to get a proper diagnosis.

I told her it’s been going on for months with heart burn, neck tightening, trouble swallowing, pain in the shoulder blade, shortness of breath, wheezing, lack of hunger, weight loss, and lots of anxiety. 

She concluded that I get tested for H. Pylori and Celiac Disease. In addition, she also confirmed that I had GERD. 

So if you haven’t heard about h. pylori it’s a nasty ugly bacteria that sits on the lining of your stomach. It could be there for years before you start having symptoms.

In fact, about 50% of the population has this bacteria just sitting in the stomach lining in its dormant state. And people can have it up to 50 years without knowing it.

It could be something I got from someone who travels to other countries like South America or Central America. It’s usually prevalent there. 

Also, I did travel to Peru in that last 2 years, but I think I would have felt symptoms much sooner.

Or sometimes catching it in unsanitary drinking water or food. That bacteria lives in different areas even after you go number ‘two’ it’s possible to get it that way. If you don’t wash your hands properly, that is.

I am just not sure where I got it.

I would need to get an endoscopy to get an accurate diagnosis for h. pylori and celiac disease, so I scheduled the procedure a week later. 

I agreed to get an endoscopy that it was the best option to ensure a proper diagnosis even though doctor’s and hospitals scared the crap out of me. Especially about this procedure because I didn’t know what to expect.