GERD is the word

GERD or Gastroesophageal Reflux Disease (chronic acid reflux) is pretty common in people with CF. I don't have an official diagnosis of GERD, but I think that's just a technicality.

I can remember being in elementary school and complaining to my mom about "yucky burps" and being given antacids. I'm probably one of the few third graders that went to the medicine cabinet and took TUMS at will. My relationship with those heavenly mint discs continued well into my 20s when my CF doctor started me on a daily regimen of omeprazole which is a protein pump inhibitor. Taking these on a daily basis was a huge life changer, I no longer had stashes of TUMS in every conceivable location and I also found that my digestive enzymes worked much better because they weren't doing battle with excess stomach acid. I was even able to decrease the number of enzymes that I took at each meal. When you consider that those little suckers cost about $2 each, the fewer needed is better.

Unfortunately over the last few months I've noticed that I've started to get heartburn fairly frequently, so it seems that my omeprazole isn't working like it used to. This weekend was especially bad. Friday night I fell asleep on the couch and a couple of hours later, when I woke up to go to my bed I noticed right away that I had severe reflux. It was so bad that it was making it's way to my mouth and causing me to cough and retch. I ended up going back to the couch to try and sleep sitting up. Eventually it settled enough that I could lay down propped up and was able to catch another couple hours. Heartburn continued through the day and increased every time I ate. I also had pretty bad tightness in my chest, like there was a vise grip squeezing my heart & lungs. I contemplated going to the ER, but kept putting it off, not wanting to overreact to a bit of heartburn. Eventually it subsided a bit, and through Sunday it only acted up after I ate. So here I sit at work on Monday and it's still happening. I put a call in to my CF clinic, so I'm just waiting to hear back from them. Hopefully there's something I can do to get me through the next few weeks until my clinic appointment. But until then I'm taking my old friends every where I go.