Gut Feelings, 2

In 2012, I started to notice I was having a bit more heartburn again.  I started taking Tums more.  I had no idea, and still don’t, why this was happening.  I hadn’t changed my medication dose in a while, I hadn’t changed my eating or drinking habits.  No idea why this was happening.

In May 2013, we went on a mini-vacation to the beach for a weekend.  Our last morning there, I got sick.  We had gotten take out tacos and stuff the night before so I’m guessing it was something from there.  I had diarrhea, which I never have.  My issues are always upper GI.  My body was desperately trying to flush something out, though, and let’s just leave it at that.  I did throw up once.

After we decided I was stable, we left on the 3hr drive home.  It started out fine, but the longer we were on the road the oogier I felt.   It wasn’t nausea, but I just did not feel right.  We got home, we both crashed and took naps.  I woke up about 2-3 hours later, drank some water, and about 20 minutes later threw up blood in the form of what looked like coffee grounds (how it  normally looks when this happens).  Hm.  

I went to the doctor the next day and she confirmed it.  She decided to treat me like I had a bleeding ulcer, the worst case scenario, but said most likely I had broken a blood vessel when I threw up the first time and had been slowly bleeding into my stomach.  I hear that is not too uncommon, actually.  The good thing it was only once; if I had continued to throw up blood, I could have bled out and died.  She prescribed me a horrible chalky liquid to drink 4xday to coat my stomach, and I was to take an OTC Zantac twice a day.  And see my GI specialist.

2 weeks later, I did and he took me off the liquid chalk because it was upsetting my stomach.  I had lost 15lb in the 4 days after being sick, mostly because I was scared to death to eat anything because I might tear open whatever had bled.  I still had little appetite, too, and I was on soft food.  I ate a LOT of applesauce, cottage cheese, and bananas.

2 weeks after that, I had an endoscopy, 6 years since the first one.  He saw no reason for the bleeding, but by then a month had passed.  No bleeding ulcer.  We’re going with the “broken blood vessel” theory. He did show me pictures later of my lower esophagus, red and inflamed.  Barrett’s Esophagus again.  But I don’t understand why.  I mean, I’m guessing it was caused by the increased heartburn I was experiencing.  But the last time I had it (in college, remember?) I was not medicated for my heartburn.  Now I am, why did I have the increased heartburn?

He increased my dose of Omeprazole to 20mg 2x/day.  He took me off the Zantac.  I’m not supposed to eat after 6 (difficult, I don’t get home from work until about 5:30), no citrus, caffeine, fatty foods, fried foods, tomatoes, onions, or garlic.  No lifting heavy objects.  No bending or twisting.  He specifically said, get this, “No gardening.”  When I asked about the kayak, he said to go out for a short run and see how I felt (felt fine, so we’ll just go with that).  

To say I’m frustrated is an understatement.  I am SO frustrated when I think about all this.  And angry.  I mean on one hand, I’m very grateful that this is worst medical problem I have.  It could be a lot worse, I know.  But I am dealing with some pretty major lifestyle changes and I’m struggling with them.  I’ll get into that and my decision to try to get off my meds in part 3.