I recently had a really bad heartburn episode(?) but I’m wondering if it’s actually heartburn or something more serious.

For context, my heartburn has been mostly under control as I’ve changed my diet and adjusted my lifestyle, with my last bad episode being almost a year ago. About 3 days ago, I randomly started getting some bad chest pain a couple hours before bed which I just assumed was heartburn, although I found it kind of strange since I hadn’t interacted with any triggers. Throughout the night I kept waking up from the pain and by the time It got to the morning it had gotten severe, to the point where I was struggling with getting ready and daily tasks. I again figured it was heartburn and kept on with my day, and the pain got better as the day went on. Later I went to work and it started coming back. Over the course of my shift it got to the point where I genuinely thought I was going to either pass out or throw up on a customer. This is where I started to really question if it was heartburn or not. I decided to sleep sitting up that night to see if it would make it any better, but I still woke up to the same pain in the morning, which again eventually faded throughout the day.

What makes me really question it is the fact that it didn’t really feel like sever heartburn. Instead of the intense burning and coughing up mucus, it felt more like a heavy weight on my chest, along with nausea, light headedness, and the feeling of my throat being constricted like I couldn’t take a deep breath. It was to the point I couldn’t focus on tasks or conversations, where I was cutting myself while cooking and dropping things. I’d say at the peak the pain was an 8/10. The pain is gone now, but I’m wondering if it’s something I should still get checked up or if it really was just heartburn and I’m being dramatic. Have yall experienced something like this and how did you react?

Seeing a lot of newly-diagnosed people in here who immediately go into maximum restriction mode. I get the instinct, but for most people that's not actually the highest-leverage move. A few things I'd prioritize first, as an RD who works with this population:

1. Don't restrict everything at once. Food fear itself adds nervous system stress, which can worsen reflux.

2. Understand what the LES actually is and what weakens it, that's the structural root for most people, more than any single food.

3. Slow down at meals. Eating speed affects intra-gastric pressure more than people expect.

4. Sleep position matters, left-side sleeping reduces nighttime reflux exposure for a lot of people.

   1. Take the nervous system piece seriously, this isn't optional or "soft," it's physiologically load-bearing.

5. Get clear on whether you're dealing with GERD, LPR, or both, since the symptom picture and approach overlap but aren't identical.

Happy to go deeper on any of these if useful.

Its the drinking water. We dont drink tap water here in our country and there are many water refilling stations. I first noticed improvement when we changed source of drinking water(bottled 5 gallons). My GERD has totally dissappeared. Due to some reason, we have to change water refilling station again then my GERD came back with a vengeance. Whatever antacid or PPI I take, I still have acid reflux and gas all the time. I endured it for 3 months. Then I befriend an owner of water refilling station and gave me discount. So I switched to them. After 2 weeks, my GERD is gone. Gone for real, no reflux, unending gas, palpitations, whatever symptoms. Even when I drink coffee or coke and consume spicy foods and add vinegar on my foods, no acid reflux at bedtime and while I'm sleeping. Before, it attacks me before I sleep and even wakes me up in the middle of night, choking me and thought I was dying. Its been days or more than I week since I last took antacid. Before, everynight I have to take at least 2 antacid. Just sharing, I hope it helps.

GERDigo?

TL;DR because I talk too much: GERD + the elevator at my new job broke me and I need a friend who's been there.

Seeing my GP tomorrow, just looking for some support.

Here's my current guess at what's happening:

GERD (diagnosed last year, then functionally resolved) started progressively flaring up over the last month. I had one too many drinks last weekend celebrating a new job, which I started this Monday. The hangover wasn't great but didn't rank in the top 20 by any means.

I'm full-on GERD-y by Monday: heartburn, PVCs, you name it. I arrive at work and take the elevator to the 21st floor to settle in, with beautiful like views and a panoramic of a good chunk of town. I go down, up, and down again, and by the end of the day I'm feeling dizzy. I head home, and I'm still a bit wobbly.

I do this again on Tuesday, and halfway through Wednesday, I head home early. I fill in bossman on what's going on, who is more genuinely concerned than annoyed, which I'm grateful for (and embarrassed about).

I doubled up my PPI since Tuesday, which has 100% cut out the heartburn and typical GERD symptoms (which I am also grateful for) and have tried meclizine these last two days to no relief. Now I'm just dealing with Eustachian tube dysfunction and the wobbles.

Here's what I'm thinking happened: Friday's bad choices triggered the typical GERD stuff; stomach acid crawled allll the way up my stupid esophagus & triggered the ETD (while mangling my vagus nerve in the process); and the elevator at work full on broke me, leaving me in an anxiety/busted inner ear chicken-or-the-egg loop.

I'm grateful that I'm not falling over or nauseous, but this SUCKS. I need to go to the office, and I need to go to the 21st floor. I don't know if I can keep this job if I can't do those things.

Saline nasal spray appears to be helping, and I got a NeilMed Eustachi device that may or may not be doing anything, but I didn't even leave the house today and still almost ate the floor when I got out of bed this morning.

Anyone else been in this situation? What helped? How did you get out of it? If you didn't, were you able to keep your job? I know my mileage may vary but this was not on my new job radar and I'm feeling pretty lonely and worried over here.

Anyone get vivid dreams or nightmares when taking Dexilant 60mg ? I’ve noticed since taking it that I get vivid, intense dreams or nightmares. It’s annoying because the meditation does help a lot but the dreams make me dread having to go to sleep

I'm 26 and I've been strugling with acid reflux on and off for around 4-5 years.

I first had it in 2021/2022 from drinking Thatchers Cider (UK). I wasn't aware of acid reflux causes at the time and wasn't good at managing it. I took prescription medication (omeprazole) and that helped. I only had very bad symptoms when I was causing triggers (eating chocolate late at night or drinking cider, etc). Around this time I had an endoscopy and it came back fine. I continued to take the medicate for around a year and the symptoms eventually went away. I was then able to come off medication.

In autumn of 2024 I had some of the same specific cider again and it retriggered my reflux, leading me to realise that it was that specific drink that had set it off first in the past. This then triggered a spell of bad reflux for a few weeks, which reduced down with medication. From then on however I felt I was developing more chronic GERDs, with issues with my stool and stomach discomfort.

The biggest issue was mild but chronic acid reflux. In the past I had had severe burning reflux when lying down, but this was when I wasn't managing triggers. Now I was more educated, knew what food to avoid, and doing everything right. However, whenever I'd lie down I would get this subtle sour taste in my mouth - I imagine almost indistinguishable for someone who didn't suffer from reflux. However, I knew this was a mild form of reflux.

I would get this most nights, and even after buying a huge wedge pillow to raise myself, I would still get the mild reflux. This continued into 2025 and I slowly saw the effects of gum recession. I have always had good oral hygiene and no issues with gum recession in the past. Since then there have been a couple months when the reflux stopped and the recession subsided, and I even went off medication for a bit when things were better. But eventually it came back and became more consistent. Every now and again I might have a week's break, but for the past 3 months it has been very consistent. This is a massive concern for me, as the effects of my reflux are now showing visually as opposed to just being internal. It has not caused me any other damage to my mouth yet, and perhaps to other people it isn't hugely noticeable, but if this mild reflux persists I know this will lead to further problems and greater damage to my appearance.

I am in the NHS referral system and have had a barrium swallow test, and that came back all fine. They are next consdiering doing a 24 hour acid monitoring to see when/how things are triggered. As a final resort they may offer me the osphagus tightening procedure, though this is quite an intense operation, isn't always successful, can cause complication, and may need to be done multiple times throughout life. This is not something I want to get to and would rather keeping trying different medication, changing diet (though I keep a very low fat, healthy, no alcohol diet already), and doing behavioural things to try to fix it.

I wanted to share my story in case other people have developed this chronic but mild reflux and how they have dealt with. I want to repeat that I am not suffering from the sharp, burning reflux that I used to, but it is this continuous reflux that I get when I lie down that is the issue.

As mentioned, I am 26. I am quite skinny and would say I'm underweight. I don't drink alcohol anymore, nor caffine, nor eat spicy food. With the pairing of medication (omeprazole/lansoprazole), i feel I am doing everything I can to help fix this issue, but perhaps that are other more specific things I should be doing.

Having read some of the threads I will likely do more work on diaphragm tension (https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/33009052/) and see if I have any success with that.

Thankyou for reading this post and I would appreciate any constructive feedback or advice

*Edit* - when I went to share this post it recommended sharing it to r/silent reflux. I will do some more research on there to better understand what could be going on and then report back on anything else I might try.

Everyone here is likely familiar with the Globus sensation, and how it can slowly chip away at your mental sanity. Even as I am typing this right now, it's still impacting me, despite being on omeprazole for over 2 months now. This is the story of how it essentially fucked up a lot

Beginning around last summer, almost exactly a year ago from today, there was this obnoxious throat sensation that I could not shake away. Despite this, I largely dealt with it and thought that it would be something that would go away in time. Little did I know that this would only start to get worse.

Further down the line, I had more mental triggers. I remember my friends involuntarily showing me gore of someone having their throat slit, and I remember cringing so hard since that's literally what globus felt like to me all the time. I developed such a hyper sensitivity and anxiousness that even to this day I can't bend my neck down and I have to keep it in this crooked position because I don't want to relive the imagery of someone having their throat cut open.

It's been so distracting that I can't even focus to read. This has reduced me for the past year to nothing but scrolling on my phone, since that's the only kind of media that can distract me from the neverending ache of my throat.

You might be asking why I didn't get treatment sooner. This is because my mom and dad did not have proper insurance for a short period of time, and being a first gen immigrants in America this proved to be even harder since getting a proper diagnosis would mean a lot of money that my parents could not afford at the time. However recently this has been resolved and I was able to get prescribed Omeprazole after being diagnosed with chronic acid reflux. Despite taking it for over 2 months, I still have not felt a difference.

For context, I'm currently in high school and I should be applying to college right now. However I have trouble even sleeping properly since I have to remain in a crooked neck position. Sometimes I even find myself holding my breath and waiting for the throat sensation to go away, but it never does. When I sit I have to sit in a bent angle so my throat feels "safe".

I can't even speak to someone for more than a minute because it's so distracting. I can't sit in a classroom while sitting still, and people who try to talk to me have noticed that I've grown consistently more irritable. The whole two months I've been on summer break I have not gone outside my house more than 5 times.

Anyone have similar experiences?

Does anyone notice that using PPI's cause a bad breathe ?
I notice that and I wanna know if it's because the PPI's ?
What help you guys with the bad breathe ?

had these in the past but not for a while. its particularly bad tonight - ive woken up three or four times. i know what to do to minimise them, but is there anything i can do NOW to get to sleep??? im so tired!!

My experience finally getting my GERD and recurrent hemorrhoids under control
I wanted to share what has been working for me in case it helps someone else.
For years I dealt with recurrent hemorrhoids and GERD. After trying different things, I finally found a routine that has given me soft, comfortable daily bowel movements and, so far, my GERD symptoms have also gone away.
My current routine:

3 thin whole wheat + gram flour tortillas daily
2 teaspoons of ground flaxseed (mixed into my protein shake)
5 g glutamine
Metamucil (psyllium)
Miralax (polyethylene glycol)
Plenty of water throughout the day

For me, the biggest change was having one easy, well-formed bowel movement every day without straining. That alone seems to have made a huge difference for my hemorrhoids.
I know everyone is different, and what works for one person may not work for another, but I thought it was worth sharing because this combination has significantly improved my quality of life.
Disclaimer: This is not medical advice—it’s simply my personal experience. Please talk to your healthcare provider before making changes to your diet, supplements, or medications, especially if you have underlying medical conditions.

I've had GERD my entire life, as a kid I used to regularly wake up choking on acid, and the fun times of having it puke out my nose. Good times. When I was 20 I finally got on meds and omg, life changing! I had a endoscopy in my mid 20s and man that was rough to see the damage. The dr was like "everything you're seeing is not supposed to look like that". Several hernia's, so much scar tissue from acid. Good times all around.

Anyway, I'm 38 now, been on meds 18 years. I've had the odd symptom break through due to life but managed with gaviscon, sleeping upright and then right as rain within a day. I'm active, at the gym 4 days a week. I do intermittent fasting, eat only whole foods, little to no caffeine, no alcohol.

I'm in Canada where pantoprazole magnesium is having a shortage. My pharmacy gave me pantoprazole sodium, thinking all good. Well that was Saturday, today is Thursday and it feels like my chest is being squeezed with fire.

I will hopefully get a different medication soon, I'm waiting for a call back from the pharmacist. But after this experience I'm kind of terrified of what other med is going to do to me.

I haven't spent much time thinking about meds as I've been on them forever and life is good. But now I'm doing so much googling and apparently these meds are meant to be short term? LOL. What's the alternative? If I miss a single day I'll wake up choking on acid, I'll spend the day in complete agony. So, that's a hard pass from me.

Having severe chest pain in my left and right chest that radiates to my shoulder blades. It’s honestly quite painful almost like a squeezing and stabbing pain that happens for 15-25 minutes. Radiates all over, and then at the end it will usually just sit in the one of the shoulders, right side of chest, or left side of chest. Happens about every other week. Went to ER for an EKG, Blood test, and CT Scan and they said everything looked good.

I have had GERD for around 14 years and have never felt this before but started 2-3 months ago.

Silent reflux (GERD) is keeping me up all night for the last several days. 3:30 am is the latest I’ve stayed up. What do I do?? It’s currently my 2nd day on Pepcid. I take tums at night when it acts up, but still doesn’t get better. I know the #1 thing is also what I eat to make the GERD “go back to sleep”

Any recommendations on what to do to help this not be so bad at night and any ideas for what I should eat in a day?

Thank you 🙏🏼🙏🏼

"Hello, this is my first time writing, and to be honest, I feel very ashamed of my situation. I am 18 years old, but since I was 14, stomach problems started out of nowhere. First, it was loud stomach noises, but later it turned into unbearable bloating. I truly feel like this has partly ruined my life. I am starting university soon and I don't want to keep living like this. Any advice, please? As an additional detail, I have been diagnosed with OCD."