Crossing my fingers. . .

[epstns]

Well, now I'm crossing my fingers. I've been talking with my cardio about when to schedule surgery for AS. At the moment, it looks like next year, probably in early spring. That's not a surprise -- we've been watching my stenosis progress for almost 10 years, and although it is stable, I don't want to delay too long and risk damage.

The new wrinkle is that I've recently been diagnosed with acid reflux, which was causing cough, horaseness, terrible bloating, and also gall bladder irritation. I've had gallstones for 25 years, and didn't have any complications from them, but the acid over-production in my digestive system caused pain and irritation of the gall bladder. My internist recommended removal of the gall bladder, but when I consulted my cardio, he cautioned against any surgery right now. It seems that there is a concern that with a valve as "thght" as mine, putting me under anaesthesia might drop my BP so low that the heart may not be able to continue pushing blood through the narrowed valve. So, unless it becomes a terrible emergency, no gall bladder removal for me until after valve surgery.

So far, we've tried Prilosec. It completely stopped the acid reflux symptoms, bloating, etc., but it gave me some truly awful side effects (rapid heart rate, decreased exercise tolerance and ANXIETY attacks). Called the doc the day I was leaving for a vacation in Washington, DC, and he suggested switching to either Pepcie, Tagamet or Zantac. I spoke with a friendly pharmacist and was told that the one most people tolerated best was Zantac, so I've been using this for a week now. It seems to be working, with minimal side effects, so I'm crossing my fingers that it keeps things under control without nasty side effects until after valve replacement.

Have any of you run into this sort of situation before? If you had acid reflux, what did you need to do?

 

[Trinityheart8891]

Hey Steve,
Morgan Here, I had severe acid reflux, at one point I was on zantac 150 twice a day and prevacid 2 pills twice a day, also either tums/maalox as needed, I found zantac to be very helpful, and usually the maalox was more helpful than the tums (when it was convenient to use) have you tried prevacid or another of the same class (proton pump inhibitor, like prilosec, nexium, protonix)? I also found eating bland foods (I know, its pretty obvious, but it did help me somewhat) small meals multiple times a day, sleeping with your head of bed on bricks/sleeping on extra pillows, not eating before bed, never having too much in my stomach at one time (which seemed to be pretty much the top factor for me, if I had too much in my stomach I would reflux it, whether it was a glass of water or a meal of 2-3 slices of pizza and beer, or spaghetti, or the like)

in the end I ended up having a nissen fundoplication to fortify/repair my gastroesophageal junction...I believe that I had ultimately had acid reflux problems since I was an infant (was famous for projectile puking.....pretty much anything)

hope this helps