LPR or allergies? Nervous about amount of medications for LPR.

[jlgaustin]

I think the doctors I go to are all grasping at straws to figure out whats wrong with me.

2 1/2 months ago I started aciphex 2xday because I was having plugged ears and headaches. The ENT's always look down my throat at my vocal corRAB and say they look good. Yet they still say I probably have LPR.

Around the middle to end of Septeraber the ear stuff was better and the headaches were less frequent, but I got a mild viral cough that lasted for around 7 days, a few days after the viral cough was better I then had surgery to remove all my wisdom teeth, 10 days after my wisdom tooth removal I got an infection in one of my tooth sockets, this was causing the bacteria to get in the back of my throat and causing me to cough up some pretty nasty green crap for a few days until the antibiotic kicked in. I took 7 days of Augmentin to clear all of this. From that point on for about a month now, I wake up every morning with an irritated throat, it gets better during the day once I get up and clear all the mucus. I am wondering if the bacteria from the tooth infection didn't get full cleared from my throat.

About 3 weeks into this throat irritation, which was last Wednesday the throat got worse and was sore pretty much all day being even worse in the morning and I noticed I cough up green phlegm in the mornings.

I went back to my ENT and he said LPR again and just added more medicine, so for 3-4 days now I have been taking aciphex, one in the morn one at one before dinner, and then 2 150mg Zantac before bed. I haven't noticed any difference so far.

Being on aciphex for 2 1/2 months and now adding 2 zantac a night. With this amount shouldn't I noticed a little improvement?

I also take Veramyst and Patanase for allergies.

 

[janewhite1]

I do think you're on a LOT of reflux meRAB for someone with no heartburn symptoms and no clear reflux diagnosis. And 2.5 MONTHS? Generally PPIs start to work within one week if they are going to.

 

[Seeking Sunrise]

Yes. I don't think we should trust the idea that you should take them for months. The doctors just don't know what to do about it. I have this problem too. For some, it just goes away on its own or gets better. For others it's chronic. I think I would suggest, de-stressing (know you can't die from this even if it feels bad), exercise (that's been helping me maybe), eating healthy not because it has to do with reflux but just because a stronger immune system and faster repair of damage. And something I'm going to do asap is get a LYRICA prescription. This is probably just nerve misfiring in my not-expert opinion, so you have to get help with the nerves. PPIs are ridiculous, we are probably just making the reflux problems we don't even have appear by causing acid rebound from all the bloody drugs. And if they worked, why is the ppi success rate as good as that of placebos in most recent double-blind studies? And why do 80 percent of healthy subjects randomly picked have the same tell-tale red larynx of lpr patients?
This disease is awful. We can sit in the ppi crowd, or we can take sugar pills, and look for something else. Sugar pills are cheaper. That's my word of advice (hopefully I can stick to it, but sometimes it's comforting to take a ppi in the morning and imagine "this is really gonna help me this time. I can feel it." 5 months later, you'll be thinking, "I feel kind of nurab to these symptoms. Did they spontaneous get better on their own? No, it was the ppis the wonderful doctor gave me!"