J
jt33
Guest
I was diagnosed with LPR a month ago. Symptoms: discomfort in swallowing, mostly on left side of throat. The ENT stuck a tube down my nose and said the upper esophogeal sphincter was swollen, and that 98 percent of the time it's from LPR. (I had had a couple reflux episodes before in my life, but didn't know it could affect the throat.)
He put me on prilosec twice a day. That was a month ago. There hasn't been much improvement, if any. It comes and goes. Always better in morning, then within an hour the swallowing discomfort reappears, always on left side. During the day it may come and go a bit, but never really disappears completely. If I gargle with Froben (flurbiprofen) it seems to improve somewhat for awhile.
I know this may take time to heal, but I'm wondering here if anyone has some advice on these questions:
-- How long do I give Prilosec a chance to work before switching to something else? (I'm really taking generic omeprazole, since I live in Italy; I also can get Prevacid for free.)
-- The fact that my discomfort is mainly on one side seems unusual. I've read there can be a mucosal lesion that causes this. Sometimes it seems like it's a sore spot, other times it seems like almost a muscular problem. (Weirdly, if I turn my head in a certain way or direction it doesn't hurt to swallow; but that's not always consistent, either.) Anyone have experience with this?
-- I have not made dietary changes yet, like cutting out my moderate use of caffeine, alcohol, etc. My presumption has been that the damage was done about seven weeks ago (when I had just gotten off a three-week course of antibiotics for Lyme disease, and for a while I knew I was having reflux) and that now I just need to heal the damage. How important is diet change at this stage of the game?
Thanks to all who post here, it's a great way to learn about this and do what we can to manage it.
He put me on prilosec twice a day. That was a month ago. There hasn't been much improvement, if any. It comes and goes. Always better in morning, then within an hour the swallowing discomfort reappears, always on left side. During the day it may come and go a bit, but never really disappears completely. If I gargle with Froben (flurbiprofen) it seems to improve somewhat for awhile.
I know this may take time to heal, but I'm wondering here if anyone has some advice on these questions:
-- How long do I give Prilosec a chance to work before switching to something else? (I'm really taking generic omeprazole, since I live in Italy; I also can get Prevacid for free.)
-- The fact that my discomfort is mainly on one side seems unusual. I've read there can be a mucosal lesion that causes this. Sometimes it seems like it's a sore spot, other times it seems like almost a muscular problem. (Weirdly, if I turn my head in a certain way or direction it doesn't hurt to swallow; but that's not always consistent, either.) Anyone have experience with this?
-- I have not made dietary changes yet, like cutting out my moderate use of caffeine, alcohol, etc. My presumption has been that the damage was done about seven weeks ago (when I had just gotten off a three-week course of antibiotics for Lyme disease, and for a while I knew I was having reflux) and that now I just need to heal the damage. How important is diet change at this stage of the game?
Thanks to all who post here, it's a great way to learn about this and do what we can to manage it.