26th February 2007
I'm starting to feel a little better. I did a little bit of experimentation to see where I stand with how chemicals/medications are reacting with my body.
A month ago when I first started to feel ill with horrid pain and acid in my upper right gastro area and repeated visits to the ER for pain. I was given maalox, etc and told it was gastritis. I was taking PPI's at first and they didn't really help with the pain.
Then I started to take carafate which I thought was my miracle drug. A day or so later I lost my ability to eat more than 2 bites of food. Developed nausea and felt horrible.. but was out of pain as long as I took my carafate!
Over the past weekend I decreased my carafate intake and my appetite came back! I'm still get some acid but I'm treating that with maalox and PPI's. I am no longer constipated either!
I had looked up Dyspepsia and carafate and found dyspepsia to be a side effect of carafate so my experiment proved to be on target.
Now, here's something else interesting...
Back several years ago I was diagnosed at the age of 30 with asthma! I was put on Singulair pills. When I first got sick, I stopped taking my singular. My primary care physician asked me, "why did you stop them?" I replied back, "instinct".
All these weeks and doctor's visits I learned that acid can cause asthma like symptoms because the throat and airway can get burned by the acid!
Then this morning I started to look up Singular which has another name of Montelukast. I queried it on Medline Plus which is a government website. I found the following gastro related side effects to be interesting in relation to my symptoms:
Abdominal or stomach pain
chills
constipation
diarrhea
difficulty swallowing
indigestion
loss of appetite
nausea
pains in the stomach, side or abdomen (radiating to the back)
shaking
upper right abdominal pain
Now even though I have been diagnosed with gastritis and hiatal hernia - it makes me wonder if the montelukast (singulair) triggered gastritis. Usually hiatal hernia just causes some acid but nothing like what i was experiencing and it perplexed all the doctors.
It should be interesting to see how the doctors deal with the print outs I am going to present to them. I'll keep you all posted!
A month ago when I first started to feel ill with horrid pain and acid in my upper right gastro area and repeated visits to the ER for pain. I was given maalox, etc and told it was gastritis. I was taking PPI's at first and they didn't really help with the pain.
Then I started to take carafate which I thought was my miracle drug. A day or so later I lost my ability to eat more than 2 bites of food. Developed nausea and felt horrible.. but was out of pain as long as I took my carafate!
Over the past weekend I decreased my carafate intake and my appetite came back! I'm still get some acid but I'm treating that with maalox and PPI's. I am no longer constipated either!
I had looked up Dyspepsia and carafate and found dyspepsia to be a side effect of carafate so my experiment proved to be on target.
Now, here's something else interesting...
Back several years ago I was diagnosed at the age of 30 with asthma! I was put on Singulair pills. When I first got sick, I stopped taking my singular. My primary care physician asked me, "why did you stop them?" I replied back, "instinct".
All these weeks and doctor's visits I learned that acid can cause asthma like symptoms because the throat and airway can get burned by the acid!
Then this morning I started to look up Singular which has another name of Montelukast. I queried it on Medline Plus which is a government website. I found the following gastro related side effects to be interesting in relation to my symptoms:
Abdominal or stomach pain
chills
constipation
diarrhea
difficulty swallowing
indigestion
loss of appetite
nausea
pains in the stomach, side or abdomen (radiating to the back)
shaking
upper right abdominal pain
Now even though I have been diagnosed with gastritis and hiatal hernia - it makes me wonder if the montelukast (singulair) triggered gastritis. Usually hiatal hernia just causes some acid but nothing like what i was experiencing and it perplexed all the doctors.
It should be interesting to see how the doctors deal with the print outs I am going to present to them. I'll keep you all posted!