Very interesting board. I have suffered from panic/anxiety for only about 9 months now, stomach problems (gerd) about same time. I feel sooooooo bad for all of you who have suffered for so long.

It has always been conventional wisdom that I have the anxiety/panic because I have GERD and GERD symptoms feel so much like heart problems, thus causing me anxiety.

Lately however I have been wondering. Along with the chest pains I have back pains, usually upper sometimes middle. Well I went to the doc the other day to get some relief from the back pain and said that I can't take NSAID's as they tear my stomach apart and tylenol doesn't do anything for me. She gave me tramadol. Since I have been taking it my back pain is relieved (while the medication works) but a funny thing happened, my stomach pain also went away. Now does that make sense to anyone? Tramadol works as a CNS blocker so I see why it takes the back pain away but why the stomach pain. No other pain reliever ever did. Could it be that my back pain radiates to my chest, causing me stress/anxiety and that causes my stomach problems? I try to limit myself to one tramdol a day but would love to take more but they are too addictive and I can tell after just one week they are not as effective.

I'm going to look further into this carafate but definately interested in this GERD-Anxiety relationship. Keep posting all.

tm3912,
I have the same problem regarding medication -- can't take NSAIDS any longer which was the cause of the start of my stomach problems - tylenol does nothing for my back pain. I don't think I could even stand up if I took Tramadol or similar. There's not very many options for pain control due to inflammation.I don't have the chest or back pains from my stomach problems it's spine related. I can relate to your situation though.

Taape,

I agree with you that mine feels more like the pain is located directly on the spine just above mid-back. (That's what I'm calling back pain) I also get an aching pain in the center of my chest directly across from the pain in the back. I've gone to the chiropractor several times because I thought it was spine related but it doens't seem to help.

I'm a little surprised to hear about your experience with tramadol. I take 50 mg once a day (I can take more but I really try to limit) while it works on the pain it doesn't really effect me that much at all as far as motor skills. Of course I'm a fairly big guy so maybe that has something to do with it. However when I take it I feel as close to "normal" as I have in the last 9 months, it's been a real god send.

It's frustrating everytime I feel that I am improving this GERD/Back/spine pain comes back with a vengence. I don't know how some of you have done it for all of these years.

Have you tried a chiro to see if you do have a spine problem? Good Luck hopefully something will come along to help us all.