Reflux and GERD is nothing to dismiss lightly. I know. My husband died 3 years ago at age 56 from esophageal cancer. It is deadly. You do not survive it. And this was from a lifetime of reflux and GERD. He did not smoke or drink. They knew he was high risk because he developed Barrett's esophagus (a precancerous state) so it was caught very early(from yearly endoscopies). Didn't matter. There is no effective treatment or cure. You die. Period.

So, even if you are not having heartburn with your reflux you may still be damaging your esophagus. No foods or liquids are meant to be in the esophagus. If when lying down at night you get reflux, your esophagus is getting damaged.

It wouldn't be a bad idea to get endoscopies from time to time and if you develop Barrett's - take measures then.

I was just curious if you are banded. I never had problems until after I was banded. It became an issue when I developed chest pains about 10 months post-banding. I never had typical heart burn or acid up to the throat. I found out after spending the night in the hospital to rule out heart issues that it was acid reflux and have been on protonix ever since. They only gave me a script for one month and I ended up getting an endoscopy to see if there was any damage done and they found just red marks and benign stomach polyps and put me back on the protonix after finally getting it approved by my insurance company as it's very expensive.

I was just curious as I've read most people who are banded can't help but get acid reflux problems. Have you heard this also? Nancy

The only time i have had reflux is if my band is too tight; and it only happens at night time if i eat before i go to bed.

Yes, after seeing the poll on reflux I saw that 80% of those who answered the poll said they got reflux after banding. That's a lot. I was banded in Sept. 08. I have been on nexium for many years before this banding and that was because a long time ago I had heartburn but hadn't had any symptoms for probably 10 years. Until last week. I don't think it's a coincidence that I got the reflux after the second fill or shoulder pain after the banding. I had an endoscopy in June 08 (before the surgery) and everything looked good. I know from reading some of your other posts that you have some trouble with your band or aren't happy with it. I'm not that crazy about mine at this point in time. It has never reduced my hunger and that is why I got it. And I wanted to lose weight to help my chronic back problems. I have lost 65 pounds (5 from the band) and my back has not improved.

Were the red marks they found with you in your esophagus? If so, keep an eye on them. Did they do a biopsy? They usually do. If so, did you get a copy of the report? I always get a copy of everything. I just asked my banding surgeon for a copy of the operative report. My philosophy is - if the doctor sees it, I see it. BTW - I like your Irish Snoopy - I have my Irish decorations up at home. Goodbye winter - hello spring! Thanks for your reply.

I don't know if you knew but I had my band removed last October. I know they biopsied the polyps but I don't know if they biopsied the esophagus. This is a totally different group than my gastric surgeon and I'll use them also when I'm 50 for my colonoscopy. I'll have to look into that. I did get a typed statement of what they did so I'll look in my file.

I haven't put up my Snoopy St. Pat flag yet but we still have too much snow! I have to switch my decor from Valentine's to St. P next weekend!

Take care and sorry about your husband, Nancy.

Thanks Nancy. My beloved husband was everyone's favorite Irishman and he loved St. Patrick's Day. We do a fundraiser for his memorial scholarship right before St. Patrick's Day every year. What part of the country are you in that you still have a lot of snow? Ours has been melted for a couple of weeks.

I didn't know you had your band removed. How long did you have it before it was removed? What was the reason? Whose idea was it to remove it? And was the band what you thought it would be? Do you feel much better now? Are you contemplating any other WLS? Sorry for all the questions. Just curious.

Thanks for writing.

Upstate NY and we got hammered again today. Grew up outside DC which can get cold too but the snow is something that I still just can't get used to.

My husband and I are both part Irish, he more so than I but his full name is Irish and never pronounced correctly which is silly as it's a simple name! That's nice you can remember your husband every year that way.

I had the band about 14 months and was removed last October. It never worked for me although I gave it the best try I could and eventually got the reflux issues. At my one year anniversary of being banded I saw my surgeon and that's when we discussed the obvious, a year is long enough and because I was always way too tight all the time he took all the fill out and asked me to wait a month before I decided to have it removed to make sure that's what I wanted to do. I waited more than a month and they removed it pretty quickly after I was in the hospital for the reflux chest pains. I am thinking of RNY because my daughter had it last May and has lost over 140 lbs so far. I have an appt. to meet with my surgeon next month to see if it's feasible etc...and I have decided yet if or what I'll do. I really don't want to make any rash decisions and am glad I didn't revise immediately and have given myself some time to adjust to the removal. Anyway that's about it and Happy pre-St. Patrick's Day Nancy.

Hi Nancy - I am in southwestern PA and I spoke too soon. We got more snow today - but not on the roads, just grass, etc..

Did you lose weight with the band? Did you have upper GI's or endoscopies to diagnose the reflux? So you got the chest pains even after all the fill was removed? Something must have been wrong with the band. And you're right - it wasn't for you. Has the reflux gone away now that the band has been removed? I wish you lots of luck with whatever you decide to do in the future and I'm sure you'll research it heavily before you make your decision. Slainte and Happy St. Paddy's Day.

Initially I lost weight prior to banding on the 4 week medifast liquid diet about 20+ pounds. Then I had surgery and lost a bit after that and then when I started to eat normal food I chewed and chewed until one day I discovered I didn't need to because they never really put anything in the first 3 fills, the fill nurse thought I had the smaller band. So I finally got the surgeon to do the next fill and he got me up to about 3.5, not that the number really matters it just made me super tight, this was about 3 months after my surgery. So I was basically too tight at that point but I didn't know any better. So I started eating around the band, mainly yogurts and Jello and Cereal or if it was salad or meat it had to have a lot of dressing or mayo to get it down. I did my fair share of PBing, it was almost normal at this point.

Since that fill every time I went to the office after that I was slowly putting back the weight I lost in the beginning and because I was "gaining" the fill tech put in more fill so I kept getting worse and gaining until finally she put in too much as she had written in the wrong amount and I was puking in a church parking lot a block from their office. I didn't know if this was abnormal either, hadn't come to the LBT forum yet. I ended up calling the on-call surgeon and my husband drove me to their office at midnight where a different surgerion discovered the mistake and took out enough to go back to the old amount where I was still too tight but could swallow my own saliva again.

This went on for a year of trying and failing getting fills and unfills and never getting to that sweet spot until my surgeon finally unfilled me and then you know the rest.

After my stay in the hospital my surgeon sent me for an upper GI which they saw the acid reflux and a small hiatal hernia and that's when they scheduled my removal within the next two weeks. I chose to see a specialist aftewards to make sure there was no damage done to my insides.

I still had the pains after my band was removed another reason why I went for an endoscopy because my protonix script had run out I believe that was helping me. I'm on it now and have not had any pains in a long time. I'm not a soda drinker, have to watch the chocolate though, I know there are a lot of things that can aggravate it. I was surprised when they told me that I couldn't drink Water when I went to bed though and still have a hard time stopping that as I like to have my water.

Watch "The Quiet Man" if you haven't yet, my favorite Irish flick. Take care Nancy.

Edited February 19, 200917 yr by Nanook

Nancy - I am so sorry you had to go through all that pain for so long. What an idiot that nurse was. She should be written up if not fired. I am glad you are feeling better and have had follow up tests. My son is on protonix. I know it works well.

It's funny that you mentioned "The Quiet Man" - yes, I've seen it with John Wayne and Maureen O'Hara. In 1996 we all went to Ireland for two weeks and got to see where Maureen O'Hara has her home there. While there we took hundreds of pictures - one with my husband in one of those tweed Irish snap caps and standing against the rugged Irish landscape. I had his obituary custom framed and I chose that picture to go in the frame because I always called it his "Quiet Man" picture. It's on the wall by my computer and I look at it everyday.

I didn't know Maureen O. lived in Ireland all the time now? She was/is such a beautiful actress. My dad died three years ago and always wore one of those tweed caps so I kept two of them to remind me of him. They're kind of pretty in a way. I love Maureen O'Hara's tweed jacket in that movie. I bought the collectors DVD last year but it was always on TCM every year and is again this year on 3/17.

My pain wasn't that bad but was enough to help me get my band removed and paid for since it wasn't working. So in a way it was a good thing and I'm not in any pain anymore. Is your son on it as he has the same problems your husband had? My husband is the type of person who will wake up in the middle of the night with acid in his throat coughing, I wonder if I should worry about him now! He's always popping Tums.

Sorry again you lost your husband but glad that you have such happy memories of him. Nancy

Hi Nancy - I think Maureen O'Hara has a home here and over there. She was born there. Both my son and daughter have stomach problems - my son has a hiatal hernia and my daughter has mild gastritis or something similar - he (same gastro doctor) said it was like sandpaper scraping the walls of the stomach. Because of the family history, he is on protonix and gets endo's from time to time. They are both normal weight.

Yes, you should have your husband see a gastro doctor and get that checked. The wait and see approach that they used with my husband resulted in his death. Had they removed the Barrett's part of his esophagus when he first got it he would still be alive. I'm not sure insurance would have paid for it or if there would have been a surgeon who would have done it because they just did a wait and see. Wait for what? They caught my husband's cancer so early it was almost missed. Didn't matter. They removed his esophagus, it was not in his lymph nodes and the prognosis was good - for 11 month until they found it in his liver. It is the fastest rising cancer by percent. And like I said, there is no effective treatment. In my husband's case, they removed his esophagus and crossed their fingers. I think there are more aggressive procedures for Barrett's these days. But even after he went on prevacid and didn't feel the heartburn, food still came up at night (he lacked a muscle at the base of his esophagus - for which a surgery didn't fix) and he was still damaging his esophagus. From the time he started on these meds and slept practically sitting up, the damage was already done. It's tough to get men to go to the doctors but my husband lived on Rolaids from the time I met him until they came out with all those PPI's. Good luck to you and him.

Thanks for the info, that's really awful what you and your husband went through! It's good that your children are seeing doctors to prevent it also and I hope they are well.

Everyone on my husband's father's side of the family has died of a heart attack, his older brother and sister both have had either heart attacks or some blockage but both survived. My husband and his younger brother have both been seeing cardiologists for years to prevent any problems. This has been a real relief for me.

I think I'll heed your advice about getting him to see a specialist. Often when he has a bad attack of acid reflux he'll end up sleeping sitting up. The man can sleep through anything so even though it looks awful he can still sleep. I also have to look into Barrett's as I'm not familiar with it but will check it out on line to learn what it is.

My younger sister was a smoker and quit about a month before they discovered she had breast cancer and also had the acid reflux problems and has been treated for it. I think it had something to do with smoking and coffee. I should make sure she gets that looked into also.

I knew that Maureen O had two brothers that were in the film. I'll have to look up her house on the internet too and see if there are any pics. Take care and thanks for the info, Nancy.:sneaky:

Nancy - Barrett's esophagus is a precancerous condition of the esophagus. It results from food and acid splashing into the esophagus. The esophagus is not made to have these things there and cells start to change. The pictures of his endoscopy would show a pink esophagus with large patches of red (Barrett's) and they would biopsy every year. They will tell you that only a small % of Barrett's turns into cancer. Doesn't matter if you're one of them. Because it's a death sentence. It is more common in men and more deadly for some reason. And more common in smokers and drinkers. My husband was neither.

My husband died at 56, his dad died at 58 of cancer of the stomach/intestinal area (he was a heavy smoker) and his grandfather died in his 40's of some type of stomach problem (we don't know for sure if it was cancer - it was so long ago). So 3 generations of men died early of cancer - something not lost on my son. Both he and my daughter participated in a study at the Cleveland Clinic. They had to send blood and I gave permission for a sample of my husband's tumor to be sent to them. They were looking for genes for esophageal cancer. This is why I am so concerned about my reflux. I know it's nothing to mess around with.

I got breast cancer 7 years ago. I have never been a smoker but blamed my weight gain as an adult for it. Yes, smoking and coffee are bad for reflux as well as chocolate, mint and alcohol.

Hope your husband gets checked and good luck.

I was banded last dec so it has been 14 mos now. Everything has been WONDERFUL until thispast fill. I now have a feeling of something in my throat most of the time. I have acid indigestion after everything and cannot stop burping/ Is this something common? What can I do about it? I had only .5cc added this fill as after a year without any fills I was starting to get hungary. Any suggestions?

Edited February 20, 200917 yr by dustkicker
spelling

I am certainly no expert on fills having only had two but those who have had many fills and unfills will tell you that even though you only had .5 put in, you might be too tight. How long was your last fill? If it was over two weeks ago and you still have the problem, talk to your surgeon. It might be common but it is not normal. And maybe post this problem as a new thread. You'll probably get more answers. Or go to the reflux poll - lots of replies on that one. It might get lost on this one. Good luck.