u/aydengryphon

I started having GERD issues that felt like what they say (especially women's) heart attack symptoms are like for the first time in Dec 2019. Sharp, stabbing chest pain, crushing weight, difficulty drawing a full breath, numbness in extremities, jaw pain, the works. Went to the ER two or three times in a short span of a couple months, spent a lot of nights in between worried I was gonna die.

It took an embarrassingly long time for anyone to propose it could be GERD because the non-emergency follow-up visits I had with my PCP and then cardiology and pulmonology coincided with the start of the pandemic; there was a lot of noise where doctors didn't know much about COVID yet and thought I was potentially having complications of that (even though I had no other COVID symptoms at any point... early 2020 was a weird time). Eventually someone did figure it out and I got put on PPIs, and I felt like my symptoms were pretty well managed for a long time. Had an endoscopy done that determined I had a small hiatal hernia, assumed I now also knew the cause.

Early this year I ended up back in the ER for breakout symptoms worse than I'd had in ages, worried it really was a heart attack this time because I felt so incredibly "off" and out of it in addition to the more familiar sensations. Nope, still same old deal. Thought it was probably from gardening and bending over too much earlier in the day, messing with the hernia situation.

Later in the spring I started having weird recurring UTI-like symptoms with no actual UTI. Thought it was maybe being caused by kidney stones (before we eventually learned it was actually perimenopause-related), and found out when doing imaging of my kidneys that I have gallstones. My gastroenterologist actually thinks the gallstones might be the true root cause of the rest of my GERD woes, and I've been battling my way through getting the necessary surgery referrals and insurance clearance to have the gallbladder removed, and that process (especially the referrals) is just taking forever.

But in the meantime, my GERD symptoms have been dramatically worsening. They've upped my PPI dose, but it's barely been helping. My guts are also a disaster (I did a bunch of courses of antibiotics during the UTI mystery months), and I kind of suspect I've ended up with SIBO between the antibiotics and years of the PPIs based on what's been going on with my bowel movements, but I haven't been able to get in to confirm that with someone yet due to already trying to schedule this other surgery and the costs of these months of medical drama already piling up. The result is that I get chest pain more often and worse than ever now, between my GI upset and the gallbladder attacks and the GERD all triggering the vagus nerve reactions.

I'm up right now browsing the forum for comfort, but I just hate so much that there is this much symptomatic crossover for these conditions that are not actually related to your heart. Tonight's shooting pain is the scariest I've personally experienced, just because it's even worse than usual and is actually even on the left-hand side right below my ribs (a new location — it's usually in the center of my chest, or more recently in my upper right quadrant).

I genuinely cannot afford to go to the ER again, so I'm stuck trying to comfort myself, as I have done many nights before, with the fact that I can feel all the other normal reflux symptoms and stomach upset, and it's obviously a lot more likely it's the Thing I Am Aware I Have That Causes These Symptoms than a heart problem that has manifested since the last time they checked my "stellar" heart function more recently. But it's scary, and I hate it. I hate having so many nights where a I've left "just-in-case" notes app messages for my spouse, and had to reckon with the fear of shuffling off this mortal coil before I can fall asleep.

Thanks if you read my rant. Sweet dreams to all you other chest pain -sufferers out there.

Getcher free taters on Monday, folks

> “Anyone is welcome to come. They can bring tote bags, wagons, you could back up your pickup truck if you wanted to,” [Caroline Hissong, the communication manager for the nonprofit We Don’t Waste] said. The event is 9 a.m. to noon at the Park Hill Food Recovery Hub, 6090 East 39th Avenue, on July 27.