It all started in may of 2023, i had just turned 19 and got a job in July of 2022, I was making money and working my ass off. Then around may of 2023 I was lifting some heavy buckets at work, and a week later I started to feel pressure in my abdomen radiating between my left rib and belly button. I switched job positions around July of 2023, and felt better doing less heavy lifting.

Around couple months pass and I start to get the same pressure feeling in the same spot, I went to the doctor and did an ultrasound plus a ct scan with contrast. Both test came back normal, except for a slightly enlarged spleen, the doctor told me it was nothing to worry about and I just moved on. The pressure soon turned into pain when lifting and by July of 2025 I got fired because of it.

After I got fired I started drinking a lot and just stayed in gaming. Around November of 2025 after thanksgiving had an episode that lead me to the hospital. They told me it was alcohol withdrawal and sent me home, I was never an everyday drinker and just started drinking at 21. So I stopped drinking but the symptoms persisted, I went another 4 times to the er because of the panic attack like symptoms and they diagnosed me with anxiety. I went to my doctor and he sent me to a cardiologist, I did an echocardiogram and a couple of EKGs but both came back normal, this was around February of 2026.

I got sent to a psychiatrist and therapist, and I explained to them that these symptoms were there when my anxiety wasn’t. My psychiatrist told me that it sounded like pots, I told my cardiologist to test me but he said it wasn’t necessary and told me to keep going to my therapist appointments. Around may of 2026 the stomach pain started happening more frequently and had more new symptoms.

Like, bloating in upper left abdomen, food coming back up after eating, excessive burping after meals, chronic constipation, and a bunch of cardiac /dysautonomia symptoms. I’ll be seeing a GI specialist in October to do some tests, just wondering if anyone experienced the same thing and sorry for the long post.

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I had a partial wrap back in April and at first felt great, but eventually all of my symptoms came back, including a sore throat. My surgeon ordered an endoscopy to see if the wrap was still intact and of course it is. How can that be when all of my symptoms are back?

I don't get it. Anyone else this happened to?

I am scheduled for an endoscopy and bravo capsule. It was supposed to be next week but they moved it to mid Sept. While I tried to come off PPI last week, I ended up in the ER Sunday evening. The nausea, vomiting and pain was intense. It was so awful! I’m really not wanting to even to the bravo capsule at this point.

I have a large hiatal hernia- most of my stomach is involved. It’s crazy to me it’s not ‘obvious’ that I have intense acid reflux. The Dr said I could do Pepcid twice a day until 3 days before. They didn’t tell me that last week which was annoying. Felt like I suffered for nothing.

I have manometry scheduled in a couple of weeks.

Has anyone been able to argue a case for surgery without the bravo capsule?

Been on prescription Prilosec for five days now.

I've been in a state of fight or flight from an LPR flare up for two months now. During the five days, I've come out of the state of fight or flight a little bit but today felt like some kind of new panic was setting in.

I have been on the PPI for just five days. Is it possible it is adding to the agitation or is it just the LPR symptoms? I feel incredibly jittery. I really want to try a PPI for 4 to 8 weeks to see if it can help with the LPR, but I'm having a hard time distinguishing between mental health symptoms from the condition or side effects from the pill.

After a horrible 3 year battle through referral from my GP to seeing a specialist, going through all the tests, and then finally having my surgery a week ago, my main concern is long term limitations to strength and ability to carry on my work.

I've worked as a gas engineer for about 12 years (since leaving education) so it's basically been all I've done for work. My main issue is not service work, as i can use a light tool wrap with only essential tools, but with heavy/more strenuous installation work. Sometimes older appliances can weigh easily over 60kg+, which normally would be manageable prior to surgery.

What has everyone's experience been with core strength and ability to resume normally into trade and more physically demanding work?

My main concern is that after i return to work after the advised 6 weeks (my surgeon said i should be fine to carry out normal works) but then I start doing installation work and cause damage to the wrap or diaphragm repair, or another hernia.

just met with my doctor and he wants me to get surgery for my sliding hernia. i’m very afraid of that surgery specifically as i’ve heard some horror stories and odds are NEVER in my favor (i happened to be the 10% of people who get way worse after gallbladder surgery so i’m not very excited for this one)

what were your symptoms before/after? how much did the surgery change your life, if at all? how is sleeping, eating, exercising? what was recovery like (time off, eating habits, immune system stuff? i had horrible hives and pain after my gallbladder removal so i’m probably gonna hurt after this one)

I’m 43 and have been taking omeprazole for more than 15 years. When I was younger I had episodes of acute esophagitis and was taking 20 mg or more. Over the years this was reduced to 10 mg/day, but I’ve found it very difficult to stop completely: when I try, reflux/gastric discomfort tends to return and I eventually restart it.
My diet is pretty normal (regular meals, no particular restrictions or major food excesses, occasional alcohol).
I recently had a new gastroscopy. It showed a small uncomplicated cardio-tuberositary malposition (mild anatomical predisposition to reflux) and non-ulcerative gastritis, but importantly no current esophagitis or visible reflux damage. H. pylori was negative. They also found benign fundic gland polyps, considered likely related to long-term PPI use.
My gastroenterologist now recommends lifestyle measures and omeprazole on demand rather than continuously.
I’m curious about people with a similar history: 10–20+ years of daily PPIs, particularly after previous esophagitis. Did you manage to stop or switch to on-demand use? Did you taper? How bad and how long was the rebound acid hypersecretion?
My biggest question is what drugs you have found as an effective replacement and how to distinguish temporary rebound after 15+ years of omeprazole from the underlying reflux actually returning.

For some background, I developed minor issues swallowing with a persistent dry cough/nose/throat for the last year or so. This later developed into major issues breathing all of a sudden back in October and after months of things going from bad to worse (severe throat tightness, muscle spasms, chest tightness, panic attacks for no reason despite no history of ever having one, etc) with no answers, we finally managed to narrow down reflux as a big contributor. Tests for asthma were negative other than some minor issues with gas exchange, and trying an inhaler made no difference, especially since I was having trouble inhaling and not exhaling.

But taking steps to manage that reflux made a lot of the worst symptoms go away. I was having severe issues inhaling due to what I now suspect was VCD being caused by acid hitting my vocal cords and causing them to spasm/partially close for hours on end. The pulmonologist I saw also thinks this was likely.

Switching to a GERD healing diet, sleeping upright and avoiding food 3 hours before bed made a huge difference within like 2 weeks, and things have slowly improved since then over the last 8 months. Literally within 4 or 5 days of doing this, I stopped having the vocal cord spasms, although other symptoms like the throat/chest tightness took months to start improving significantly.

For me, it was also silent reflux/LPR with no heartburn. It seemed to flow straight into my throat/sinuses instead, and x-rays showed old/mild scarring in my lungs, so we think I was probably micro-aspirating acid in my sleep for years (I would often snack on chips or yogurt right before bed).

In addition, I found out that a lot of the most extreme symptoms I experienced early on are pretty textbook for severe GERD because the acid irritates the vagus nerve and causes your body to start freaking out.

One thing is not really getting better however, and it's the fact that I can't really take a deep breath when I try to inhale, and my breathing still takes more physical effort than it should. I should add that I had no history of asthma or allergies growing up, and no problems breathing up until very recently. Outside of snacking, I also eat a very healthy/bland diet mostly consisting of brown rice, plain steamed chicken breast and vegetables.

The biggest thing is that, since all this started, it's felt like there's something in my abdomen that shouldn't be there. Like there's a balloon in there that gets squished when I bend over or move around too much. I never felt this sensation before October of 2025. The sensation gets worse when I'm full after a meal, and it becomes noticeably harder to breathe. Also, if I do something like sit down very suddenly, it would feel REALLY weird and unpleasant. I don't know if I'd call it painful, but it just didn't feel right.

That part of my abdomen was also very stiff and felt completely locked up for the first few months when this all started like the muscles there were stuck or something.

My doctor is skeptical that it's a hiatus hernia because I'm still under 40, and I'm skinny and don't fit the usual risk profile, but I also have a chronic GI condition after an ulcer bleed that caused near permanent constipation and led to me straining very severely on the toilet for the last 10-12 years (we're talking 30+ minutes of straining to have a single bowel movement sometimes to the point where I'm nearly in tears on bad days). I suspect that constant heavy straining is what did it.

It would also explain why I suddenly developed such severe LPR seemingly out of nowhere.

I'm waiting on an appointment with a GI to investigate further, but any thoughts in the meantime?

hey yall i’ll be having surgery soon! i go to the gym currently and weight lift, it’s nothing major but enough to keep muscle on! i was wondering how long after surgery did people get back to working out?? even something minor like walking and just basic resistance training? how long did yall take off from working out? i’m only 24 so would love to know!

Myself and my partner are on a cruise. We flew to Italy and got on board.

The first night in Italy, after eating some pizza and pasta, I felt this sudden urge of shortness of breath. I can breath but it feels like I can't get a satisfying breath through my nose or in at all. It calmed down eventually and I went to sleep.

The 2nd day, I had nothing at breakfast and felt fine, had lunch and bang, shortness of breath. It settled down eventually. Dinner, bang, shortness of breath.

My partner noticed it was after eating every time so told me to keep track of it. I had a very small breakfast this morning and didn't feel too bad. I had a small lunch and again had nothing. This evening I had sushi with my partner and halfway through, bang, shortness of breath.

I have gastritis and a 2cm sliding hiatus hernia. I have had my heart checked and there is nothing wrong with my heart.

This is completely ruining our holiday. I'm taking my lansoprazole but it's not working clearly.

Any advice?

Just a question please if someone can help

Can HH cause you to wake up in the middle of the night with dry mouth and understanding that I breathe through my mouth during the sleep. It has been 2 months since I have started experiencing shortness of breath on daily basis. My endoscopy a month ago showed 3 cm HH, but I had it for 20 years. I had a lot of symptoms for those 20 years but I feel miserable lately because of not being able to breathe properly all the time.

I started on PPI and I lost 20 pounds for 6 weeks because I had trouble eating and I still do. Dr gave me inhalers, then pulmonologist gave me different inhalers...because I am not getting proper relief. I am still not sure if my shortness of breath is caused by asthma or HH. What do you think. I don't cough, no mucus, no history of respiratory infections.

Also, one of my daily symptoms is faster heart beats. I started taking medication daily for this.

And please, why did I start waking up with dry mouth. Last night I woke up around 3 am noticing I was breathing hard through my mouth and I was struggling to catch a breath. I got up and took some pills to calm dawn (atenalol) because I was afraid I will start panicking.

It is 7am and I still didn't rest all night. Unfortunately it is not the first time.

Just to emphasize I was never a mouth breather...not during the day or night.

Should I avoid my primary Dr and go to consult with surgeon..i am 45 years old female

Hi folks. Another question for you. I had read they intubate you for the hiatal hernia surgery. Do they remove it after the surgery is done, or will I wake up with a breathing tube in my trachea? If it's the latter, how do you keep from completely freaking out and pulling the thing out? Thanks in advance for the info!

I've been dealing with symptoms of LPR/Reflux for over two months now. Hoarse voice, sore throat, constant throat clearing/mucus after meals, some pain when swallowing, vocal cord pain/weak voice. It's all throat related stuff.

I have a consult with a surgeon on Friday. I had an endoscopy in July that proved I have a 1 CM hiatal hernia and a hill grade III LES and chronic gastritis. I can physically feel the hernia below my left ribcage. My 24-hour PH test showed a demeester score of 30, showing mild to moderate acid reflux and the GI said it was GERD. The manometry, however, showed I have weak esophageal motility likely due to acid inflammation, according to the GI.

The condition has given me massive amounts of fight or flight anxiety for two months. I don't really understand that part of it because the anxiety seems to be worse than the condition itself most of the time. Didn't have anxiety on this level prior to all this starting. I did start taking a PPI and it's been 4 days now, so no real improvement in symptoms yet, and I worry about long-term use of it and side effects. I seem to be going out of fight or flight and it's brutal. Just don't feel myself the past two months. Is the hernia and the LPR able to cause this level of nervous system dysregulation?

I'm wondering about what questions to ask the surgeon on Friday. For one, is there a procedure that I qualify for and could it actually help my throat? I see a lot of people say surgeries don't help the throat symptoms. Also, could the hernia and throat symptoms be causing this level of nervous system dysregulation? What are the risks and recovery like? Etc. Anything else that comes to mind?

Why do some doctors say small hernias cause no symptoms? Thats likr saying "Oh you only cut half of your finger off, usually people get symptoms if they cut their whole finger off"....

I feel a hiatal hernia size is a partial factor... other factors include how your diaphram is positioned as well as some other things

Im 5 weeks post-op, had a hiatal and umbilical hernia fixed in the one surgery. I've been suffering post op. The gas- bloat syndrome is tiring me out. It feels like my intestines are distended. The gas sits just under my ribs, possibly on my diaphragm. Im on gas-busters, which has helped noticeably, for the 7 days I've been taking them, mostly im farting to release, haven't been able to burp. It happens when I eat any food, I'm lactose intolerant, so avoid dairy. Plus i avoid onion and cabbage, beans, pulses, carbonated drinks, broccoli and cauliflower, spicy foods. I still get gas building up, despite all of these restrictions. Another issue I haven't heard anyone experiencing is loose stools. I've had loose stools since surgery, not one solid. Is this the same for anyone else? And what did you do to fix it?

1st question: how many of you guys can not tolerate cofee because of hiatal hernia? I cannot tolerate cofee or sodas

2nd question: how many of you guys can not exercise because of how it hurts while exercise. Having shortness of breath and pain in that area?

3rd Question: after surgery did those sympyoms go away?

4th how many types of hiatal hernia surgeries are there? Because i want to do the one where i can keep burping and which one is it?

I've read that you're supposed to move around like it was any other day, and I am a very active person, but in reality is it so uncomfortable that you hesitate moving around much?

Thanks!