had my barium swallow today. yum.
At one point, I was turned onto my right side and I could see a window reflection of the screen the doctor was looking at. Have you ever seen your stomach on TV? I don’t know about yours, but mine is not a pretty sight.
Ben is a colleague of mine (he sits about 30 feet away from me) who’s recently entered the blogosphere. We share a love of technology and dry sarcasm. He also took up running not long ago – although he hasn’t written anything on that subject yet.
Oh, and Ben is a transplanted American originally from Detroit (do I have that right, Ben?). Like all good Americans, Ben loves baseball.
Pay him a visit. He has far more interesting things to say than I do.
Welcome to bloggie-land Ben!
The GERD medication I am taking is working. The heartburn is gone and the lump in the throat sensation has gotten better and better.
I’ve been running anywhere from 60 to 90 minutes almost every day and am hoping I haven’t lost very much fitness this past few weeks.
My focus with running has been to just run easy. Really easy and enjoy the miles. The reward for those lollygagging miles is that I’ve been catching myself thinking a lot about Boston lately.
It feels good to dream.
I had another appointment today with a new doctor – Lori’s doctor. And I must say that my wife’s Doc absolutely rocks. She’s got unbelievable bedside manner, is thorough, caring and extremely knowledgeable. Wow.
It’s confirmed – I do have Gastroesophageal Reflux Disease. The lump feeling I’ve had for the past years was due to GERD.
Now I will go for a bunch of tests including a barium swallow to track how leaky my esophageal sphincter is. Once we get that figured out, the Doc will be able to recommend next steps.
I am very happy.
A few weeks ago, I was contemplating running a 5k and/or 10k before settling in for the winter and getting back into base training mode. That’s not going to happen because I’ve been dealing some medical stuff.
I have a prelimary diagnosis (I may have to get some tests done) for Gastroesophageal Reflux Disease (GERD).
Some people I’ve shared this with have said, “So, you get heartburn”? Well, yes and no. Heartburn is one of the symptoms but the heartburn is like nothing you can imagine. At it’s worst, I was having terribly painful burning in my entire throat that lasted up to 48 hours at time. This is NOTHING like the heartburn most people get.
Another GERD symptom (among several others) I’ve had for years is the “lump in the throat” sensation. I had this checked out over five years ago. My doctor told me it was stress related but I never really believed him. It seems I was right.
Anyway, the lump in the throat started getting worse about three weeks ago. The burning started two weeks ago and I had a week from hell that ended with me running to the doctor who promptly gave me a prescription for Pariet Rabeprazole Sodium. Long story short: the burning was gone within two days (after no signs of relief for a week prior to that) and the lump sensation has started to lessen.
So, while it is good news that it looks like I know what all this IS, I am a bit worried since GERD – if left untreated – can lead to Barrett’s Esophageus. I just hope the years I spent listening to my previous doctor’s diagnosis don’t turn out to be a poor decision on my part.
Jeanne said it best. The weirdest shit happens to me.
Although people call me the Running Blogfather, Sean has been around longer so I like to call him the Running Grandfather – even though he is younger than I am and he has just NOW became a daddy.
Congratulations on the birth of your daughter Emma, Sean!
