Acid blockers - be sure to pay attention!

Dear patients,

Once the diagnosis of "reflux disease" has been made, that is already worth a lot. But what happens next? The treatment of reflux disease is complex and includes various healing and relief approaches. In everyday medical practice, however, the treatment of reflux patients follows - critically noted - a rather simple treatment plan: heartburn, acid blockers, "Next please..." The rest is up to the patient. A patient wrote me this excerpt from her life:

"After many years of wandering around, the diagnosis of reflux was finally made. I was overjoyed and thought that from that moment on everything would get better because, according to the doctors, I had everything under control. With diet and medication, I should be able to get my constant gastritis and esophagitis under control. My diaphragmatic hernia was/is not of great importance to the doctors (a cosmetic matter).

Since two people in our family (on our mother's side) unfortunately died at a very young age due to esophageal cancer and stomach perforation, I took this matter very seriously.

I changed my eating, drinking and sleeping habits immediately. Since then, I have only eaten foods that are not supposed to trigger reflux in me, which unfortunately doesn't always work. Unfortunately, I have no explanation for this. I only drink still water (no alcohol), I bought a reflux pillow, which unfortunately is no longer sufficient, and I have also bought 2 additional pillows.

Unfortunately, the reflux has gotten worse in recent years. More problems keep cropping up, even though I strictly follow everything.

Dry cough, clearing of the throat, coughing with sputum, pain in the left arm, spasms in the esophagus after a long day at work or stress, pain in the left rib cage, often nausea when eating. I take pantoprazole as needed, which now means 20mg 4 to 5 times a day. As the acid affects my respiratory tract, I have to take the medication as needed. I have tried everything the market has to offer, but unfortunately there has only been a short-term improvement. For the past two weeks I have been waking up at night with shortness of breath. My doctor prescribed me an asthma spray, as I have already been close to calling an ambulance twice. My diaphragmatic hernia was measured at 7mm a few years ago, but it is now estimated to be 3cm. However, the doctors are of the opinion that this small hernia does not cause such serious symptoms. In the last 2 years I have been treated 3 times for a candia fungus in my esophagus, which of course also caused a lot of problems. Since my doctors aren't helping me, I'm being treated by a naturopath and osteopath. But that doesn't really help me either.

My psyche and my general well-being have taken a serious hit. Everything revolves around my reflux and the problems that result from it. I have no quality of life anymore... I'm happy if I can still hold my own at work. I never know what the day will bring, as I have 2 or 3 strong acid attacks a week that occur for some reason that I can't explain. Afterwards I feel like I've been run over by a truck.

The Mannheim Reflux Clinic has now recommended a Linx operation. I don't think this operation is right for me and have therefore decided against it.

I have read your website very intensively and read all the patient testimonials. Your patients' symptoms match my symptoms exactly. You could say that I was really happy to read that, because from that point on I was so sure that my health problems were really real. Because sometimes you doubt yourself...

I would be very happy if you could help me.

Of the many important points, I would like to address two here: Infection and colonization of the mucous membranes with Candida fungi only occurs when the body is significantly weakened, such as through chemotherapy, HIV infections, etc. The fact that this also occurs during treatment with acid blockers shows us how much our immune system suffers from the effects of the medication. Fungi that we regularly carry within us suddenly escape our control and begin to proliferate. Since fungi in the esophagus cause a burning sensation just like acid, even higher doses of acid blockers are now taken.

But even stopping acid blockers and the resulting "disruption" of metabolic processes can lead to fungal infections. A young, strong patient of ours, barely 20 years old, was completely overwhelmed by these Candida fungi after a successful operation and stopping the medication. He even had to be treated in intensive care for a short time. This is another thing you need to know about acid blockers.

The other point is that acid blockers do not help some patients even in high doses, as in this case. One of the possible causes is that the problem may lie in the molecular structure of the respective preparation. All acid blockers differ in the smallest sections of their molecular structure, which can have a major impact on binding to the receptors of the parietal cells in the stomach, but also on the development of side effects. For many patients, these differences play a minor role, but not for all! There are so-called " non-responders " in whom these small changes come into play and no sufficient effect can be achieved. Increasing the dose does not help much in these cases. Switching to a different medication should always be attempted.

Finally, I would like to mention that we operated on this patient and she is healthy again.

Yours

Dr. med. Eckhard Löhde