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I'm new - where do I start?

Interestingly, I am in the process of getting off PPIs right now. For those who don't know, I have had amazing success recovering from back pain (sciatica), tennis elbow, chronic fatigue, and IBS all 100% thanks to Dr. Sarno. But I never seriously tried getting off PPIs and recovering from acid-refux until very recently. Partly because the PPIs worked so well and I was under the impression that they were a "relatively safe drug". Guess what?? They are not!! More and more studies are coming showing serious risks.

I am treating the PPIs and acid-reflux a little differently than my other TMS problems. With my back pain and tennis elbow, I went cold turkey off the pain pills. But I'm treating PPIs differently because getting off of them can cause very serious acid bounce back symptoms and it can last for many weeks. So I've been off PPIs a little over a week now. But I am taking low doses of Zantac and occasionally eating chewable anti-acids. I want a little help getting past the "acid bounce back" period. Eventually I intend to get off everything.

By-the-way, I weaned myself off the PPIs taking doses less and less frequently until I was 100% off. From my understanding, the approach I am describing here is generally what doctor's recommend.

I can say this. I have definitely seen an improvement! In the past, Zantac and chewable anti-acids did very little for my acid-reflux. I had to take high doses of PPIs to get any relief. But now the more conservative treatment is working great. Hopefully in the next month or two I will tell you I am off all medication. I'll keep you posted.
 
Thank you Steve! I don't know why I couldn't find this one but am grateful for your assistance. It's inspiring to read stories like this!
 
Great job Cap'n Spanky! I got off PPIs 6 months ago after a slow wean and off the H2 blocker (Zantac/Pepcid) 6 weeks ago and will NEVER take another one of those acid blocking pills. So grateful to be using TMS instead to deal with acid reflux. I need to retrain my brain to look at my heartburn/chest burn/ other miscellaneous gastro aches and pains differently. It's is empowering! Hopefully soon I'll be eating more foods and gaining back my weight. Mentally, I'm feeling so much freer already. Just debating if I should get a Heidelberg test to see if my stomach has too much or not enough acid so I can determine if I need some lemon juice or ACV with meals. But that might be the TMS trying to rope me back into it's clutches.....(I'm too new at this to really know I think).
 
Huckleberry said:
I have suffered from physical anxiety/TMS symptoms for years but it took quite a while for it finally to manifest as IBS and GERD.

I had the most shocking GERD start about 18 months or so ago and felt like i would never get a handle on it...all the GP would really do is chuck various types of PPI's and the like at me in the hope it would go away, none of these seemed to help.

I finally got an endoscopy done and was convinced I would have some pretty major gastritis going on but my report was pretty much clear as a daisy. This opened up my eyes to it somewhat and made me realise it could only be psychosomatic so I binned off the PPI's and went back to eating what I wanted when I wanted and the GERD improved massively. I do still have some IBS symptoms (namely an overactive gurgling stomach) but I'm 95% better than I was 6 months or so ago. For me knocking the PPI's on the head and just losing the fear and obsession over the symptom was the key.
Click to expand...
 
Huckleberry,
Did you get any rebound at first when you decided to eat what you wanted? Wondering if you can offer any specific advice for me? Do I need to grin and bear it? Here's my history:

I've tried to eat whatever I wanted recently and everything got worst. Really really bad and I'm not really sleeping because of the pain and chest throbbing. I've been to the hospital twice. Thinking there's something wrong with my heart but my heart checks out fine every time. I was able to get cured from 20 years of back pain by reading Dr Sarnos books but this time I'm having such troubles because I have to eat and every time I get pain. I have GERD or something causing upper gastric pain along with throbbing in my chest. The doctor calls it non-ulcer Pepsia only because my endoscopy came back very normal. Feels like my heart but tests reveled a healthy heart. I have been home pretty much laying around for 3 weeks and lost a lot of weight. I've picked up the pace with reading Sarno books but this is the toughest thing ever and all the acid reducers don't seem to do anything.
Teri
 
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