I just woke up.
Last night one was one of the most frustrating nights I've ever had.
I was EXHAUSTED but could not sleep due to this problem.
I even changed my bed to where it's now on a downward slope, kind of like a hospital bed can be. (This is recommended for LPR sufferers with sleeping problems.) Well, actually I didn't. I had my girlfriend do it because I was way too tired to deal with doing it.
The changed bed angle did help some -- it greatly lessened the feeling that I had to suddenly stand up in order to breathe.
Unfortunately, the lump sensation remained, and I couldn't fall asleep, even after having taken melatonin (a lighter-grade natural sleep aid). After a LOT of effort and frustration (over 2 hours), I fell asleep at 11:30pm, only to sleep just 2 hours, wake up, and still have the exact same issues.
Finally I bit the bullet and took a sleeping pill for the first time in my life.
That also was not the magic bullet I needed.
It made me even more tired, but I couldn't fall asleep . Got close a few times, but couldn't get there.
I also had some other problems. The Nexium appears to be causing some side effects, to where I am not even sure I want to continue with it. It caused some pain near my right rib which would radiate to my back, was causing dry mouth sensations (which I already naturally get to some degree, but this was severe), and also hot and cold flashes. I kept fluctuating between opening the window and lying down with no covers to closing the window and turning on a space heater. In addition, it felt like I had to constantly drink water in order to get rid of the dry mouth.
Ridiculous.
Finally I reasoned that, as long as I was sitting there thinking about all these problems, I would never sleep. So I decided to watch some TV on my laptop, to perhaps get my mind off of it. I opened up an old 1970s episode of Hawaii Five-O and watched it. This particular episode was kind of stressful involving people lying on the floor dead from nuclear exposure, and that made me again think of the uncomfortable feelings I had, so I closed it and opened another one. This other episode was much lighter -- a career scammer attempting to get revenge on McGarrett. Perfect. So I watched half of that, felt myself drifting off, and quickly closed the computer and shoved it off to the side.
Nope. Too late. Couldn't fall asleep again.
Opened the episode again, watched 15 minutes, again got super tired and started to drift off. Closed computer again, still a fail.
Watched episode to the end, and realized in the final few minutes that I'd probably need to watch yet another to try this again. But as the credits rolled, I found myself falling asleep again.
I stayed asleep! I even woke up once at 7:30, went to the bathroom, drank water, and got back in bed. Fell asleep quickly. Woke up briefly at unknown times and fell back asleep.
Naturally woke up at like 2:10pm. So through all of this, I got my sleep, though it was an immense amount of effort and frustration.
This is hell, though.
Mumbles, it sounds like you didn't have LPR, but rather traditional heartburn. I believe that, aside from dietary changes which are constant for both, the effective LPR treatment is different.
Gaviscon doesn't prevent your stomach from producing acid, but rather blocks the acids from moving up and irritating your throat, which is what has been happening to me. Some with LPR have said it's the "only thing that works".
I believe my problem is due to pepsin in my throat. What is pepsin?
LPR is caused by a combination of acid and the stomach enzyme pepsin.
The job of pepsin is to digest proteins in the stomach. If you have LPR, pepsin gets up into your throat and airways. There it goes on with its job: digesting. It’s just that pepsin now digests the cells of your airways. That does not sound good, does it?
Pepsin is highly influenced by the presence of acid.
The acidity is expressed by the pH. A pH of 1-2 is about the level of the empty stomach and is very acidic. A pH of 7 is neutral. Everything above is alkaline.
Usually, the pH in the throat is about neutral. Pepsin becomes inactive in such an environment. However, each time pepsin comes in contact with acidity, it becomes reactivated.
The lower the acidity is, the higher the damage potential of pepsin:
So Gaviscon suppoedly creates a foamy coating and prevents the pepsin from moving into the throat.
Alkaline water, which I'm now drinking (bought it last night) will permanently deactivate the pepsin it comes into contact with in my throat, which could otherwise sit there causing damage for as long as weeks.
However, it will NOT prevent the reflux from continuing and shooting new pepsins into my throat, so that's where the Gaviscon comes in.
I'm hoping that between the two of them, this problem will end, once my throat heals.
There are some who believe that alkaline water itself will not be effective enough to deactivate the pepsin, and that you need sodium bicarbonate to do it (baking soda). Those people suggest drinking baking soda water instead of commercial alkaline water. However, that solution can bring on high blood pressure, which I already have (mostly genetic), because you're ingesting tons of sodium. So I'd prefer to avoid that.
I am not drinking soda or orange juice anymore. They are both very acidic. This will be hard to stop but I have to because this is miserable.