My current status:

Weight loss: Success, though it happened unintentionally. My other health problems caused the weight to fall off rapidly (especially in the second half of August), and I've lost 25 pounds. I'm just 6 pounds above my 2009 weight, and just 16 pounds above my 2000 weight. My parents saw me on Sunday, for the first time in a month. They couldn't believe the difference, and they noticed the weight loss immediately when I walked in. My dad showed me a pic of me he took in June, and indeed, I look a lot better now.

LPR: Thanks to Mumbles for pointing me to PepTest. They test the pepsins in your saliva, and it's done mail order to a hospital in the UK. There is some skepticism of Peptest's usefulness, but overall the medical community mostly believes it's helpful, and in fact might become an important tool in the future for LPR and GERD diagnosis. Why pepsins? LPR is poorly researched and there's a lot of disagreement as to what causes it and what cures it, and it seems that the cause/cures are different for a lot of people (which is part of what makes it so tough). However, a prevailing recent theory is that pepsins reflux into your larynx and start "digesting" it, causing redness/irritation. Then the body reacts to it, sometimes with excess mucous in the area. Both the mucous and the redness cause the frustrating and seemingly never-ending LPR symptoms. Anyway, PepTest looks for pepsins in your saliva, which would indicate that this is going on. For many GERD and LPR sufferers, they get a high pepsin reading, and this is pretty much confirmed.

I took the test last week.

My result?




Yes. Literally zero pepsins were detected in my saliva, in any of the three samples I provided. Zero!!

So is that good?

Not really. First off, there's a 13% false negative rate with that test, so that's a possibility. Second, I had to send it mail order across the world, so that increases testing error. However, they insist it's not likely to produce a zero result even if the samples degraded some in the mail.

Third, even if I believe the result (which I kind of do), that only eliminates the most likely cause of my LPR symptoms (silent reflux), but doesn't tell me what the cause IS.

So now I'm trying really hard to figure out what it might be, assuming that it's NOT reflux. I have an appointment next week with a laryngologist, which is a specialized ENT doctor who works with voices.

Why voices? Two reasons:

1) I have on-and-off hoarseness with my voice since all this started
2) Many suffering LPR symptoms are singers, teachers, and speakers -- ones who use their voice for a living. While I'm none of those things, I did "abuse" my voice for years doing 4-8 hour radio shows, once per week. This might have been enough to eventually cause damage, especially because I really would feel pain in my throat after shows, but it would typically go away. So this can't be ignored as a possible cause.

They will be doing a stroboscopy next week. That's a procedure where they shine a camera down your throat and match your voice with rapidly flashing lights, and it is supposed to be best to detect problems in the voice box region. Unfortunately, often many of the issues detected on a stroboscopy can only be fixed with surgery, which I really don't want (but will do if absolutely necessary).

I will be resting my voice for awhile, which means no radio until this is resolved. Maybe Brandon/khalwat/tradershky can do a show, and maybe I can come on and speak a bit, though I'll have to keep the talking to a minimum.

More next post...