epigastric pain

For the past several years I have been fighting epigastric pain.  The pain tends to come in the night or morning when it is at its worst.  Sometimes the pain will be off and on for days.  Every now and then it will go away for weeks at a time, only to suddenly reappear.  It feels like burning or sharp pains.  I have found that eating late or greasy foods will cause the pain. I began fighting the pain with normal anti acids.  It seemed to help at first.  Then I began having trouble breathing.  If I laid down on my back it seemed I almost gasped for breath.  Not really hard to breath, but just a weird feeling in my throat.  I stopped taking anti acids and that went away.  I am currently taking nexium and that seems to keep the pain at bay; however, it is still there.  If I eat late at night, anything to greasy, alcohol, or to much smoking the pain will come.  It seems that If I burp it will help with the pain and I can taste the food that I recently consumed very well.  I have to be very careful of what I eat.  I cannot take certain pain medications and I also cannot take the supplements for exercise that I would like to.  I have recently been working with a dr. to find out what is going on. The first thing my doc wanted to do after the nexium did not completely solve the problem was a EGD.  I wanted to do it, but I was scared and I also have bad insurance.  It will cost me a small fortune.  At this point I might pay someone  $500 a month for the rest of my life to make this pain go away and let me get on with my life.  I am starting to feel like this is taking over my life and holding me back from moving forward.  Recently I sent a sample off to test for H. Plyori.  I am very impatiently awaiting the results. This was my idea just from reading online.  Are there any other invasive tests that may be able to tell the dr what is going on with my stomach??  I am affraid to do the EGD.

[Ratnakar Kini, MD]

Hi,
Your symptoms may be due to peptic ulcer and GERD. An upper GI endoscopy may be done for confirmation. There is no need to get scared about this procedure. It is a very short procedure and will get over in  a few minutes.
You can continue taking Nexium till EGD is done.

[darrell_greenfield]

Also, I am pretty healthy young man.  age 27, height 6'3, weight 205.  I have been losing weight, but I am also very active.  Sports, exercise, etc.

[weirdgurl77]

I was very scared of the EGD as well, I have panic attacks and am scared to death of having surgery or anything even slightly invasive. I asked the Dr. if I could do it without a sedative he said sure, then they wanted to numb my throat with a spray I asked to it without that too, he said sure. I had to drink 4ML of this pink chaulky liquid kind of like antacid, freaked me out but I did it. So I went in to the room layed down on my side he put a tube with a light down my throat it was blowing air so I started burping alot, he said that was normal. It was a little uncomfortable but it took about 10 minutes the nurses were very nice and I got to walk out and go home immediately. I can't believe I was so scared of it, I would do it again with no fear at all if I had to.