esophageal pain with illness

[CindyB]

I have what I would call "GERD" pain from time to time, too intermittent to take to the doctor. It's horrible, it feels like someone stabbing me in the chest just beneath my sternum, or like I swallowed a balloon and someone's trying to blow it up. It comes in very, very painful waves. TUMS and Ranitidine might help a little but not much. It can last for hours. The weird thing is, this seems to happen more often when I have a cold or flu. Could it be esophageal spasms brought on by coughing? Once, I was able to take a muscle relaxant, and it really, really helped. Was that likely a coincidence? Would a doctore ever prescribe them for this pain? I can't tell you how much it really hurts, and it's even worse that it happens when I'm already feeling crappy.


This discussion is related to Re: Esophageal spasm?.

[CalGal]

Cindy, I'd like to suggest that you get in touch with your doc and request some testing to see if you could be experiencing GERD. Not everyone has what could be called 'classical' symptoms, but when someone is having what could be described as esophageal spasms then it's time to ask for an upper endoscopy.

You don't want to mask what's going on by taking some muscle relaxers only to find out several years from now that you were also masking symptoms relating to GERD.

Call your doc and push to find out what's going on.