Today I visited a doctor, which is something I do not do very often. I visited him for a few reasons. 1. Because I have had a near constant sore throat for the last two years. 2. Because I have had a more severe sore throat, nose issues, and cough that I cannot kick for the last three or so weeks. 3. Because I promised my mom I would.
I described my symptoms (including length of symptoms) as best I could, and he ran some tests, which largely consisted of looking in my ears, nose, and mouth, listening to my hoarse voice and cough and heart, and asking me to do various breathing exercises while placing a device on equally various parts of my back (I think to measure my lungs?).
He ruled out bronchitis. And allergies (which I suspected 1 was). And a few other things. And then told me what he thinks it is, and it is something I would have never guessed: HEARTBURN. I was so skeptical of his diagnosis that the first thing I did when I left his office was google the symptoms of heart burn. And sure enough, chronic sore throat and cough are among them. And there is a type of heart burn that predominantly strikes at night, leaving the poor sufferer to wake up with a sore throat in the morning. Which has been my fate for much, much, much of my last few weeks, and months, and years. It is something about the lying down flat combined with gravity that makes the stomach acid not stay where stomach acid is supposed to stay.
My one concern now is that I went in while I actually do have a more real (i.e., traditional) sore throat, because I am pretty sure that he entirely ignored that aspect, or the fact that as part of this particular multi-week bout, I had also had a very runny nose. Now I think that he may have conflated my hoarser than usual voice and more constant than usual cough as the very long term sore throat issue, when really I need help with both.
The bummer news of the heartburn news is that apparently lots of foods that I like and believed to be healthy (tomatoes, onions, garlic, citrus fruits, chocolate, etc., etc.) make heartburn worse. :( What ever will I do?
1 comment:
Well recently I've read evidence that eating acidic foods actually helps heartburn go away in time because it helps level out external and internally produced acids.
At any rate that must be very uncomfortable and I hope you can figure out a cure soon without having to take Prevacid or some other pill for the rest of your life.
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