Hi guys,
I am 8yrs post op Ivor Lewis, do any of you suffer with post nasal drip since your ops? I am waking up every morning with a sore/ dry throat, constantly having to clear my nose. It’s driving me insane, someone has suggested it being silent reflux, any ideas?
many thanks
June
Clinically IL survivors arent getting silent or otherwise GORD at par with pre-IL surgery.
What we get is purely reflux (stomach content of acidic nature or bile content alkaline in nature!)
Also suggest checking the humidity int he room where you sleep. Excessive dryness in the air can cause throat to go dry and cause dry cough.Nasal wetness is commonly noted amongst the patients who had nasal tubes during hospital stay etc.
Hmm that’s interesting. I wake often with a bitter taste in my mouth and a slight burn, I always put that down to bile, I’m not sure I know the difference to be honest. I always sleep in a cool room otherwise I can’t sleep, so not sure it’s that, I just assumed once the op was done there would be no more reflux. I get quite down about it, I worry about the continuing damage being done.Thank you for your reply.
Ok, the bitterness and burn same time can be said acidic reflux. Bile is not burning but very bad taste. If not sure you can always buy Litmus papers strips and find the pH from the deeper end of your tongue throat fluid. it will tell you if acidic or alkaline.
Bile vomit is very different taste to acidic one.
Once you have op you are always prone to reflux, simpyl because you dont have valve anymore (this is removed) and sheer location and gravity rules.
The typical acid management works for most of us without adding any PPI's.
It looks from your resonses that you have acid reflux.
Sleeping on steep incline, going to bed empty stomach. Avoiding trigger elemenets in diet and lifestyle etc all helps.
Thank you for that, I shall definitely look into it. I take ppi's as well as gaviscon, I wish I could get off of them.
Its personal management to be honest with you.
I speak to a retired nHS consultant who has managed to live happily without PPI or othe meds for last two years. suffers from acid reflux but not cancer patient.
Since my surgery (IL) 3 years back I only use Gaviscon advance when travelling internationally (due to disrupted lifestyle pattern) and in the nigths when I get flared up due to variety of lifestyle reasons. Normally I dont use Gaviscon either. I manage my lifestyle for me to live with my new normal plumbing.
lifelong PPI prescription is normally counter acting on quality of life and end of life. Especially I have seen quite a number of patients (without PPI or OC) suffering from critical bone fractures and only painful downhill end of life after that. Now add the PPI overuse to this data and see the projection for yourself.