Insomnia May Be First Signal of Acid Reflux

http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/20 ... 080008.htm

"All patients with sleep apnea should be evaluated for gastroesophageal reflux," said J. Barry O'Connor, M.D., of Duke University Medical Center, one of the investigators.

This is very interesting. Thanks for posting, rooster.

the article wrote:94 percent of the recorded reflux events were associated with arousal from sleep or awakening

How do you suppose they record reflux events?

Also, I wonder if this could account for all of those "spontaneous arousals" many of us had during our studies.

Insomnia May Be First Signal of Acid Reflux

To me thats a big "duh". When I had acid reflux attacks, they were always at night and kept me up for hours.

People with Sleep Apnea should definitely get tested for Acid Reflux. Even Acid Reflux so mild you don't have any symptoms is significant and can dramatically affect your cPAP therapy. The soft tissue in your throat is held open by the air pressure, if you have even mild Acid reflux it will irritate that tissue making it stiffen up and be unresponsive to the air pressure.

This was a huge issue for me and treating my AR made an enormous difference in the effectiveness of my cpap therapy.

[quote="Anonymous"]People with Sleep Apnea should definitely get tested for Acid Reflux. Even Acid Reflux so mild you don't have any symptoms is significant and can dramatically affect your cPAP therapy. The soft tissue in your throat is held open by the air pressure, if you have even mild Acid reflux it will irritate that tissue making it stiffen up and be unresponsive to the air pressure.

This was a huge issue for me and treating my AR made an enormous difference in the effectiveness of my cpap therapy.

Rooster, for my husband who doesn't have sleep apnea, his symptom was a slight sore throat caused by burning from stomach acids.

Hi rooster,

I'll repost my symptoms here in case others don't find the first thread.

SleepySandy wrote:I was diagnosed with GERD years ago and my symptoms weren't the ones most people are familiar with. I had what felt like a lump in my throat. I also got these really funny stomach aches. I had a lot of pain in my stomach - like I hadn't eaten for days and there was nothing I could do to make it feel better.

I saw an ENT who assumed the lump feeling was post-nasal drip but he put a tube down my throat and something was all red, indicating GERD. I actually hadn't told him about the funny stomach aches because it took me a while to make the connection.

My symptoms have long since subsided so I haven't been medicating it. I take A LOT of medication already and I would rather not take another one.

Lately I've been coughing quite a lot in the morning every morning. I happened to go to the doctor yesterday for a different reason and I asked her if GERD could cause the coughing in the morning and she said absolutely.

So, if you're coughing a lot in the morning or have a feeling of a lump in your throat or get very strange stomach aches, that could be GERD.

So my original symptoms:

• feeling of lump in my throat
  funny stomach pains which were definitely not heartburn

Current possible symptom:

• Coughing every morning

My doctor wants me to try Tums each night to see if that helps with the coughing. I haven't started yet because I'm on antibiotics that can't be taken with antacids. I'm hoping the Tums help because I don't want to go on yet another medication.

I've had the endoscopy, as well as the full upper and lower GI series, barium swallow and x-rays, you name it. One finding was a hiatal hernia. The acid reflux was confirmed during the testing. I also cough (but then, my lung disease also makes me cough).

I take Prilosec OTC in AM and at bedtime, plus use Tums for breakthrough acid. I've found I cannot skip my nighttime dosage of Prilosec or my AHI stats suffer. Also, I've turned my humidifier way down to the lowest setting (I live in S Florida), which seems to reduce the coughing also. So, for me, it's a combination of medical problems. I cannot skip my breathing meds either at night, despite the fact that the pulmicort has cortisone in it, and could be implicated in some of the awakenings. I've found with a religious medication routine, and keeping the humidifier on low, as well as taking amitriptyline to help me sleep, that most nights I can finally sleep through the night. On the nights I do awaken, it's usually something like my mask seal broke from changing position, or I have joint pain when I roll over on my right hip. But generally I now fall right back asleep once I fix whatever it was that woke me up.

Now my most nagging GERD symptoms are scratchy-feeling throat and excess mucous production. But then, the excess mucous production could be attributed to lung damage, or it may be a combination of the GERD and lung issues.

If a person has a fully-data-capable pap machine, it would be an easy experiment to use the maximum dosage of antacid for a couple of weeks, loading up at bedtime, and observing its effect on one's cpap data, whilst holding all else constant. That's presuming one does not have other meds or medical conditions that contraindicate use of the antacid.

girlsalor

The reflux/Osa may just be like all the other comorbid situations.

HTN/ diabetes/ heart problems/reflux/ obesity and about a million other things.

It is a chicken egg situation and in many cases it is impossible to tell which one comes first.

life is full of mysteries though.

tomjax

My GERD symptoms didn't include obvious acid reflux at all. I had some vague pains, including ones in the back. I also had a throat clearing that went on all the time and a scratchy throat in the mornning. My kids commented on the throat clearing. It's gone with the medication.

I have had AR issues for a few years. It was never really that bad but I did have noticeable but very mild heartburn I would say once a month or so. There were around 2-3 incidents where I had severe heartburn. I remember one time waking up gasping for air and being unable to breath the bile and burning was so intense. I ended up spitting up bile on that one and not only was it intensely unpleasant but I felt like a creature straight out of Alens. That was one of the things that let me to bringing it up to my Dr and was well before I was on cpap.

It was never bad enough for me to look for solutions. I had a big jar of tums and on the nights I ate poorly or noticed a problem I would eat a couple. I had a friend pass a kidney stone and got so creeped out by the idea of it that when I heard he blamed it on too much calcium I got anxious about eating tums so often. I asked the Dr about it and was prescribed Pepsid AC.

It worked well for me but after my prescription ran out I got lazy and didn't bother to renew it. I am one of those "I will go to the dr if my arm is falling off....unless I can duct tape it back on..." kinda guys. I hate going to the Dr and dealing with the prescription for something that didn't bug me that much...not really something I was going to pursue.

I first heard that AR affects cpap therapy here and it was like a lightbulb going off in my mind. I had wondered why I was backsliding and seemingly not getting good sleep. I had a noticeable increase in heartburn and after putting two and two together I started eating the tums again. I spoke with my Dr about it and he confirmed that AR would affect cpap therapy and that I should definitely treat the AR to get good sleep. He also let me know that the dose of Pepsid AC I was taking successfully in the past no longer needed a prescription and was an over the counter pill now. He offered me a prescription for another brand if that didn't work for me but it did.

I started feeling better and more alert very soon after starting to take the tums and the pepsid ac is now part of my nightly 'go to bed' process. I honestly don't remember how quickly after I started I noticed the difference. It is really hard to determine how rested you are on a given day. It was a clear cut "wow this made a HUGE difference" kind of revelation though so it couldn't have been that long.

It was pretty obvious that I had acid reflux so there were not any real tests required to prove it or diagnose it. I don't know how they do that, perhaps a camera in the esophagus? It is important to treat AR anyway to avoid esophageal cancer.

Good Luck!

Will