Acid Medication Medicine Reflux

Q: I'm 25 y/o and have had asthma since the time I can remember. When I was younger I was always seeing a specialist for allergies and asthma and I have never really been able to get the asthma thing under control. My allergies through shots calmed down a lot but that did not help my asthma like it was supposed to. I don't rememeber all the medications that I have tried. I remember a lot of different inhalers and even a pill called "Contant-T" (I think) when I was really little (6 y/o). I do not know if that was an asthma medicine. After High School I basically threw in the towel. I just suffer. I haven't owned a prescription inhaler in years. I went through spells taking Primatine Mist. About 5 months ago I told myself that I wouldn't take that anymore. It became a real crutch for me. My symptoms: I am mostly affected by my asthma the moment I lay down. I was told this was called "Nocturnal Asthma". I do have attacks at other times but not nearly as when I lay down. For the past month or so I have had a real hard time. I've always had a slight pain beneath my breastbone whenever I have a period of lots of asthma attacks. I always associated this pain with my lungs. The pain has gotten much worse. I was driving back from my office the other night with that same awful pain at the end/underneath my sternum and thought about ulcers. I do not know my father well but I talk to him about once a year. He has always had a problem with his stomach. I knew that he had some condition with acid reflux and it was actually destroying the bottom of his esophogus. I know he used to have severe pain. I called him to ask him about this pain that I have. He immediately said that I have what he has. He has a pill called Prilosec that he takes and has great results. I read somewhere that this acid reflux stuff could affect or even cause asthma. Do any of you know anything about this? Who should I try to see? A GI doctor or a Respitory doctor.

A:I am 61 and have had asthma that I know of since 39 (probably had it longer but smoked heavy and blamed my symptoms on smoking). Was doing fine with the normal medication of inhalers and Singular until about 5 years ago. I developed a really bad cough that hurt my ribs, and was in the hospital a couple of times that they could not find out the problem. Blamed it on stress. About 2 years ago I decide to go to my local veteran's hospital. They set me up for a lower tract check and while I was waiting for scheduling I notice some articles in the waiting room pertaining to Asthma and Gerds and how they are sometimes very related to each other. I ask the doctor who was named Sontag and he gave me a whole bunch of articles the he and other doctors had done with research on this relationship. He was very familiar with the problems. They scheduled me for a check of the upper tracts at the same time. The results showed a mild case of acid reflux. To make a long story short he put be on Rabeprazole prior to each meal. Not only has this solved my terrible coughing problem but nearly solved the stomach problem that I was having. I asked my doctor why none of the half dozen doctors that I went to figured this out and the only answer was that the medial doctors are slowly coming around to understand the relationship with asthma and acid reflux. Maybe you need to find a doctor that will help and not one that seem to think asthma needs to be treated in a vacuum

Acid Medication Medicine Reflux

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