First Experiences + Blog Birthday

I am a female in my mid 20's. I started feeling weird years ago. I remember my first attack very well, although at the time, I didn't think it was GERD at all.

I smoked a lot, and drank a lot in my teen years. The legal drinking/smoking age here where I am is 18. Between 18 to 20, I would go out a lot, drank ridiculous amounts of alcohol, and smoked occasionally on a normal day, but would smoke like a chimney when I'm drinking. I was 19 when one night, while drinking at my friend's house I started feeling like I was not breathing right. I was short of breath, and had trouble swallowing. I put down my drink and stood up trying to catch my breath, to no avail. My friend helped me through it by distracting me, and the weird feeling eventually went away. The experience left me exhausted, and when I got home I could not relax right away. I tossed and turned, but my jaw would not relax. I tried to regulate my breathing, and it helped greatly. The only odd thing I noticed was that soon after I have relaxed I felt something move in my throat, some thick liquid. Then eventually drifted off to sleep. I did not really think much of this experience back then, and was able to go through my days without until I had another attack. That second time in the same year, I was at home drinking with my friends when I noticed that I had trouble breathing, again my friend tried calming me down by distracting me, I eventually felt better but it took a lot longer. I remember going to bed really exhausted and dizzy from trying to breathe normally. After that, I don't remember having any attacks... at least not for another few years.

At the time, I thought I was having super mild anxiety attacks because I wasn't eating and sleeping right. I didn't think it could be the alcohol or anything else that was causing all those strange episodes before, or that it could be GERD. I did not even know what GERD was back then. All I knew then was that, I was short of breath, and had trouble swallowing.

I must also mention that I had a weird eating habit. Nope, not an eating disorder, just that I don't eat the way I should. I always missed breakfast, and I binged often. The heavy drinking made me eat so much just to deal with the hangover. Smoking + over eating + stress + heavy drinking = not a healthy lifestyle. It is making more sense to me now.

My purpose of putting up this blog is to document my experiences and to provide as much information I can to others who are going through this like me. Also, writing has always been my favorite form of therapy. In the next few posts, I will be describing each episode I can remember prior to being diagnosed with GERD followed by a stream of posts about the worst attack I've had and stories of my personal experiences right after being diagnosed.

I really hope this blog will help others as much as it is helping me... I know that a lot of people don't understand or misinterpret people with this illness.

Ciao,
gerd&me