How does someone die of Acid Reflux disease?
Sunday, July 18th, 2010 at
5:40 pm
shizznit25 asked:
And acquaintence of mine claims that someone he knew died of complications related to Acid Reflux disease? It seems absurd to me. How is this possible? Even if it is, wouldn’t the symptoms before actual death be so severe that the person would seek out an emergency room, before the disease became lethal???
And acquaintence of mine claims that someone he knew died of complications related to Acid Reflux disease? It seems absurd to me. How is this possible? Even if it is, wouldn’t the symptoms before actual death be so severe that the person would seek out an emergency room, before the disease became lethal???
Tagged with: Acid Reflux Disease • Acquaintence • Emergency Room
Filed under: Acid Reflux
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u can get cancer in your esophagus b/c of the acid that rises…but like u said, im sure that has to hurt…but yeah it can kill u if left untreated…
My friend’s son died of it at 4 months of age. He had many heart surgeries before, and was finally home. His mother fed him and put him down when the reflux kicked in and smothered him. They took him right to the ER but since his little body was so worn out from all his surgeries, they couldn’t bring him back.
If your esophagus gets ruptured or torn, you could actually bleed to death from it.
Here’s a site
Yes, the person probably suffered a lot and was probably on med but if a person continues to eat the acid and drink acid causing products then the esophagus can actually bleed through. A hole can turn into a bleeder, we have veins and arteries close to the esophagus, so it is possible. more people than you’d think have this complication. It’s usually someone that insists on eating and drinking as usual, doesn’t change and do as Dr. says and then it’s just too late. why see a Dr. if you don’t do what they say. A pill doesn’t cure anything.It may help some with symptoms and then the rest is up to the person.
If stomach acid escapes the GI tract, into the lungs or abdominal cavity it can be fatal. With acid reflux, acid is escaping back into the esophagus, so it could be fatal if not treated, but you are right, if it got bad, you should go to the ER.
He probably had esophogeal errosions aka his esophogas was eroded from all the acid that had backed up that he died from that. I can tell you from experience that you may not know that you have it. My dad never complained of heartburn or other problems but wound up that he was having some bleeding from some place causing his blood levels to be dangerously low. After lots of checking they found out that his esophagus was eroded and he never new it. I can full well believe that your friend knew someone that died from these kind of complications.
Several possibilities arise. With acid reflux, it is possible to aspirate stomach contents into the lungs and develop pneumonia. In a severe case, you could actually suffocate.
Over time, the acid from the stomach can erode the esophagus. Eventually there could be a massive bleed out.
Acid reflux is nothing to mess with. Unfortunately, a lot of people just think they have bad indigestion and grab a tums. If you have bad heartburn on a regular basis, see a doctor.
The GERD patient might have died from one or more of the following complications:-
Inflammation of the esophagus
Stricture
Esophageal ulcer
Hoarseness, bronchospasm
Chronic pulmonary disease
Barrett’s esophagus (a change in the lining of the esophagus that can increase the risk of cancer).
Please see the webpages for more details on Gastroesophageal Reflux Disease (GERD)
I know that my aunt dies of severe acid reflux.
the acid reflux caused the acidity of the stomach to travel up & get inhaled to the lung, over years this caused lung iritations & finally causing lung cancer ( she did not smoke 1 single cigarette in her life) & she died in 8 months.
It is also possible to die from the medications for this disease. Medicines have terrible side effects and doctors seem reluctant to warn thier patients when they prescribe them.
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Originally published October 27 2004
Some heartburn and ulcer drugs like Nexium, Pepcid and Prilosec increase pneumonia risk
Just revealed: another drawback to using heartburn drugs. A study of more than 300,000 patients concludes that using these heartburn drugs makes people more susceptible to pneumonia. That’s what happens when you start suppressing natural stomach acid.
What people need to be doing, of course, is modifying their diets to shift to healthier natural foods. Then they can get off the heartburn drugs and, simultaneously, boost their immunity to infectious diseases like pneumonia.
Widely used heartburn and ulcer drugs such as Nexium, Pepcid and Prilosec can make people more susceptible to pneumonia, probably because they reduce germ-killing stomach acid, Dutch researchers found in a study of more than 300,000 patients.
The highest risks occurred with more powerful acid-fighting drugs called proton pump inhibitors, which are sold in the United States under such brand names as Nexium, Prevacid and Prilosec.
Over nearly three years, users of these drugs faced almost double the risk of developing pneumonia compared with former users.
Users of another class of acid-fighting drugs that includes cimetidine and famotidine — sold in the United States as Tagamet and Pepcid — also faced an elevated risk.
The study was led by researcher Robert J.F. Laheij at University Medical Center St. Radboud in Nijmegen, Netherlands, and appears in Wednesday’s Journal of the American Medical Association (news – web sites).
The acid in normal stomach fluids generally kills harmful bacteria; suppressing it with drugs to treat heartburn and ulcers may make the body more hospitable to such germs, which may then infect the lungs and cause pneumonia, the researchers said.
These heavily promoted medicines are among the most widely prescribed drugs worldwide, with almost $13 billion in sales in 1998 alone, according to a JAMA editorial.
The researchers said their findings translate to about one case of pneumonia for 226 patients treated with the more potent acid-fighting drugs and one case per 508 patients treated with the other drugs.
Patients using the less potent drugs were 63 percent more likely to develop pneumonia than former users of those drugs.
Nevertheless, the findings are reassuring because the apparent increase in the risk of pneumonia was small, said Dr. James Gregor of the University of Western Ontario.
Regardless of which medication a patient is taking, heartburn, or acid reflux disease, can cause a person to accidentally inhale regurgitated stomach acid, increasing the risk of pneumonia, he said.
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Doctors fail to communicate drug side effects to patients
Wednesday, September 27, 2006 by: Jessica Fraser
NewsTarget) A study published in Monday’s issue of the journal Archives of Internal Medicine found that doctors frequently prescribe medications to patients without clearly explaining dosages and side effects.
Researchers from the University of California Los Angeles School of Medicine examined surveys of patients and doctors and analyzed audiotaped outpatient visits with 44 physicians in 1999. The taped interviews were checked for five instructions from the doctors: the name of the drug, the reason for taking it, length of use, side effects and the frequency of use.
The researchers — led by Dr. Derjung Tarn — found that in the taped visits, doctors explained an average of 3.1 out of the five instructions. The name of the drug was explained 74 percent of the time and the purpose was given 87 percent of the time, but side effects were only explained 35 percent of the time.
Including the results of the patient surveys, the researchers found that physicians gave full medication dosing instructions for fewer than 60 percent of prescribed medications, and informed patients of side effects and how long to take a drug about one-third of the time.
“This study demonstrates spotty physician counseling about new medication prescriptions,” says Tarn. “Although physicians educated patients more about psychiatric and analgesic (painkiller) medications, the overall quality of communication was poor even for these medication types and could contribute to patient misunderstandings about how and why to take their new medication.”
The researchers also found that drug explanations were particularly poor for over-the-counter medications. Information on side effects was given less than 15 percent of the time for antibiotics and skin medications.
The UCLA study’s authors noted that patients frequently obtain medication information from pharmacists, nurses and drug package inserts, rather than from doctors. The researchers say more research is needed to determine whether or not doctors spending more time to educate patients on proper medication use and risks would result in more appropriate use of prescriptions.