“Dr. Patel was very knowledgeable and friendly. He was very open about his thoughts, both positive and negative.”
Acid Reflux Treatment Success Story for Joseph Lyons, Age 44, from San Antonio
Hiatal Hernia repair for Acid Reflux on 12/18/2013
Coming from an Italian family, Joseph Lyons often felt left out when they cooked the heavy, acidic meals that Italy is best known for. A frequent sufferer of heartburn, even small pepperonis made him feel like his chest was on fire. When Joseph was in his twenties he had begun experiencing heartburn; now in his early forties his heartburn was occurring every hour on the hour. Even on his best days, with prescription medication, he would experience breakthrough heartburn within a few hours after taking.
When his heartburn first began, Joseph was in his early twenties and in the military. During this time he had a small health issue that made him take a trip to the doctor on his base, but had no idea what would happen next. The doctor prescribed him high doses of Motrin and ibuprofen, but failed to mention these medications, at such high doses, needed to be taken with a large meal. Not knowing the danger he was putting himself into, Joseph continued taking the medications prescribed to him. While on leave from the military, he ended up in the emergency room and soon found out that the medications he’d been taking had torn his stomach to shreds. Mr. Lyon’s recalled, “The doctor told me my stomach looked like your knee would if you fell down and scraped it up,” in regards to what the medications had done to his stomach. Needing to get off his current medications, he was prescribed a new daily regime of Nexium and Omeprazole in an effort to prevent his heartburn without ruining his stomach any more. He was glad to discover that by keeping the acid in his stomach under control with these medications, in time they would assist in repairing his stomach.
After nearly two decades of constant heartburn and finding it impossible to find the right mix of pills to control his acid reflux, Joseph decided to look into other options that did not include medication. He was tired of feeling left out during family meals, or having to skip on the meat lovers’ pizza when he and his friends went out; it was time to find a different solution. While browsing through Facebook one day, his eye was caught by advertisement about how heartburn could cause cancer. Fearing that he could one day be diagnosed with esophageal cancer, he turned to Dr. Patel at the Heartburn Center of South Texas.
“Dr. Patel seemed very confident that he could take care of me. I was pleasantly surprised.. Well that’s an understatement,” he recalled after meeting with Dr. Patel. Mr. Lyons had previously met with multiple doctors that just wanted to continue his medication regime rather than wanting to find and treat the source of the problem. Upon this realization, Joseph was more than eager to complete the state-of-the-art acid reflux tests that Dr. Patel ordered, so that he could finally figure out what was causing his severe discomfort. After receiving the results from his testing, Dr. Patel and Mr. Lyons together decided that the Hiatal hernia that was found through the tests would need to be fixed. Learning from Dr. Patel that a hiatal hernia can cause symptoms of heartburn, Joseph was eager to see if a simple hernia repair would decrease his acid reflux. “Dr. Patel was very knowledgeable and friendly. He was very open about his thoughts, both positive and negative,” he said, hoping that this would be the end of his twenty years of acid reflux. Mr. Lyons was once again pleasantly surprised.
Immediately after his Hiatal hernia repair, Joseph was already feeling significant relief. Within two months following his surgery, he no longer needed to take any of his daily heartburn medications! Now, after having experienced no heartburn post surgery, he finally felt normal again. “I feel like a regular person in my group of friends now,” he said after being able to eat meat lovers’ pizza with his friends on several different occasions since his surgery. Joseph is also ecstatic to finally enjoy those big Italian meals with his family, without worrying if one pepperoni would make him miserable from the pain of acid reflux. “I have experienced zero heartburn since my surgery; my life is back to normal again!”