Caffeine Withdrawal

My acid reflux (due to hiatal hernia) has been acting up so badly these past 10 days or so that I have made the difficult decision to cut out caffeinated soda and coffee, at least until I finish doing my 14-day Prevacid treatment which DOES NOT SEEM TO BE WORKING.

I fucking hate reflux. I wouldn't mind it so much if it was just localized chest heartburn, your run-of-the-mill flare-up after eating something spicy, but it isn't. ANYTHING and EVERYTHING I eat causes at least some pain, the question is just how much and what kind. Sometimes it's nausea, sometimes it's bloating and pressure, and sometimes it is heartburn -- but it won't stay in my chest. The tight, burning sensation runs the gamut from where my esophagus meets my stomach all the way up through my throat into my jaw, and when it's really bad it even changes my voice because there's so much acid stuck in there. And like I said, it's "really bad" at least once or twice a day and it's almost never just one symptom. It's some deathly combination of bloating/heartburn/nausea and I feel fat and disgusting all over and nothing helps.

This has been going on for almost a year, but not to this extreme. I found out I had the hernia about 10 or 11 months ago, and it was about as bad then as it is now, but once I started popping Prevacid (and, yes, restricting a lot), it eased up. Now I'm halfway through another round of Prevacid, and I'm restricting, and this fucking acid will not stop ruining my life.

My gastroenterologist is 3000 miles away. If the reflux stays bad I'll see him when I visit my parents for spring break (in 7 weeks), and if it gets worse or doesn't at least improve a bit I may have to either fly out for a long weekend or see someone here. There does exist a surgery to remove hiatal hernias, but it's almost never necessary and I'm not sure if the benefits outweigh the risks. I'm not sure what the risks are, really, but I've heard it's painful and you have to be super vigilant so as not to aggravate anything during the recovery period.

But yeah, now I'm fatigued and shaky because I can't have caffeine.

I would also like to note how profoundly unfair I think it is that I have such horrid acid reflux, seeing as I've NEVER PURGED IN MY LIFE and I should have normal anorexic problems like kidney failure or Q-T prolongation. But nooooo. No, instead I'm spitting into an empty water bottle every half hour because there's so much acid running its way up my throat and into my mouth.

The one benefit is that now my stomach is so teeny and so overwhelmed with acid that I don't even WANT to eat, and I start crying from pain if I even begin to broach more than the calories my eating disorder will allow. But really I'm not certain if that is such a benefit because now I can't use hunger or feeling empty as victory markers.

Fuck you, hernia.