An endoscope only revealed some irritation of my stomach and GI lining. Still it felt like Mt. St. Helens getting ready to erupt, thought I had bleeding ulcers too. Even water was giving me bad heartburn. But stuck to a GI friendly diet. I couldn't take any NSAIDS or ibuprofen even with the omeprazole (up to 40 mg/day). No aspirin, coffee or nothing in that area, had no choice. Was on omeprazole for 2 years and slowly tapered to 10 mg/day (10 mg available from England). I substituted with marshmallow root extract and slippery elm bark before each meal for many months. The ER gave me Sucralfate which is like Mylanta X10 after stopping omeprazole (which I refused to take or basically die cause I really really hated that stuff). Sucralfate isn't a drug at all but some king of chalky substance in a pill. I took that for a year or so. For pain I could only take Tylenol believe it or not, then later went on 10 mg oxycodone (no longer taking).It's a trade off. I've had to take Omeprazole since the early '90s. If I miss even one day my stomach feels like I swallowed rocks (bleeding?) and I can eat NOTHING without acid indigestion. I guess that's reflux. They did an endoscope but saw no ulcer. A Marine colonel did that. I have to believe what he said I guess. But I do wonder if he might have thought saying that I had an ulcer would have cost Uncle Sam bucks so he thought he was saving our wonderful gov't BIG bucks NOT saying the Sarge has an ulcer. Whatever.
I have to take 200mg of Ibuprophen every 4 hours now too. Because if I don't, my arthritic, bony ass, fucked-up bod and degenerative disk disease are totally unbearable. Then I can't even walk. My balance is royally screwed up now anyway though, so I can't walk much anyway. I was taking Aspirin. The doc said do Ibuprophen instead. Less harmful. Still bad. Just not as much.
Like I said, it's a trade-off. I know that shit's not good for me, but without it....
But now I can tell if it's raining without even looking out the window. So there IS a positive to all this shit ;-P and I always try to keep in mind it COULD be worse, though...but not by much I don't think.
This took years to get to where I am, even drink 2 cups of coffee a day. I do take a Zantac/rantodine 150 in the morning and sometimes at night. If I stopped coffee I doubt I'd even need any Zantac. On the rare occasions I do get a headache, nothing beats a 325 mg aspirin or 2 for me, cept maybe for 2 Aleve. I don't always need to take those thank goodness.
wish me luck. Edibles gees eatables damn hillbilly. I can call me that you can't call me that, nigger-nigga rules. 
