The mystery of my burning esophagus
My year of torment began with a severe headache. The pain came on gradually over several weeks, as if a part of my brain was slowly being squeezed in a vice. Darkness stretched to the edge of my vision. Over-the-counter painkillers didn't help. Sometimes dementia-like loss of vocabulary would occur, often when talking to people on the phone. I found myself unable to remember easy things like "Washington, D.C." or "George Clooney." I ended up staring at my computer without having any idea what I had sat down to do.
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I suspected something was wrong with my sinuses because I I've had sinus infections in the past, and this headache was accompanied by a cascade of mucus running down the back of my throat: postnasal drip, in medical parlance. I thought it wasn't Covid, which a test ultimately confirmed.
When I went to the only ear, nose, and throat doctor who could fit me into her schedule, she gently inserted a long scope flexible rubber in my nose to examine my sinuses. As I sneezed and retched, she pushed the scope further to peer into my throat. I might have reflux, she said – acid splashing from my stomach into my esophagus. She could see “damage” in my pharynx. Yet she seemed indifferent. Some people have terrible reflux but don't feel anything, she says; others have a little reflux, and this causes intense discomfort. I must belong to the first group, if my throat looked like this and I didn't feel any pain there now. She prescribed a course of antibiotics to eliminate the nasty microbes that could have established themselves in my sinuses, the presumed source of my pain.
Unfortunately, some Something was starting to disturb my insides. It started as a slight warm feeling under my breastbone and grew stronger as the weeks went by, until it felt like a part of me had caught fire. The sensation reached its peak one evening after a meal of fatty quesadillas with hot peppers. After that, I changed my diet, gave up coffee, and avoided heavy foods, all of which were thought to make reflux worse. But what was happening to me only got worse. Heat began to rise in my throat shortly after each meal, no matter how light or bland the food. To avoid the feeling of lava bubbling inside me, I ate as I...
My year of torment began with a severe headache. The pain came on gradually over several weeks, as if a part of my brain was slowly being squeezed in a vice. Darkness stretched to the edge of my vision. Over-the-counter painkillers didn't help. Sometimes dementia-like loss of vocabulary would occur, often when talking to people on the phone. I found myself unable to remember easy things like "Washington, D.C." or "George Clooney." I ended up staring at my computer without having any idea what I had sat down to do.
Open this article in the New York Times Audio app on iOS.
I suspected something was wrong with my sinuses because I I've had sinus infections in the past, and this headache was accompanied by a cascade of mucus running down the back of my throat: postnasal drip, in medical parlance. I thought it wasn't Covid, which a test ultimately confirmed.
When I went to the only ear, nose, and throat doctor who could fit me into her schedule, she gently inserted a long scope flexible rubber in my nose to examine my sinuses. As I sneezed and retched, she pushed the scope further to peer into my throat. I might have reflux, she said – acid splashing from my stomach into my esophagus. She could see “damage” in my pharynx. Yet she seemed indifferent. Some people have terrible reflux but don't feel anything, she says; others have a little reflux, and this causes intense discomfort. I must belong to the first group, if my throat looked like this and I didn't feel any pain there now. She prescribed a course of antibiotics to eliminate the nasty microbes that could have established themselves in my sinuses, the presumed source of my pain.
Unfortunately, some Something was starting to disturb my insides. It started as a slight warm feeling under my breastbone and grew stronger as the weeks went by, until it felt like a part of me had caught fire. The sensation reached its peak one evening after a meal of fatty quesadillas with hot peppers. After that, I changed my diet, gave up coffee, and avoided heavy foods, all of which were thought to make reflux worse. But what was happening to me only got worse. Heat began to rise in my throat shortly after each meal, no matter how light or bland the food. To avoid the feeling of lava bubbling inside me, I ate as I...
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