Barrett's Esophagus

Karen, I've not run across anything to suggest an association between BE and breast cancer. If chemo caused a good deal of heartburn it might contribute to it but generally the damage tends to occur over a longer period of time before causing the changes seen in BE. I hope you get good news from your biopsy - soon.

After BC - with radiation but without chemo - I developed silent reflux - and with 6 months of medication, changing how I breathed during exercise and monitoring my diet - I have been symptom free for several years. I never got to the point of Barrett's - but my ENT recommended Dr. Jamie Koufman's book Dropping Acid and her diet - basically avoiding acidic foods. I really think the trigger for me was my father in law's diagnosis of throat cancer and the most significant change I made was breathing out on exertion when I exercised - I had been doing the exact opposite. In any event, I found Dropping Acid to be a great read about reflux and how treatment modalities depend on the specialty treating it.

Newly diagnosed with Barrett's Esophagus. Just wondering who all is dealing with this and found this old thread. I am wondering if it is related to my radiation?

Thanks bluepearl. I was diagnosed with gastritis in addition to Barrett's Esophagus and I don't have the H. pylori bacteria. They are unsure what the cause of the gastritis is so I am going to have to get with my general practitioner to try to figure it out.

Yes, my surgeon put me on an H2 blocker twice a day. I am being very careful about what I eat and drink. I am trying to learn what I can.

I was a severe reflux-er, with a complicated hiatal hernia, about 13 years prior to breast cancer, and it had to be surgically corrected as none of the OTC or Rx meds at the time helped. Along with the usual acidic foods, alcohol, caffeine, fatty foods that slow digestion, etc., one of the surprises on the GERD diet to me was that both mint and chocolate are issues - I still have problems with super minty toothpaste and mouthwash, but the surgery fixed the problem for the most part. I have to be careful about portions (they used part of my stomach in the repair) and I will never be able to have a margarita - the combo of tequila and citrus is too much - but I can live with that, lol! I never had heartburn, or the classic symptoms of GERD or reflux, and was only diagnosed when I had a caustic antibiotic wash up into my esophagus while sleeping and ulcerate a section that left me unable to eat for 6 weeks. What I did have was esophageal spasms induced by stomach acid which was discovered by the diagnostic workup pre-surgery. The spasms felt like I was having a heart attack, and it was frustrating for a couple of years as they looked repeatedly at my heart and kept saying everything was fine.

cowgal - I just did 23and Me testing - I had previously done Ancestry because I am adopted - wanted to confirm, participate in another database, and get the medical reports. I actually have the genetic variant for celiac as well. Have not discussed this with any of my docs yet and since I had eliminated gluten for the most part I have t had too many issues. On the toothpaste front I did use a natural one for a while that had less mint taste (Jason) but have lately been using a Crest HD product that has been ok

NotVeryBrave - That's very interesting. I was on tamoxifen for my first year and had to have a hysterectomy as a result of it so then was switched to Arimidex. I had bad problems with joints and they put me on Femara and I can't remember the other AI but I was on them for one year trying to improve the joint pain, which ended up causing both knees to have to be replaced.

SpecialK - If you ever do get tested for celiac, you will need to get back on gluten for quite a while or the test won't detect it. I am predominately Irish on both sides of my family and lo and behold, Irish are one of the groups Celiac is more common to.

SpecialK - Pretty much all I was told was that I had celiac and that I needed to give up wheat but it is more than that and currently I am still trying to figure it all out. Some celiacs require giving up other grains as well. Due to the damage that celiac does to your stomach from eating the gluten, many celiacs need to avoid dairy and once they have healed up, many can then eat dairy with no problems. Wheat is hidden in a lot of foods so you have to look out for that. I have found an app that I use on my phone that helps when I am shopping. Are you aware of being careful about cross contamination?

SpecialK - by cross contamination, I mean that the gluten free food is contaminated by gluten and that can happen in a number of different ways. For example, if you eat at a restaurant, if your gluten free meat is grilled on the same grill as something that contains gluten or they use the same spatula, it can contaminate your food and you get "glutened". After researching a little bit, I found that I had to clean my kitchen of gluten, which involved getting rid of some of my kitchen supplies, including bakeware that I could not be sure to get all the gluten out no matter how hard I cleaned. It is recommended that if you are in a household with gluten eaters that you have an area that is kept gluten free and that you have your own toaster, pans, etc. Some celiacs even have to make sure to use hair and skin care products that are gluten free, depending on their sensitivity.

SpecialK - I am in the same situation at the house. DH doesn't have diabetes but is very carb sensitive so it works for how I need to eat now pretty well. Do you know what ingredient I need to look for in makeup and mascara? I assume that the ingredient won't be listed as gluten or wheat.

Thanks for the links. Something else you may already know but just in case is that if you have celiac, than prior to going off of gluten and getting your gut healed up, you basically were getting malnourished because you were not able to absorb the nutrients you were eating.