Day 60 - Oesophagus Sphincter

I tend not to pay much heedance (is that a word? Is it just heed? I'm going to use it anyway) to warning labels until something becomes an issue, followed by a realisation that "oh right they put that there for a reason". Rennie's warn to not regularly take them for the long term (I'm paraphrasing), something which I ignored until I was prescribed Lansoprazole to counteract a debilitating inability to swallow my food (briefly eluded to in Day 16's post). For the last few years I've been choking on food and having to regurgitate it to be able to breathe and tests discovered that my the sphincter at the bottom of my oesophagus is remaining open when it should close up, meaning that foods and acids and all that inside stuff was obstructing my food's pathway. 

These gastro-resistant capsules, which I presume 99% of their target market is the elderly, have actually been effective, which is a nice surprise given my success rate with hospital trips. On the advise slip it says "do not take indigestion remedies 2 hours before or after you take this medicine". I wondered why, found out why and this is why. Turns out higher stomach acid levels are what informs the valve at the base of your oesophagus to close, therefore taking Rennies and Lansoprazole simultaneously would counter-act one another.

It also made me realise that I may be at fault for getting myself into this mess in the first place. Lampooning my insides. "Stupid valve, want close do you? We'll see about that! Rennie! Rennie! Rennie! How do you feel about being blasted with years and years of Rennies?! Stupid valve! Idiot doesn't think it should close because it needs it's stupid stomach acids to tell it how to do its job." - I think this is probably what I've unintentionally been doing. Years of persistent work to permanently prise open an internal sphincter which causes me to not be able to swallow food. Impressive effort that.

Moral of the story - read the warning labels.