Chris

Did a kidney stone save my life?

Heartburn

Thirty years ago, I painfully passed a kidney stone. My doctor discovered it was due to my taking too many chalk based antacids like Rennies and Tums.

Why was I taking so many? Because I had raging heartburn all the time and like my father before me had had to seek relief with those innocuous tablets. I hadn’t considered seeing a doctor for “just heartburn”.

My father had died when I was a young teen from a Myocardial Infarction (heart attack) which we’d thought odd as he was not overweight, seemed fit and healthy and there isn’t any history of heart disease in the family.

He also had had constant heartburn and was forever taking the antacids. Apparently the chalk that caused my kidney stone may well have caused arterial calcification which could have resulted in his myocardial infarction.

However, there was more.

Barrett’s Oesophagus and Oesophageal Cancer

On investigating the acid reflux that caused my heartburn, the doctors discovered I had Barrett’s Oesophagus. Stomach acid is very strong and if it refluxes into the oesophagus, it burns it causing oesophagitis inflammation and the burning symptoms we know as heartburn.

In an attempt to protect us against acid attack, the body can produce acid resistant cells known as Barrett’s Oesophagus. The problem is, in some cases those cells can mutate to oesophageal cancer which is the fourth most common cause of cancer death amongst men in the UK. (It’s the seventh most common for women.)   (i)

Whether my father had Barrett’s, I don’t know. He was never checked for it. It had only recently been discovered when he died and little was known about it then.

Down With Acid

Taking early retirement from teaching on health grounds shortly after my discovery, I have spent most of the ensuing 30 years learning as much as I can about the condition and acid reflux, starting a charity, which has unfortunately subsequently closed due to lack of meetings during the COVID pandemic, and producing an encyclopaedia on it in layman’s terms so others can learn about it.

“Down With Acid” has been so successful, with thousands of copies finding their way worldwide, it needed 3 reprints and a Spanish charity, Asenbar, we partnered with translated it into Spanish. It has now grown so big, and is updated frequently, as to make a printed version impracticable so it is solely online, though a slimmed down version, “DWA lite,” has been printed for the 10th anniversary of the original encyclopaedia this year.

World Barrett’s Day

5 years ago, at the behest of Asenbar and some others, we initiated 16th May as “World Barrett’s Day” annually in an attempt to make people aware of the condition. (16th May was the birthday of the doctor after whom the condition takes its name.)

Although most people haven’t heard of it, we think one person in 20 has it but only 1 in 200 knows.

The UK has the worst risk of it mutating to cancer, possibly due to genetic factors, with 1 in 400 with Barrett’s dying of the cancer each year – but they are not those who know they have the condition.   (ii)

A forum I manage for those with Barrett’s has over 14,000 members. We last lost someone to the cancer over 10 years ago.

Barrett’s can be managed; Cancer can kill!