Chris

My father used to eat Rennie as if they were sweets.He died from a heart attack when I was a young teenager. He thought it was indigestion again.

Twenty five years ago I was suffering with violent heartburn – like a blowtorch down my throat. I started taking Rennie frequently as my father had.

On holiday in Cyprus in the early 1990's, feeling considerable abdominal pain, I had to call a doctor who diagnosed I had passed a kidney stone and told me to see my own doctor when I got home.

My own doctor, determining the cause of my renal discomfiture to have been an excess of Rennies, decided to find out why I needed them. Thus it was, in 1994, I had my first endocopy and, being fully awake, the doctor brought the screen round to show me my insides. “And that red area is a bit like your intestines and we don't like to see that here,” he said, “as it could become cancer later.”

He mentioned an operation (fundoplication) which I didn't like the sound of and put me on a new medicine that hadn't been out long called omeprazole, which removed all my indigestion problems and I could forget about it.

In 2006, I started researching on the internet. I had a chronic cough that referrals to ENT had failed to address. I wondered whether it may be something to do with reflux and started wondering what was the link with cancer. That's when I learned of the condition called Barrett's Oesophagus and, recognising the images I had seen at my first endoscopy, realised this was probably what I had.

Not having had an endoscopy for 8 years, I asked for, and received, a scope in 2007 that confirmed I did, in fact, have Barrett's.

Sharing my conviction the cough was due to aspirated reflux, my omeprazole prescription was increased to 80mg a day – which had no effect on the cough but, with reduced acid no longer absorbing essential minerals, I became anaemic and lethargic. That was when I asked for the fundoplication operation I had been offered all those years before.

I eventually had my operation laparoscopically in 2009, came off the omeprazole entirely, my cough improved, my lethargy went and I felt better than I had for as long as I could remember - and I got back on my bike.

My Barrett's hasn't gone but I am scoped every two years to ensure the potential precancerous changes of dysplasia have not appeared. I am one of the lucky ones. I know I have Barrett's but if dysplasia is seen will have it ablated to ensure I do not get this cancer that is now the fifth most common with incidences increasing rapidly.