Hi All,

This is my firs time posting. Going to try to keep this short but...

I am a 36 year old female, was pretty active and relatively healthy, weight was maybe 20 lb over. My eating could have been better but wasn't the worst. I tested positive for Covid on Jan 12th (although triple vaxxed) and had a mild infection except for severe fatigue and loss of taste and smell for 2 days. My post covid symptoms are actually the worst of it. It started with what seemed like chest pains (that everyone said was inflammation from Covid), went to the hospital and was cleared for pneumonia and blood clotting. My PCP, however, after following up and explaining my symptoms more said I sound like I have acid reflux. He put me on omeprazole (20mg per day) and some of the symptoms did subside (I had a lot of indigestion, pain in my chest but in an area that is common for acid reflux). The one sympton he ignored, is I was starting to have issues with my throat. I did have a few instances of what felt like burning liquid come up through my throat but that stopped eventually (I think b/c of the pills). I also was having a weird production of phlegm where (btw I never developed a cough) I would cough a little up but it was hard to get out/white/clear barely noticable. But my main concern with my throat was I was having issues with food, I would eat and sometimes it would feel like it was gettin stuck behind my tonsils or something. He said I had to wait it out.

A week later from that (after being prescribed a zpak b/c of a panicked call to telehealth about my chest pains being really bad one day, issues swallowing and more phelgm) I started having a reaction to the zpak. My throat also started doing this thing where it felt like it was tightening. I could breathe but it felt narrow and restrticted. When I talked to my PCP again, he took me off omeprazole and put me on pepcid ac b/c that would help make the antibiotic reaction I was having be less severe. However, my throat still does the tightening thing a couple of times a day for no reason it seems like.

Another week from that, still was having throat issues and was down shakes and soft foods. The concerning new issue I started having was when I'd sometimes eat a solid food like an egg, it would feel like my throat had enough when that stuck to the wall of my throat feeling came back and then I'd have to gag/cough and it felt like a piece of food might come up if I coughed it up. But nothing did. I went to ENT yesterday and from what he could see from whatever it's called the put through your nose down your throat, that I didn't have anything going on, but from my symptoms might be silent reflux. He has now upped my does to 40mg of Omeprazole per day (even though I am not eating much - I've probably lost 15 lbs at this point). He has me going for a Barium swallow test next.

I'm only one day in back on the higher dose of Omeprazole which he has me taking at night, but this afternoon when I tried to eat a little bit of turkey sandwich, same thing happened as with the egg. It felt like I got some stuck to the back of my throat/tonsil area. I would wait and then I'd start coughing a little and I'd feel an actual piece rise back up in my throat, not liquid, but sollid and then it'd go back down. This makes me the most nervous because I've never experienced anything like this before.

Has anyone ever gone through this before? I'm trying to figure out what is the best thing I can do at this point and I'm hoping anyone can offer any advice they have - especially with navigating doctors and symptoms above. I'm concerned they put me on Omeprazole when it's not going to help and don't know yet for sure what it going on.

I'm really struggling. I live alone but am staying with my parents for the time being because I have no energy from not eating enough and being distraught over what to do. I'm afraid to try to eat solids alone, which I barely eat. My main diet is bananas, yogurt (non-dairy), smoothies that have protein in it, acai berry packets, avocado. I try every so often to eat eggs because they're soft and usually I can do a turkey "sandwich" it's just wrap bread with avocado and turkey. But as you'll see from above I've had on and off issues with these two.