Chronic severe nausea, diagnosed with reflux - how long does it take to ease?

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Posting in desperation. 16-year-old DS has had constant intense nausea since mid-February, severe enough that he has only managed about three days in school in all that time. This is a disaster because his GCSEs start in two weeks - he wasn't stressed about them when this all started but obviously he's really anxious now. It seemed to start with a nasty virus, which the GP thought might have been glandular fever. He's been to the GP umpteen times, seen a private consultant and had loads of blood tests and an abdominal ultrasound. Bloods mostly normal except for one slightly elevated liver enzyme, H. pylori negative, nothing worrying on the ultrasound. He has tried Buccastem (the taste made the nausea worse), Cyclizine (worked really well for a few days but then the effect tailed off and it gave him awful vertigo), Ondansetron (again, worked for a few days, but gave him terrible terrible headaches), Metoclopromide (sort of worked a bit but not as well as the Cyclizine), and for the past week he has been on Domperidone. He had a course of antibiotics at the start because his throat was very red, but they did nothing. He has also been having hypnotherapy to try to cope with the anxiety that has become entangled with it all as the exams have got closer, but that hasn't made any difference as yet.

The consultant (ENT, because he had vertigo as well when we were referred, but that turned out to be because of the Cyclizine) says it's GERD/silent reflux and he has been on Gaviscon Advance four times a day for a month, plus ompeprazole. We've el4vated the head of his bed and he's cut out spicy/fatty foods and dairy, but he still feels so, so sick and he's just miserable. Is it normal for reflux to take this long to ease? We tried to book a private gastroenterology consult this morning but they can't see him for weeks. Going back to the GP on Friday - does anyone have any thoughts on what else we could ask about?

I wonder if they might need to try an endoscopy to see what it happening in the stomach?

When you say vertigo does he actually feel dizzy or feel faint ? . If you haven’t got one I’d get a blood pressure machine and check his BP regularly especially on the vertigo episodes . I’m assuming you have seen an ENT because they thought it was Menieres . I started with nausea when I was eventually diagnosed with Addisons so a 9 am cortisol blood would be the first test you need .

GP says endoscopy is the next step. I'm going to ask him about eosinophilic gastritis after reading about it on here the other day.

@Floralnomad - the vertigo was the room spinning, and it stopped as soon as he stopped the cyclizine. He's had his BP checked at the surgery and it's always been fine. I did wonder about POTS at the time but it's literally just intense nausea now, no dizziness or faintness. Addison's has been ruled out with blood tests.

Hopeful bump for the evening crowd.

We've had some test results back and weirdly the only thing that's abnormal is low copper. The GP now suspects malabsorption of some kind, possibly due to inflammation, so he contacted my gastroenterology consultant for urgent advice yesterday (I have ulcerative colitis so he wanted my history taken into account) and we were summoned to the surgery today to collect a lot of stool sample pots to be filled and returned on Tuesday morning. DS is less than thrilled at this prospect! He'll probably have to have an endoscopy as well. He has no other symptoms apart from this awful nausea and occasional bloating, so I really hope it's not colitis or Crohn's, but at least we have my lovely gastro consultant on the case now. They're doing calprotectin, pancreatic insufficiency, and the others all seem to be marked 'malabsorption'. Poor lad is so stressed by it all.