94 year old elderly client constant burping and indigestion.

Thank you for your input and i believe that you are right on point about the sphincter because everything I am researching is pointing to that. Im making him a gastro Dr. appt Monday
..we have GOT to get this figured out asap

A gentleman with similar symptoms had a Hiatus Hernia and infection. He took a round of metronidazole and was told to eat smaller but more frequent meals. Part of the problem was that he ate dinner at 8pm and nothing at all until breakfast at 10am the next day. That 14 hour stretch was when the acid would build up and cause discomfort.

Are there any foods that make it worse? Some foods are much easier on the digestive tract than others. Some of these gut-friendly foods are poultry, oatmeal, fish filets, breads, celery, carrots, collard greens. I could go on. Ginger cookies and ginger ale may help some. Parsley is supposed to also be good for calming the stomach.

Zantac may not be the best medication for him. There has been some bad news about proton pumps recently, but I know when you have a problem, you do need some help. Ask his doctor about some of the other medications. There may be one that works better.

Some foods are bad to cause indigestion. Heavy meats can be particularly bad for some people. It sounds like his esophageal sphincter is not closing well. It may help to encourage him not to lie on his right side, though I'm not really sure if this is myth or fact. It may help to take sips of liquids, e.g. ginger ale, to try to keep the sphincter closed better.

Hope you can find some relief for him. My ex had GERD and my father had an inflamed digestive system, so I know digestive upsets are no fun.

Hiccups I can get rid of in a heartbeat and if anyone hasn't tried it, while you may look silly I have never seen it fail. Person with hiccups puts their fingers in their ears and holds them there while you feed them a drink of water.
Works every time

I'm caring for my brother who is downe syndrome and has alzheimers, Over the years he has had the same symptoms burping, heart burn hiccups and at times throwing up.After numerous test they found that he had stricturing in the esophagus. He had to go in and have it stretched several times a year. Also there was a bad odor from his mouth. The food was just laying there and piling up. The last one he had was 2014 and its back again, He is having it done in late March. I dont know if they would do that on a 94yo gentleman but it certainly sounds familiar.

DeannaMcd, sometimes elders will develop a sensitivity to dairy products and/or gluten.

My Mom use to give my Dad regular milk, ice cream, cottage cheese, regular cheese, yogurt, and anything else with dairy and that created quite a mess for Dad. Once we got Dad on Lactose-free LACTAID® that helped the problem. There is Lactaid milk that taste like regular milk [I also use it] and Lactaid ice cream which is pretty good. Once can now find yogurt that is lactose-free.

Another issue could be gluten [wheat] products. Dad switched over to Chex cereal and that also helped him. But we couldn't get him to give up his bread for toast and sandwiches, so we had him limit the amount.

My Mom used to burp and belch the minute she sat down at the table for like 10 minutes! I complained about it to her Dr and he said omeprazole (prilosec). It worked pretty well and then he said she could take twice as much, AM & PM, and I never notice it any more. She didn't have a clue but my sensibilities are much happier. Go thru the Dr for an OK and a Rx, much cheaper.

Pamstegma, Surgery is not indicated at this time. He is in very early stage and only showed three out of eighteen samples....and the doctor agreed that surgery might actually cause it to spread. I agree with your position/opinion about female/male surgery instances.....I have said for years that if men had to have "penograms" as we are subjected to mammograms a better procedure would have been developed years ago.😜

Doodlebug, the same machine that is used for mammograms (slam-o-grams) can be used to detect early stages of testicular cancer. For some odd reason men just aren't signing up. LOL

Pamstegma, they're a bunch of wusses.😖