I suspect my whole problem started with possibly stress but then aggravated by eating a lot of chocolate while making chocolate covered stuff and candy for Christmas. Evidently caffeine relaxes the valve at the top of the stomach and chocolate having caffeine did the trick. So as I was laying down right after eating, the acid would come up a little bit, enough to cause discomfort and intermittant pain in my chest but not just in the center, mostly to the left, accompanied by "hot flashes". At 67, women usually don't have them, right? So as it continued and would even wake me up at times, I became real frightened which added to the stress I suppose.
The rest of the story----or some more at least. I go over about 10:30 to pick up a few more goodies as everybody is coming this afternoon for Christmas. I'm checking out and an employee comes over and asks if he can help me in the self check out lane. At that point, my throat is feeling tight and I swallow one more time and ask him if I can leave that stuff as I am having an allergic reaction and my throat was closing up I thought. I leave, drive like a maniac because all the med centers are closed on New Year's Day. I stopped at 4 red lights and when traffic cleared, went through. I was doing 90 on the xway. Figured if a cop came along, fine!! Got to emergency in downtown GR and they checked me out and did triage. Eventually a PA got to me and decided that after 2 hours since it started that I wasn't dead and the throat had gone back to normal by itself, I could go home. So I don't know if I "thought" it was closing up or if there was some residual swelling or what. But this morning I am fine. No swelling, no chest pain, no hot flashes, LOL. Also am not taking the Zantac or anything but the normal stuff until I can talk to my regular doctor Monday.
![ex[drool]](/users/3011/10/21/46/smiles/72954.gif)
