I get this horrendous pain in my chest. Usually at night. It starts with a warning kind of pressure and then moves into what feels like a heart attack. The pain can last 30-45 minutes and is excruciating. I have learned to take 2-3 Gavascon as soon as I wake up. Sometimes I can go back to sleep (sleep on wedge). If it's bad enough, I have to take 2 Librax and 2 more Gavascon and spend the rest of the night in the recliner. Chocolate consumption will bring this on faster than anything!
The gastros I was seeing were no help at all. I used to take Librax for irritable bowel and knew it worked for those stomach cramps, so I tried it for the spasms. One won't do it, it takes two.
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I have had this problem intermittenly for about 8 years - very painful esophageal spasms, sometimes with a kind of projectile vomiting and sometimes also a sort of diarrhea as though my entire GI tract was squeezing everything out at both ends. I have consulted doctors including a gastoenterologist, been scoped a few times, and no medical help has been forthcoming. The pain is worse than childbirth and I feel like I am going to die, but then when it stops everything is fine. I have evolved my own treatment which works pretty well. I know when one of these attacks is coming because I get a very very slight funny feeling in my chest before the real spasms start, so I have about a ten minute window of warning. I IMMEDIATELY take a low dose Xanax pill (I carry a few Xanax with me everywhere I go), which is fast acting and also I drink a lot of warm water promptly. Even if one of these attacks begins, it definitely stops short which I think means that the Xanax has kicked in. One prescription of Xanax lasts me for years under this regime. Ever since I started this about four years ago I have never had a really terrible attack.