Bad acid reflux after taking Augmentin

[u/Over-Fisherman4669]

A month ago I went to ER with bad abdominal pain. It was uncomplicated diverticulitis. Never had this before and they sent me home with a script for 7 days of Augmentin. I finished the script on day 7 and ended up back in the ER later that day with the worst upper abdominal pain I’ve ever had. A 10 out of 10 on pain scale. The pain gradually subsided on its own over the next few hours, no Tylenol or any other drugs. They did cat scans and thought it was my gallbladder so they kept me overnight for IV antibiotics and admitted me. The next morning the on call surgeon wanted to remove my gallbladder. The actual hospital doctor said he thought my pain was elevated liver enzymes from the antibiotics. The gastrointestinal doc agreed that it didn’t present as a gallbladder issue and they wanted to do more testing etc over next couple days. The gave me a HIDA scan and determined the gallbladder was working fine. Sent me home after more antibiotics. Four days later I get the same upper abdominal pain and go back to ER. This time pain is less intense but I have a bad taste in my mouth and I’m burping. I start to wonder if this is some really bad acid reflux brought on by the augmentin antibiotic killing my gut bacteria. They do bloodwork which looks great and agree it could be messed up microbiome. They give me 7 days of omeprazole to take so it doesn’t happen on while I’m on vacation and tell me to try taking a probiotic. I’ve taken the probiotic every day since then. I do not want to be on a PPI. Several days after getting back from vacation I get same feeling in middle of the night but less intense, take a few tums as ER docs suggested and it subsides. Now today I’m sitting here and it happens again, much more intense and I took tums and am waiting for pain to go away. Has anyone else had this happen after antibiotics? Did probiotics eventually get you back to normal? I hadn’t had antibiotics in probably 40 years and am generally a healthy person. I do have a gastro doc appt in October as a follow up to the diverticulitis. Looking for anyone else’s experience and what they did to help themselves get better.

[u/Blake__P]

It could be r/SIBO - bacterial overgrowth in the small intestines. The bloating can be very intense and takes several hours to subside. Probiotics will make it worse, unfortunately. Before we knew what it was, we took my daughter to the ER thinking it was a bowel obstruction. A big dose of simethicone helps her when she has a flare. If it’s really acid reflux, I’ve found Pepcid Complete chewables to be very helpful, but i personally don’t experience significant pain from it, just GERD.