I Did a Hot Wings Challenge in 2020. I'm Still Dealing With It.
Here's the short version: I ate hot wings, woke up the next day with a lump in my throat, and spent the next 5 years getting bounced between GI doctors, ENTs, and allergists — none of whom could figure out what was actually wrong. 4 endoscopies. Thousands of dollars. Years on PPIs. And not a single one of them tested me for candida.
A functional medicine doctor figured it out in weeks.
This is that story.
I Set Myself Up For It
Before the hot wings even happened, I was basically speedrunning gut destruction. Intermittent fasting for over a year, nothing but black coffee until lunch, tons of seltzer, cooking everything with onions and garlic, and working 80-hour weeks. My entire diet was acidic and my stress was through the roof.
I'd had heartburn before — the college kind. Drink too much, eat pizza at 2am, pop some Tums, feel fine the next day. In 2019 I had a worse flare after playing volleyball all day and eating a massive sandwich. My throat felt constricted, like I had a lump in it. Two weeks of OTC PPIs and it went away.
So when August 2020 hit and I did a hot wings challenge with friends and woke up the next day with that same lump in my throat and burning around my Adam's apple — I figured same drill, it'll pass.
It never passed.
The PPI Trap
October 2020. First endoscopy. Small hiatal hernia, mild esophagitis. Doctor says "should clear up in a few months." Puts me on Omeprazole 60mg. Low-acid diet. No coffee. No alcohol.
I did everything right. Cut it all out. Slept on a wedge. Months go by. Maybe 40% better. But the globus sensation — that lump in my throat — never left. The burning around my Adam's apple. Always there.
Switched to Dexilant in late 2021. Better. Still not normal.
Doctor's plan? Stay on PPIs. Long-term. Probably forever.
Cool.
The Testing Treadmill (Where Nothing Makes Sense)
New GI doctor in late 2022. At least he admitted it was weird that PPIs weren't fully working. His exact words: "It's very odd."
Then the fun began:
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Catheter pH test: They shove a tube through your nose and down your throat for 24 hours. I couldn't handle it. Test was basically useless. The one takeaway was that I "might have trouble swallowing." Yeah, with a copper tube down my throat. Thanks.
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BRAVO capsule #1: Tiny device placed in my esophagus during an endoscopy to measure acid over 96 hours. Capsule fell off early. No data.
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BRAVO capsule #2: Stayed in place. 96 hours of data. Results: zero acid production. Literally zero. My doctor called it "highly atypical" and "very bizarre." X-ray confirmed the device was in the right spot and working fine. My body just... wasn't making acid.
So why did I still feel like garbage?
Meanwhile, an ENT ran an acid aerosol test. Normal Ryan score is under 9. Mine was over 100. Nighttime reading was 17.
Let that sink in. One test says zero acid. Another test says extreme acid. Same person. Same timeframe.
Nobody could explain it.
It Gets Worse Before It Gets Better
Here's the part nobody warns you about: the mental toll of a chronic health issue that doctors can't figure out.
By early 2023 I'd seen GI specialists, ENTs, allergists, my PCP, and I was having conversations with a neurobiologist friend about nerve sensitization — how chronic pain literally rewires your nervous system from the nerve level up through your spinal cord to your brain.
The list of things I tried:
- Famotidine (minimal relief)
- Montelukast
- Flonase + saline rinses
- Plant-based diet, then vegetarian, then no salt/oil/sugar
- Omega-3s, ashwagandha, magnesium threonate, L-theanine
- Doctors floated Nortriptyline, anti-anxiety meds, even Ativan
Every doctor had a different theory. Neural sensitization. NERD. Reflux hypersensitivity. Functional heartburn. LPR. New acronym, new prescription, zero answers.
September 2023: broke up with my girlfriend of 7 years. Symptoms went haywire. Chest pain, globus way worse, felt like my hiatal hernia was on fire. Spent two months away from Denver. The stress-symptom connection was obvious at that point — but knowing that doesn't make your throat stop burning.
Late 2023, my GI doctor leveled with me: "We're close to exhausting all of the options available from a GI perspective."
That's the sentence. After 5 years, 4 endoscopies, 2 BRAVO capsules, a catheter test, an acid aerosol test, countless blood draws and imaging. The answer was: keep taking PPIs forever, or maybe get surgery on a hernia that every surgeon says is too small to touch.
The Pivot
My last endoscopy came back clean. Healed. Doctor dropped me from 60mg to 30mg Dexilant and seemed pretty satisfied with that.
I wasn't.
I'd been on PPIs for 4+ years. I'd read about long-term side effects — nutrient absorption issues, bone density, gut microbiome damage. I wasn't interested in finding a slightly lower dose to ride out forever.
November 2025, I went to a functional medicine doctor. Something no conventional doctor ever once suggested.
What 5 Years of Specialists Never Tested For
My FM doctor ran bloodwork and tests in the first few weeks that no GI, ENT, or PCP had ordered in half a decade. Not once.
Results: candida overgrowth. Leaky gut. Bloodwork showing issues from years of not eating mindfully — just shoveling food while stressed at my desk.
5 years. 4 endoscopies. Dozens of appointments. Not one of them tested for candida.
I'm not saying conventional medicine is worthless — it ruled out Barrett's, cancer, the scary stuff. I'm grateful for that. But conventional medicine is designed to manage symptoms. That's what it did. It managed me for 5 years while the actual root cause went undiagnosed.
Where I Am Right Now
Two months into functional medicine. Weaned off Dexilant completely — every other day first, then stretched the gap wider, then stopped. Elimination diet. No carbs, no sugar. Down 15 lbs.
Feeling better than I have in years.
I'm not going to tell you I'm cured. I'm not selling a miracle. I'm mid-journey, figuring this out in real time. But for the first time in 5 years, the trajectory is pointing the right direction — and it's not because of a purple pill.
Why I Built This
The onboarding process for functional medicine is broken. Finding the right doctor took forever. Getting the right tests took forever. Even knowing what questions to ask took forever. And I'm someone who spent hundreds of hours researching this stuff.
Most people don't have that kind of time. Most of my friends have gut issues — reflux, bloating, food sensitivities — and they either don't know where to start or they give up because the friction is too high.
The path from "something is wrong" to "here's what's actually going on" shouldn't take 5 years and 4 endoscopies.
That's why I built DitchPPIs. Take the assessment. 2 minutes. Might save you years.
