GERD (acid Reflux) :: Zantac And Prilosec Make It Worse?

I've never ever had heartburn, or throat irritations (that weren't from a cold) in my life, and suddenly in January I started getting a lump in my throat feeling, that felt better as I ate, but came back when I was done. I was also noticing a dull chest pain on my left, but i figured it could had been from working out. It wasn't a big deal at the time, and I saw my GP about it. She couldn't really help me, other than refer me to an ENT.

A day after I saw the GP, I ate some instant ramen and got my first episode of heartburn/acid reflux. I went back to the GP shortly after, letting her know about the heartburn and she put me on 150mg of Zantac. Over the next few weeks, it didn't help much (neither did the constant Tums), and I had several more episodes of heartburn/reflux. It was always the same, I'd have the episode, the next few days I'd feel sore in my esophagus, and I'd almost get to the point of feeling better, then I'd eat/do something that would make me flare up again. It snowballed to last weekend, when I woke up on Sunday, drank some water, and just had the most acrid backwash. I panicked and went to the ER, where they put me on 20mg of Prilosec.

First few days were terrible nausea, migraine, chest pain and tense/twitchy muscles. Those went away, but now I always have the acrid backwash at night (I did get a wedge to keep my upper body slanted up), lots of throat gurgling/burps when I eat, and little-moderate acrid/stingy taste afterwards. It also feels as if my throat tenses on and off, and sometimes "clicks" when I dry swallow.

I'm having some other weird little side effects too, but I'm bothered that this reflux seems so constant now. I've already worked on cleaning up my diet, quit coffee, don't smoke, no fatty/greasy/sugary foods in the past week since starting Prilosec. Both parents have acid reflux, and my mother has GERD (a side effect of migraine meds). I'm not sure if this is made worse by Prilosec, or if I just suddenly have severe acid reflux no matter what I eat, and this is life now.

I'm seeing a gastroenterologist next week, but I'm afraid she's just going to up my dose and send me off. I want to get off all medication, and deal with this by diet change. I guess I'm asking if anyone has gone through something similar. In retrospect, I wonder if all the bad foods I was eating over the holidays set things off. In retrospect I was having a lot of "solid burps" through december, but no irritation till January.