Acid Reflux And Heartburn Relief In Wesley Chapel, FL

Dr. Grandhige runs every patient through the same six steps before any procedure is discussed. His own framing: the operation is the last step, and the decision-making is the surgery.

Step 1. Confirm reflux is actually happening. Objective pH or pH-impedance testing, plus symptom correlation, plus identifying whether reflux is acid, non-acid, or bile. Without proven reflux, surgery is off the table regardless of how convincing the symptoms are.

Step 2. Map the anatomy. Hernia presence and size, esophageal length and position, and the relationship between stomach, diaphragm, and esophagus. Anatomy decides which procedures are even technically possible.

Step 3. Measure esophageal function. Contraction strength, swallow coordination, spasm, and motility disorders. This is the most frequently skipped step and the one most responsible for bad outcomes elsewhere.

Step 4. Match symptoms to physiology. You get told explicitly which symptoms should improve, which may improve partially, and which are unlikely to be reflux-related at all.

Step 5. Weigh your priorities. Durability, medication elimination, the ability to burp and vomit, reversibility, side-effect tolerance. Preference refines the choice. It never overrides anatomy or motility.

Step 6. Choose a procedure, or choose none. Observation and medical management are real answers on this list, and they get chosen regularly.

Dr. Grandhige has performed over 600 fundoplications, over 600 LINX procedures, and over 200 TIF procedures, and evaluates over 600 reflux patients a year. He is one of the busiest LINX surgeons in the country. Performing multiple procedures is the point: a surgeon who does one operation will find a reason to recommend it.

Fundoplication uses the top of your own stomach to reinforce the failing valve, done robotically or laparoscopically as an outpatient procedure in roughly 1.5 to 2 hours. It is not one operation. Nissen is a 360-degree wrap; Toupet is a posterior 270; Watson is an anterior 270; Dor is an anterior partial. The configuration is chosen from your manometry results before you ever go to sleep. It handles large hiatal hernias, it has decades of outcome data, and it’s the most adjustable option for weaker esophageal motility. The trade-off is real: depending on wrap type, it can limit burping and vomiting and increase gas bloat. Diet progresses over two to three months.

LINX is a ring of magnetic titanium beads around the lower esophagus. It doesn’t raise resting sphincter pressure. It resists opening when stomach pressure rises, then opens for swallowing, which is why most patients keep the ability to burp and vomit once early inflammation settles. It preserves normal stomach anatomy, it can be removed, and current devices are MRI compatible to 1.5 Tesla. It demands good esophageal motility, and early swallowing difficulty is common. One selection detail you won’t read elsewhere: patients who could feel their Bravo pH capsule during testing often report sensing the LINX device afterward.

If you’ve seen headlines about LINX, here’s the context. Johnson and Johnson stopped selling LINX in markets outside the United States at the end of March 2026, and stated the decision was commercial rather than related to safety or efficacy. LINX remains available and in routine use here.

TIF is performed entirely through the mouth, no incisions, about 45 to 60 minutes under general anesthesia, home the same day. It rebuilds a partial internal valve and can meaningfully reduce symptoms and medication use in the right patient. It cannot repair a hiatal hernia and does not address the diaphragm.

Dr. Grandhige is direct about the ceiling: he quotes a failure rate of roughly 2 percent per year, about 20 percent per decade. He calls it the best endoscopic procedure that exists and still tells patients to view it as a long-lasting solution rather than a permanent one. He declines to perform it on patients who are obese or who have more than a minimal hernia, even when they want it. The 2025 ASGE guideline on the diagnosis and management of GERD draws a similar line, suggesting TIF for confirmed GERD with hiatal hernias of 2 cm or less and Hill grade I or II, and combined or surgical approaches above that.

On August 20, 2026, the FDA granted Premarket Approval to Implantica’s RefluxStop implant, clearing it for the U.S. market after roughly 1,800 patients treated across Europe and published five-year outcomes. It works differently from everything above: it repositions and holds the gastroesophageal junction in its natural position without encircling or compressing the food passageway. Dr. Grandhige is adding RefluxStop, which will make him the only surgeon in the Tampa Bay area offering all four anti-reflux procedures. Ask about current U.S. availability timing when you call, since commercial rollout follows approval rather than coinciding with it.

Most patients are seen within two weeks and always within four. From there the path splits based on what testing you already have.

If your testing is done, one consultation is usually enough. Dr. Grandhige personally reviews your endoscopy reports, pathology, pH studies, manometry, imaging, and the notes from your gastroenterologist, ENT, pulmonologist, or allergist before you walk in, so the visit is spent on explanation rather than data collection. Surgery can often be scheduled about four weeks out, depending on authorization.

If testing isn’t complete, the first visit covers education, record review, and test planning. A second visit about four weeks later reviews results and finalizes the plan. Consultation to surgery runs roughly eight weeks.

Send records ahead to info@tampareflux.com. Signed releases get started immediately, but records requested through releases arrive late, incomplete, or missing the actual data more often than not. Patients who bring their own reports get definitive answers on the first visit. Patients who don’t often need a second one.

For Pasco County patients, the office arranges testing close to home whenever a study can be run locally, so trips to South Tampa stay productive. Insurance authorization is handled entirely by the office and typically takes four to six weeks. It’s started as soon as the diagnosis and plan are set, and it runs in parallel with testing rather than after it.

All surgery is performed at HCA South Tampa Hospital, and only there. Dr. Grandhige previously operated at four hospitals and consolidated deliberately: same operating room team, same anesthesia group familiar with foregut physiology, same equipment setup, same physician assistant in every case. That PA also handles your follow-up questions and knows your specific anatomy, so you’re not explaining your operation to a stranger. After hours and on weekends, Dr. Grandhige is reachable directly.

Tampa Bay Reflux Institute 1315 South Howard Avenue, Suite 101 Tampa, FL 33606 Phone: (813) 922-2920 Office hours: 9:00 AM to 6:00 PM, Monday through Friday Records: info@tampareflux.com

Surgery is performed at HCA South Tampa Hospital. Dr. Grandhige’s board certification can be verified through the American Board of Surgery physician lookup and the American College of Surgeons directory, and his Florida license through the Florida Department of Health medical license lookup.