Acid Reflux & Heartburn

Man, get you some Bragg Organic Apple Cider Vinegar with "The mother," some ginger in powder form and make it into tea and drink a couple of cups a day--every day. Also, chamomile and peppermint tea work. But I cannot stress enough to get some Bragg Organic Apple Cider Vinegar with "The mother" INSTANT relief--for me at least.

Also sleeping on top of several pillows at night AND/OR put some bricks under your bed to elevate where you lay your head.

R1 Somebody else recommended apple cider vinegar to me. Thank you so much! I’m going to add it on my list today when I hit the grocery store! Can you have too much ginger?

What about taking ginger pills?

Have you tried medication like Prilosec or Prevacid? I've had acid reflux for 15 years. Prevacid is what initially helped me get it under control.

No peppermint tea!

Spoonful of peanut butter.

R4 No I’m trying to do this as naturally as I can… I think I’m at my breaking point.

Whatever you do never consider apple cider vinegar as it can cause esophageal burns. It is a bullshit internet cure proven not to work.

Prescription Nexium

OP, A lot of people who have bad acid reflux flare ups need help from medications to get it under control. Generally its just a 14 day or 28 day course of the medicines. After that, it's life style and eating changes that help keep it under control.

Not everyone who starts on medication has to stay on it long term.

Bicarb of soda mixed in water

What R10 said. Also, and this seems odd to me, I have a friend who is thin and eats a healthy diet but will get reflux if he doesn’t drink a glass of almond milk everyday.

This diet can solve a lot of problems.

Baking soda in water. Make it strong. Will convert the acid into something you belch out. Relief in minutes. Try it.

I’m surprised to see that dairy is NO list.

OP, you should understand that repeated reflux causes acid burns to your oesophagus, and can result in a pre-cancerous condition called Barrett's Oesophagus. You don't play round with this condition.

Didn't the specialist who performed the endoscopy give you any advice about how to get it under control?

R16 Yes he said cut out all spicy foods, tomatoes, onions, peppers etc. I found out I need to stay away from chocolate as well. Thankfully - I don’t drink alcohol or sodas. I keep a list of all the foods that cause me pain and try to eliminate them.

Prilosec morning and night

Yes, there are drawbacks, but better than what you've described

Get an H2 blocker, Ranitidine was great (Zantac), but now you use famotidine (Pepcid) or cimetidine ( Tagamet). Don't get things like Prilosec or Nexium; they are linked with cancer.

For me it was chocolate, bread, bananas, and tomato sauce.

Fried foods, juices, tomato sauce, creamy milk-based sauces, onions, garlic, peppers, spicy foods and chocolate are all things to avoid with acid reflux.

I also have found that eggs upset my stomach (scrambled, hard boiled, etc., but not eggs within a cake or cookies). Likewise pork bothers my stomach due to the amount of fat, so no bacon or sausage or ham for me.

And like r19 said, bananas also bother me. The riper the banana, the more it bothers me.

If you're unwilling to take Prilosec or Prevacid, at least try the acid reducers like famotidine,

Omeprazole.

Sounds like I’m gonna be spending some extra time in the grocery store today. i usually race through like I’m on supermarket sweep.

Put a 2X4 under both feet at the head of your bed. Forget all that medication crap. It's what a doctor I worked for for years used to tell acid reflux patients.

Cheapest and best remedy.

Suffered with it for years -25 to 46. Lost weight and cut out grease and most carbs and it largely went away. Now I get it occasionally and do double doses of Pepcid for a few days. Weight and diet were the key though.

R24 Yeah I don’t mind taking medicine in the beginning because I’m still trying to figure out what I can and can’t eat. You’re totally right though it is about weight and diet. Im 34 .. I need to get a hold of this now… it sure does suck waking up in the middle of the night with heartburn.

[quote] Omeprazole

Available over the counter. Take before each meal, it works for me.

Another vote for omeprazole. I take one in the morning and that works great. If I have a dinner that might cause reflux, I take another before dinner. I had really bad, painful reflux and this does the trick.

I had the endoscopy which revealed a sliding hernia. Very common. No need to do any sort of surgical intervention with mine, but the doctor prescribed Omeperazole, 40 mg, daily.

I bitched about the amount of the dosage to my general practitioner who is an Osteopath. I'm 63 and have never taken a drug daily and don't care to start. This doc said the dosage prescribed by the gastroenterologist was not necessary. He wrote me a script for 20 mg daily, and told me I could take it less frequently than that if I found that daily was not necessary.

So for the past few years, I take 20 mg about twice a week. And for me, no more acid reflux. OP, if a prescription turns out to be the best answer for you, you can remain in charge. Make it clear you want the smallest possible dose and you are willing to put in the time to test out the dosage.

Good luck!

Stomach problems, nightsweats, weird aches or pains and/or 'heartburn' are often signs of heart problems. Get a check-up.

You've been checked for h pylori, right?

My sister had bad reflux, them found out she had celiac disease. A gluten free diet stopped the reflux completely.

At bedtime, take Gaviscon or generic equivalent. It creates a plug that blocks the acid from getting up into your esophagus.

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Thanks for all your suggestions guys! OK I spent an extra 45 minutes in the grocery store… Face mask on lol. I bought the omeprazole. I asked about some ginger pills. Man does it take a lot of effort to pull the right foot off the shelves.

Can anybody recommend a wedge pillow to use? The kind that elevate your head. There must be thousands out there. Hard to choose.

* right food lol

R34 Yeah I’d like to know as well

I understand the desire to treat your condition "naturally", but seriously, just go to a doctor and get checked. Why go through life restricting your diet to unflavored cardboard? Enjoy the wonders of 21st Century medicine, take a pill, and get on with your life. I take prescription Dexilant to treat an acid reflux condition that was causing one of my esophageal rings to contract, making it hard for food to pass through. It took years for the doctors to figure out that acid reflux was behind my problem. Since going on medication, I'm back to near normal.

The only thing bullshit is your post R8. I use ACV. I have acid reflux. And it works. Sorry to disappoint you.

You can use too much ginger so follow the directions, OP. I drink the tea once a day and only use ACV when I KNOW it's gonna be bad or I'm nauseous.

R38 despite your hyperbolic and unfounded claim anecdotal evidence is not evidence. Studies have proven that it does not help and can cause severe esophageal burns but go ahead, drink that shit.

OP, I had reflux so bad for years that my mouth used to fill with fluid and I would wake up in the middle of the night sometimes and just stand over the sink with my mouth open and fluid would drain upward from my stomach and out into the sink for minutes. Prilosec and Prevacid helped a little but I had to take more and more.

I learned a few things that helped.

First, ginger worked better to control the reflux than any medication did. Honestly. A doctor told me to try getting a ginger root and chewing on a piece of it for five minutes every morning, swallowing the juice. You can either then swallow the pulp (which I did) or spit it out. The heat from the ginger feels like it burns your mouth at first but you adapt and it really, really worked for me.

Try antihistamines. Look up H1 and H2 blocker antihistamines; there are two types. I found out after many years that I had Lyme disease and while I was being treated for Lyme I found out I have an autoimmune allergic disorder that Lyme can cause. It’s called mast cell activation syndrome (MCAS). The Lyme is gone now, but the allergic disorder seems to be permanent because Lyme fucked up my immune system.

MCAS causes oversensitive, unstable mast cells that cause inflammation of epithelial cells—so, the skin, the linings of the sinuses, the airway, throat and digestive tract. When something triggers an allergic reaction, it causes inflammation. In your sinuses, this causes mucus production. In your stomach, it causes stomach fluid production. Taking 2x the normal dosage of over the counter H1 and H2 blockers almost totally cured my acid reflux. Instead of blocking stomach acid, it blocks the inflammation that causes fluid production and esophageal inflammation that pushes fluid upward.

H2 blockers are sold as acid reducers, but actually they work to stop histamine production by stabilizing mast cells and preventing them from degranulating (histamine is contained in mast cells).

So in summary, try ginger every day in place of medications—you might be really surprised how well it works—and if that doesn’t work, take a daily double dose of both h1 and h2-blocker antihistamines.

One note: even when medicated, some things still trigger mast cell attacks for me and I have to avoid them completely. This includes aspirin, ibuprofen and overheating, which can be from environmental temperature or from exercising to the point of getting hot. All of these make me break out in hives all over, sometimes causes edema in my limbs, makes me light headed and on a few occasions has caused anaphylaxis and throat constriction. If you get symptoms like these, they could be related to your reflux and you should look into mast cell activation disorders.

Some good advice in the comments here. I would just like to add don’t eat before going to bed. You should allow sufficient time for your body to digest dinner prior to lying down.

My sweet elderly dog needed famotidine to ease her upset stomach. I thought the last box had been all used up. Yesterday morning I found 10 unexpired tablets, way in the back of my cupboard. She passed away a few months ago. Maybe she's looking out for me - I know, Mary! - but after two doses, most of my acid reflux pain is gone.

Sleep on your side or your stomach. Cucumbers and carrots always worked best to reduce my heartburn.

Omeprazole is available very inexpensively at Costco - $12.99 for 42 pills in my area. I take it daily, and on the advice of a nutritionist, I also take a magnesium supplement. Seems omeprazole affects the ability of the body to absorb needed magnesium. Omeprazole has been a lifesaver for me for many years.

OP, if your physician will give you a script for Omeperazole, you may be able to fill it for just a few bucks. My prescription is much, much, cheaper than the OTC version.

R42: Good dog! She's never left your side, watch for the signs.