holistic treatment for gerds

this my first post so I  will try my best to put this the right way. I have had extreme symtoms for a long time. I take previcid once daily but still get reflux mostly at night. Yes I have my bed up and try to control how I sleep. I am 59 and have had heart burn since I was a kid. It doesn't seem to make a diference what I eat. If I eat late before bed it seems to delay the problem. I have had all the test including endescope and the rest. They tell me I was born with a shortened esofogus. I did not have a hernia at the last test. I recently saw the add for the new Esophyx procedure and then found this forum. I intend to discuss the procedure with a doctor. My main doc has always told me to stay away from surgery and just take the pills. Here is the question! Has anyone had sucess with a holistic treatment? There are tons out there but they all want money to share thier secret. I have tried some old remodies with know sucess. If I don't take my med for one day, I know it! Lets see what you have!

papanana.

Let me share my story on wholistic medicine and GERD, but please remember wholistic medicine takes TIME and doesn't work as quickly as the typical drugs we're used to!!

about 6 years ago I was diagnosed with GERD and my gastroenterologist put me on Aciphex.  My symptoms ran the gamut...nausea, gallbladder pain, IBS, chestpain, sorethroat, throat constiction, horseness...etc....       The Aciphex worked like a dream, for the first year, but alas it did quit working. When I called my gastro. she told me to double-up on my proton-pump inhibitor and she scheduled me for another scope to make sure there were no serious advances to my esophogus.  (Just a bit inflammed)

So, instead of hopping on the band-wagon.... I took a deep breathe and reflected to....my first experience of GERD  (pre-gastro) and what my body told me intuitively to do...which was to  basically fast for 2 days...just a little fruit and raw veggies.  My symptoms disappeared.....BUT, I went back to my regular diet and my symptoms grew worse and that is when I had my first scope and gastroenterologist appointment.

Always being interested in heath, especially food... I read every book, magazine, pamlet, and internet site I could on GERD.   I just didn't feel taking a second dose of a drug limiting my acid production was such a great thing...as I am 48 and I know the older you get...the less HCL you produce.  (other enzymes too)  So after many years of experimenting....and to keep my story short..this is what works for me.

1. MOST IMPORTANT  lower carbs for at least a week to 15-20 net carbs... if I am under duress  ( which usually means I ate a great deal of flour products and white potatoes)

2. Figure the highest amount of carbs you can have...(that took time for me) I can only have about 50 a day.

3. Supplements I take :

A.  upon rising I open up two slippery elm capsules  (found at health food store) and mix them in with my watered down cup of coffee. ( it soothes the whole digestive track)  I also take in whole form 2 at lunch and 2 at dinner.

B.every meal I take food enzymes (except fruit..which I always eat alone)

C. I take 6-8 "green pills" a day  (chlorella, kelp, wheatgrass...etc..)

D. If I have to go on antibiotics, when I am finished with the course....I take mass amounts of probiotics.

E. Swedish Bitters 1 TBSP morn and one at night  

F. Other supplements I take not necessarily for GERD are salmon oil and natural progesterone

I firmly believe GERD is a "condition" and not a disease.  If I reflect back....my symptoms started over 15 years ago and I ignored them or chewed on the carafate pills my Dr. prescribed. Our bodies all react differently..... for example I get GERD with too many carbs and my husband gets Type 2 diabetes....

I am still a work in progress, but I feel my best when following this diet

( as for tomatoes, citrus-fruits, coffee, spicy foods, alcohol  etc....   Unless I ate poorly and am experiencing many symptoms ....these food have no effect on me...... : - )  )

Good luck on your natural path.... it is well worth it!

Hi Papanana,

I hope you will be helped by the messages here..

I agree with Rawmaven's #1 advice tip about lowering carbs. I went for several weeks on extremely low carbs.. 25 per day, and gradually added in more each week. THis was my main source of help.

I eat whole, real foods and avoid processed food.

I also take DGL ( a type of licorice ) and slippery elm bark powder, both found in health food stores. Chewing cinnamon gum after meals helps too.

I have been off Nexium for half a year now, and when I have an occasional flare up, I revert back to these approaches.

Best of luck to you.

Hi Rawmaven,

If you find the thread called "weaning myself off nexium", that's where I posted my story..

Petunia

Rawmaven,

I go for months without any symptoms at all.., and don't usually need to take any of the herbal/supplement remedies anymore. And then I'll get an occasional flare up which I seem to be able to get under control by quickly reverting back to lower carbs and adding in the remedies I mentioned before. I've added in Papaya enzyme, just to try that. I"m still trying to figure out what causes the occasional flare up, but I believe it's food related. I had one this past week and I wondered if it was the dried fruit, or cheese or whole grains or combination. WHen I get the symptoms it is a heartburn sensation, at times with burping. Years ago, before I was on the Nexium, I had bad chest pain as my main symptom. THe nexium did a great job and I took it for several years, but decided I wanted to go off the meds.
It's been a long time since I"ve counted carbs... I would guess it's between 80 and 120 usually. I almost never eat white flour, or sugar, or pasta or potato. Legumes are iffy for me. When I do eat grains, it is only whole grain and no more than two servings a day. I drink kefir and eat yogurt instead of regular milk , since it's lower carb and has the probiotics.

What kind of enzymes do you take, Rawmaven? Can you say more about taking bitters? Are they angostura bitters, and do you notice they help? Do you still get symptoms?

I have possibly experienced benefits from GERD w/ use of alternative treatments...Let me explain.  I recently posted a topic "Remeron cured GERD".  If you want to read the whole thing, it’s in the forums.  Here's the short of it.  I'm a 25M and have been diagnosed GERD for 10+years.  I've been taking 2x40mg nexium for 2+ years.  It is the only thing that has provided relief.  For about a year I have been treated for GAD(Generalized Anxiety Disorder) with the use of SSRI's such as Lexapro.  Because of the side effects, my doctor decided to switch meds.  He switched me over to Remeron, a drug not commonly prescribed for anxiety, more commonly used for depression.  This was about 3 weeks ago.  At the same time, I understood that serious side effects from withdrawal’s from Lexapro are prevalent.  I decided that it would be best to give my body a detox at the same time in hopes of helping with the medicine change.  I bought a 7 day detox kit from whole foods.  This was approx 3 weeks ago..... I started the Remeron and the detox kit on the same day.  At about day 2 of the Remeron/no Lexapro/Detox, I noticed I wasn't refluxing like normal.  Intrigued, I began doing all of the things I haven’t done in years b/c of Acid Reflux: wine, spicy foods, pizza, etc....  I had little-no heartburn and went a few days only taking 1 nexium/day.  I was amazed.  I thought Remeron had cured my acid reflux.  Well, the reduced acid reflux came and went after about a week.  I began to take my nexium 2x again b/c nausea, sore throat, etc.. was returning.  It wasn't until last Friday, about 7 days later, that I realized the correlation b/t my detox cleanser time frame in correlation with my acid reflux time frame.  So, I did some research and went back to whole foods w/ a list of the ingredients in my previously taken 7 day cleanse kit, in search of a similar, everyday supplement.  The same company, RenewLife, makes a 'Daily Multi-Cleanse'.  I have been taking this since Friday and, needless to say, it is 2:30 in the afternoon on Monday, and I have not taken a nexium today and am feeling fine. Here's a list of the supplements in the Daily Cleanse:  Spirulina, Garlic Bulb, Green Tea Leaf Extract, Milk thistle seed, Oakstraw Herb, Parsley Leaf, Triphala, Artichoke Leaf, Dandelion Leaf, Fenugreek Seed, Marshmellow Root, Mullein Leaf, Nettle Leaf, Oregano Leaf, Tumeric Root, Red Clover Herb, Slippery Elm Bark, L-Glutamine, MSM, N-Acetyl-Cyteine, Quercetin, Gamma Oryzanol, Calcium D-Glucarate, Alpha Lipoic Acid, Lyc opene, Resveratrol and Lutein Esters w/ Zeaxanthin, Ginger Root, Fennel Seed, Papaya Leaf, Cayenne Pepper, Coriander Seed, Cumin Seed, Gentian Root, Black Pepper, Peppermint Leaf, Spearmint Leaf, and Cellulase.   Only a few of these ingredients I have ever heard associated w/ helping acid reflux.  Is anyone familiar w/ any of these?   I am still in the 'exploratory' phase of my findings so I will keep this thread updated w/ the outcome.  These benefits could very easily be completely coincidental.  I am and have always been extremely skeptical w/ regards to holistic medicine.  This might just make a believer out of me...   

I do a lot of homeopathic stuff.  I mostly use probiotics and DGL right now.  In the past I have used papaya enzymes, slippery elm, aloe vera juice and Acid Gone(available online).   I'm doing really good unless I have some pop, that seems to aggravate reflux.   I was on Prevacid then to Nexium then Prilosec for 1.5 yrs.  I quit cold turkey(bad idea).  Anyway, that was 3 yrs ago.

What do you mean by spasms?
Some will help with inflammation...which is the beginning source of disease.
Some will soothe and coat your inflammed throat and digestive tract.
Some will help break down food.
Some are geared to cleaning toxins from your body.

They don't decrease acid production.

Rawmaven, By 'spasms' i am referring to the mechanism at the top of the stomach, the esophagus, that allows reflux. Aren't these spasms basically the cause of reflux?

Petunia, Yes, I was a bit surprised about the ingredients when I was typing in the list on the forum. For me, black pepper does not cause reflux, but, spicy peppers such as cayenne do cause reflux. Mints are also a trigger. Using the information you have given me, I am going to try to isolate the beneficial ingredients and take them individually and do away with all of the other supplements that come in the 'cure all' pill.

I will keep this forum updated w/ my findings. I am going to the GP this afternoon and will get his take on all of this. I'm also going to have him refer me to a different Gastro b/c the past 4 years w/ the current one has been less than helpful.

thanks

OK! I didn't get the answer I wanted but the one I should have expected. Lets start again. I am 59 years young and have experienced heart burn since I was a little boy.My mothers cure for it and for rotten egg belch was soda. My father and all my siblings have the same problems. My father at about my age or younger had an operation for a hietle hearnia. They almost killed him. He ended up only  able to eat boiled potatos and bread. Most of the other food he tried to eat came back up undigested after a few hours. This went on for a long time. I think it was both phisical and mental. In his later years he was able to eat a  lot of things and get by with it. He ate pepermint candy all the time and claimed it helped.I guess I am saying it is in the genes. Here is how mine acts. As long as my stomach is full or I am eating as the day goes on I have no problems. I only have problems at night after I go to bed.It is so bad sometimes that I can't breathe because of the acid and food in my wind pipe. This doesn't happen all the time but seems to go in spurts. It doesn't seem to be caused by any particular type of food. I do not drink or smoke. I eat lite for breakfast with a cup of coffee.Oatmeal causes me to have heart burn before noon!  Whole bread and turkey, chips and veg and fruit for lunch. Supper varies. I am taking 30mg of privicid. When I don't take it I get a very uncomfortable feeling high up in my stomach.As I said before, the last doctor told me my esophogus was shorter then it should be.So far no one thinks I should be operated on. They just ignore what I say and tell me to take the previcid. I don't want to tke fifty pills a day and eat some off the wall item if I can't find out for sure that it works. As far as not eating carbs, that is a new one. Maybe someone can explain that one to me from a medical point of view.What I really wanted to know is if anyone has tried the wonder treatments that are all over the web and did any of them work. If I had a cure for gerd you can bet I would share it with the world for free!!  Untill next time.      

I am going to have to try some alternative things as my GI doc just DC'd all my stomach meds. It sucks because I just found a combination that actually worked for me. 1 nexium in the am, 1 pepcid in am and one pepcid in pm, one carafate at 11am and one at 11pm. I don't know how long it would have worked for me any way. After so long on any meds they became ineffective. I had a PH study done and he claimed actual acid only came up a few times. My stomach wasn't that bad by the time they did the study and I was really careful not to eat any thing that would bother my stomach. I guess that was a big mistake. It got so bad in January that I couldn't even lay back at all with out gasping for air. My throat was fried. If they had done it then I'm sure it would have come back positive. I've had heart burn since I was 14 years old and am 46 now I know what heart burn feels like. He told me I could eat any thing and it shouldn't bother me even though in the past I have had gastritis and ulcers and my stomach is most definitly affected by what I eat, drink or take for meds. I can't even take aspirin for my heart or ibuprofen for pain or I am doubled over with pain. I had 2 ph studies done before my nissan and one was negative and one positive depending on what I ate. I guess I screwed my self by being so careful of what I ate during this last study. I just pray my acid reflux doesn't get as bad as it did in January or it is going to affect my asthma. I'm going to go to the health food store tomorrow to get some of the DGL, slippery elm and enzymes. My chiropractor thinks that my food may be setting in the stomach too long because of all the meds to cut the acid production and it's rotting and sending stuff back up into my esophagus. I'll let you all know how the natural stuff works for me.

"Our Standard American Diet, I believe, is the source of many of our ills in this country".


-Ditto Rawmaven.

Why quit the flax and fish oil...when they are so good for your heart.? Why can't you just take the bile supplement along with them? I used to have severe pain around my gall bladder too. I had a gallbladder -ejection test about 1 and 1/2 years ago and found my gallbladder to be functioning at 30%. Low-carbing and food enzymes took away the pain for me. I won't let them take my gallbladder....and once in awhile I do a gallbladder flush. ( not sure how effective they are ...but I always feel better after them....might be the fasting that goes along with it )

about your "babies". We have 2 little dogs too and one is overly protective. When a new person enters my home....all h--- breaks loose. He doesn't bite, but is very aggressive.
Having a home-based massage business......has been difficult!
Any suggestions! : - )