Drinking water during meals

Hey there everyone,

I was wondering if anybody experienced more reflux or LPR symptoms when drinking water during meals. I know there's three schools of thoughts on this:

a. It helps because it dilutes the stomach acid.
b. It aggravates reflux because it dilutes the stomach acid and thus food only gets partially digested. Microbes in the small intestine then feed on these and produce gas.
c. It aggravates reflux because it increases the stomach contents.

Just wondering on what everyone's personal experiences are!

Thanks

Your stomach can make more acid very quickly.

Food continues to be digested in the stomach until the valve at the bottom opens.

There aren't supposed to be very many bacteria in the small intestine.

Water is absorbed very quickly from the stomach.

Unless you're guzzling liters of water while eating, go ahead and drink what you need. I'm with Dax. I don't make enough saliva to swallow food.

Thanks for your responses everyone!

Dax I'm curious as to what you said about alkaline water; I heard (on these forums and elsewhere) that its suppose to be good for reflux because of its ability to neutralize pepsin, but I'm getting suspicious because I think it might actually be triggering some symptoms. Could you tell me about your experiences with alkaline water?