Alternatives to PPI's

Thank you Javery. I feel sure the 'stuck in the throat feeling' is due to the acid washing up as it started after one particularly painful day and hasn't gone away yet. How long did it take you before you had several good days altogether? I bought a green smoothie but both times I have had some I can feel it bothering my stomach so I think that is out. What sort of juice do you make in a morning? In a blender or juicer? I have been eating oatmeal and it doesn't seem to have had any adverse effects. I also usually drink water all day and have done in a long time. I am now going to look for mastic gum (don't know what that is) and some Ph drops. Yes, I eat a half an apple sometimes after a meal. This digestive/PPI thing is such a variable and what works for one might not work for another. I thought after 4 weeks on this new PPI I would have been able to reduce it further but so far I can't and have to put up with horrible pain or nausea. I hope eventually I will come out on the other side and start to have a life again.
Thanks for your support.

Hi Joogle how you doing? No I haven't tried to ACV yet I took the Acid Ease tonight but it is my throat that is worrying me tonight. I am sucking on dgl as of now. I might start with the ACV in the morning but I am still a bit wary of doing these things. I am not one to take a lot of pills and worry about mixing too much stuff. I am about to look for the Ph drops and see if they might help. Have you started taking your new PPI yet?

Joogle I tried to copy those links into my browser and they didn't work can you do a direct link for me.
Funny enough I started on aciphex that was my first PPI. Wish I had done some research then and I wouldn't be in this mess now.

Lily,

I don't remember exactly how long it took before I started to have multiple good days together but I think it was after a few months. I'm thinking the symptoms you are having with your throat may be related to LPR. If that's the case then the alkaline drops may help with that. I took mastic gum as well for a couple of months. I'm not sure if it helped or not because when I was taking it I wasn't taking any acid suppressing medications and didn't get any immediate relief. I think the mastic gum may be more helpful if you have an h. pylori infection as it has been proven to help with that. In any case, it is a natural supplement with no side affects that I know of so taking it shouldn't cause any harm.

The first PPI I was put on was aciphex. It worked for me, but I was 23 at the time and didn't know much about GERD or anything about PPI's. I just knew that one day I started having really bad heartburn and they put me on that. It was also during military training to go to Iraq so I didn't have any time to do any research and just wanted relief. After a few years I didn't have insurance anymore so I went with zegerid and that helped for a couple years and then I got an ulcer and was put on protonix and after a couple years things started getting worse and now here I am.

For juicing I use a juicer. The recipe that I use is:
2-3 kiwi fruit
2-3 carrots (depending on size)
1/4 lemon
1/8 pineapple slice
1/2 cucumber
1 apple (kind varies by week, depends what is the cheapest at the time)

I have never gotten heartburn from juicing. At one point, before going on the H2-blockers, I was going to do a 1 week juice fast to see if that would speed things up, but never did it. Now I have no intentions of doing a juice fast because things are continuing to improve. I've been juicing for about 6 months now. If you haven't, you should watch Fat, Sick, and Nearly Dead. It shows how juicing can really help with things and turn your health around. That documentary is what got me started with juicing and it helps you understand why fruits and vegetables are so important to your daily diet.

Something else that might help is taking an H2-blocker along with your PPI. I did that as well when I was on Zegerid to help get relief. I would suggest taking pepcid compelte, the tablet form that is an antacid + acid reducer. I would take take the PPI in the morning 1/2 an hour before breakfast or lunch, then take the pepcid complete before bed to help with sleeping. The reason why I would do this is because going from 40mg to 20mg of PPI may be such a drastic change that it causes too many problems where adding in the H2-blocker may make it seem like you would go from 40mg down to 30mg as the H2-blockers don't block as much acid as the PPI's so the change isn't as drastic, but you are still weening off and may have more good days. At this point your ultimate goal would be to be off the PPI and just taking H2-blockers. Once you are there then you can focus on getting off the H2-blockers. But, I would rather be on H2-blockers that work for me for the rest of my life than to be on PPI's as when on the H2-blockers, your body is still able to produce acid to break down the food where with the PPI's, it drastically reduces acid production down to almost nothing so it makes a huge difference.

@javery, how many drops do you add to how much water? Also do you check the balance. My drops should be here by the 23rd and I didn't get the testing strips.

Mouche,
For the alkazone drops it says to add 3 drops for every 8 ounces so that's what I do. At first, the drops may slightly alter the taste of the water but I was able to get used to that within a couple days and now I don't notice it. I also tend to drink room temperature water. I've read mixed reviews on what the temp of the water should be at but room temp water doesn't give me any problems. Sometimes cold water will initiate heartburn so I tend to stay away from that now.

Lily,
When I first got off the PPI's I was at about 135 lbs and now I am at 110 lbs and have been there for a couple of months so I think that's where I'll stay based on my eating habits. I am 5'4". I didn't need to lose weight but because I dropped a lot of carb items I did and without any exercising as well.
The difference between a blender type device and a juicer is that the juicer will remove the pulp. The pulp contains mostly all of the fiber. The way that your body works is that it needs to break down the fiber before it can start to digest the food. When juicing with a juicer, this step is skipped which results in the nutrients being absorbed right away. That's why I choose to use a juicer. But a benefit of using something like the nutra bullet would be that the juice would keep you fuller longer which may help as well. To me it's extra prep work because with a juicer you don't have to peel everything except certain items. Some of this stuff is also explained in that documentary as well.

Just watch the video, some great info, I have been reading a 6 part article by Chris Kresser that addresses a lot of our questions here on this forum. It is a long read but so worth it, I just finish the last posted article and the last one has been the most imformative, he hits the nail on the head. I made my decision to try to treat my symptoms naturally after reading the first two installments. I am posting the link for all that are interested. http://chriskresser.com/heartburn, if it doesn't work just search Chris Kresser Acid reflux and GERD.

Hi Lily - i was thinking since you were having so many symptoms in reducing the dosage, i was thinking would it not be better if you just stop taking the PPI altogether, because i was thinking the same myself, if im in discomfort right now, might as well stop and suck to the pain that will come, i do plan on using the 300mg or 150mg zantac that i have to subsidize the hit, but was thinking might as well stop now since im already in the discomfort boat.

thanks javery - i may give that a try - basically stop PPI - use betain hcl tablet to see how it goes with the heartburn, is the method you are suggest, right?

mouche - they generally say once you handle the dosage with minimal symptoms to continue further.

just a recommendation if you were taking 40mg, i would have recommended you alter days, take 40mg today, skip the other day -- that is what i found to be most effective way to taper down. thats how i did twice before but i did not control my diet, whenever i felt good, went back to trigger foods, and it ended up cutting my recovery short.

first time i was off for a month and second time i was off for two months - i panicked and went back to them, but each time skipping one day for the med was what got me there.

Hi folks, Just an update to the ACV. Like I said this morning I decided to give it a try because I felt horrible again this morning with nausea. I did the ACV before I ate breakfast. it didn't seem to do anything much and I have had to push food down today. I took it again before lunch and I could feel it settling my stomach down or at least I think that was it. It could have been coincidence. However, I am going to keep going and see if I can have a few decent days in a row then I will start to reduce the Prilosec.
Joogle I don't feel I can just stop the PPI cold turkey. I have been on one for many years and have tried to stop by doing the every other day routine and that didn't work. I tried to switch to famotidine, that lasted 3 days and I was so sick I could not function. My doctor was just impatient with me and didn't see the problem at all. I feel like I made a major move going from 40mgs to 20mgs in one go. I still feel so trapped and want to feel well but I don't want to go back to 40mgs and I am still sick on the 20mgs. when I did switch to the 20mgs I was good for about 6 days then I started with the rebound. It was intermittent at that point and not terrible so I still had a life. At 3 1/2 weeks until now it has been awful and this is now around 5 1/2 weeks. I will add that I have had some pretty good days but some pretty bad ones as well. I want to get off so badly but I cannot be too impatient. I am reading the articles that everyone has recommended and they are all very interesting and shed some light on the problems we are having. So, thank you for your recommendations.
Javery I have kept your juice recipe that I might use in the near future.
With the Nexium I was taking for years all of a suddent making me sick then trying the every other day routine then the Famotidine this has been going on since the beginning of February and I am sick of being sick. I think these forums are really good for support which I need badly at this point. I will keep you posted on the AVC. Me, from my own experiences so far I would not advise doing the cold turkey thing. However, some people manage to get off the PPI easily and others do not and it is a struggle and I wish everyone luck with it. Keep on posting on your journeys and I will too.

Lily,

If you choose to go the juicer route, the juicer I got is fairly inexpensive: Hamilton Beach Big Mouth Juice Extractor, Stainless Steel. I picked mine up at walmart but it is also available on amazon for about the same price.

Javery, I haven't at this point had much checked out at all. I have little faith at the moment in the medical community I am afraid. I don't really believe I ever had GERD in the first place. I was too stupid not to have checked out the meds I was taking. It all began with taking aleve. I was in a high stress job and having to do lots of typing and my hands were hurting so I popped aleve with and without food. I started to get hearburn so my gp gave me aciphex. When I had just begun taking the Medicine I had a terrible attack or pain in the chest and terrible nausea that I went to the emergency room. After that I went to see a GI doctor and did the scope. He said inflammation (from the aleve) mild gerd and unexplained nausea. He said to 'just keep on taking the medicine'. So I did, my GP kept on giving me scrips to refill and over the years I had several different PI's depending on my insurance. I did ask him about stopping it several times and he said 'just quit'. I tried but as you know after a week or so I was back on it again. I had a very busy life so just stayed on the PPI. So in many ways I blame myself for being on it and not doing any research until very recently. I just thought I had to be on it for ever. In February after my gp gave me the famotidine he sort of threw up his hands and told me to see a GI doctor which I did. I told the gi doctors I wanted off the Nexium so he was the one that gave me the Prilosec 20mgs. He sent me to have a gallbladder scan/s and I had an appointment to go back and see him when they called and cancelled it as I was walking out my front door. that annoyed me immensely as I was very stressed out over all of this and having to have more tests. I just haven't made another appointment yet. I continued on this 20mgs with the acid rebound as I have mentioned above and that is where I am now. Struggling with it and although I knew that when I started to reduce I was going to have to wait it out. It is causing me a lot of anxiety as I don't really know if what I am doing is the right thing and that worries me. I have always been pretty healthy and only go to the doctor about once a year. This year I have been several times and then to the Gastro Doctor. I have done tons of reading about this and find a lot of the recommendations confusing. I did read about the L-glutamine and wondered if that might help as it is good for the digestive tract. However, I am now doing the vinegar I think I better not do too many things at one time. My throat is much better and hasn't bothered me all day today. What I have noticed is I think fruits are bothering my stomach somewhat. I am sick of food and have a hard time trying to think of what to eat. My husband eats everything and anything and I find it difficult to cook for him and I can't have it. Sorry to be a moaner but that is how I feel right now. I need a few good days and to move on with my reduction of the medicine.