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New to GERD and forum-Foods to eat?

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Posted 10/8/2015 8:03 PM (GMT 0)
Hi all! Sorry if there is a post like this already but I was having trouble finding any. I was recently diagnosed with GERD. My symptoms being constant sore throats and nausea. My regular doc kept diagnosing and treating me for strep throat and then sent me to an ENT and he diagnosed me right away with GERD. I come from an italian family so we are big on tomato sauce on just about everything. My ENT said to start taking pepcid and to stay away from any possible triggers and then try to find out what my triggers might be. I know that my triggers involve greasy food. Right now it feels like just about everything bothers me. It is pretty depressing not being able to eat all of the things I love...like chocolate and wine! Does anyone have any pointers or suggestions as to what foods don't bother them? Everywhere I look it seems to say what I should not eat, but not anythign that I should eat. Right now I'm basically eating pasta without anything on it and I'm getting pretty bored of it. Any help or recipes would be much appreciated! Thank you!

Post Edited (ewitsgross) : 10/9/2015 8:13:32 AM (GMT-6)

Posted 10/9/2015 2:50 AM (GMT 0)
The best way is to keep a food and symptom diary. Elimination diets help too, the idea being to go to a completely bland diet removed of any potential triggers, then gradually add things back in one at a time, that way you can better pinpoint what you can and can't have.

What you can and can't eat differs for everyone, but alcohol, coffee, tea (this includes some herbal teas), caffeine, carbonated drinks, chocolate, citrus, fatty, spicy and fried foods, tomatoes and all mints have been scientifically proven to worsen reflux related conditions either by weakening the LES, or by irritating the esophagus so it would do you good to cut those out first.
Posted 10/9/2015 3:24 AM (GMT 0)
Hi Ewitsgross, Welcome to the forum. The forum moderator have a lot of site shared. Here are some food ideas on what you can eat. For me, not all works for my gut so i tried little bit at a time. Yes this will be a life change on most of us. But if you will not do the diet, it will take longer to heal. Jenagade had a lot of pointers shared. Medications alone is not the situation for this GERD, but you have to deal with diet. I learned a lot from this forum. It's my personal thing, prayers have helped me. God bless.


http://www.enetmd.com/content/gerd-diet-plan-and-table
Posted 10/9/2015 2:15 PM (GMT 0)
Thank you for all of your help! How long is the bland diet suggested for before adding other possible triggers back in? I honestly don't even know any foods to eat that aren't included in the list of things I shouldn't eat. I feel like the list of should not eats literally includes everything that I eat!
Posted 10/9/2015 4:59 PM (GMT 0)
Hi, its true managing your diet is very important. But i disagree with the 'one size fits them all' diet list. So IMO everyone is different. Therefore knowing what you should avoid and what you need is beneficial. Try allergic test if you can or you can pay attention to how your body react to a certain food. For me, knowing i should avoid chicken, rice, potato, lemon, coffee etc is really helping me heal.
Posted 10/9/2015 8:21 PM (GMT 0)
Hi ewitsgross, Yes solfieLV is right. You have to do a food allegry test. For me, I was just eating the basic food that did not hurt my stomach. It came to a point that I was scared to eat something new. So I was on the same food (boring) for 3 months. I lost a lot of weight but nothing much I can do because anything I ate was giving me bad reaction. It gets frustrating but that's how it was for me. My doctors seems not to be alarmed so much about GERD. My doctors didn't do anything except keep prescribing me different dosage of PPI. So It was rice, fish(wild caught) and selected organic veggies for months. I wean myself from PPI July 24, Zantac and Tums Aug 17, 2015 but up until now, I'm still very careful as to what I ate. It was a tough journey for me and takes time to heal on some people. For me this is going my 4th month and still on the diet. I start reintroducing new foods few weeks ago but can't get too crazy about it. Few times in August I have to suffer for weeks because I ate some steamed fish with dash of pepper on it. This is just my experience because I had sensitive stomach. We are different and some people might heal quicker. I praise God, my check up last Monday went well, did a scope and my ENT doctor told me I'm doing well with recovery. I went to all test, X-rays, blood test, Hpylori and CT scan since June and all were normal, except for the esophageal flora that was irritated due to antibiotics and Advil. Even so, it took time to completely be back on my regular diet.
God bless.
Posted 10/9/2015 8:37 PM (GMT 0)
Allergy tests are helpful. So is keeping a good food journal. I agree that there is no 1-size-fits-all when it comes to food triggers. You can try the foods you "shouldn't eat," but the food journal will help you get the answer.

After you have found a meal that caused symptoms, try separating the meal into its components. If you find you tolerate the baked potato, then try just the hamburger. For me, it wasn't even the hamburger, it was the ketchup, mustard and pickle.

You may come up with a weird list of food triggers. So, google them with the words "food allergies." I don't tolerate: gelatin, wine, corn starch, onions, maple syrup, pork, sauerkraut. balsamic vinegar, dark chocolate ... There is a connection! It may not be the same as yours. There are all sorts of food triggers.

I'm fine with coffee, tea, fresh or frozen lemon but not bottled, tomatoes ...

Food trigger reactions usually occur within a half hour to 2 hours although migraine reaction can take up to 2 days. When I get reflux from foods I also often get tachycardia.
Posted 10/11/2015 5:10 AM (GMT 0)
What kind of allergy test do you mean? I do have allergies, but have not had any food allergies since I was a child. I went for testing a few months ago and they did the allergy shots test to see what I was allergic to and every food reaction came back negative...would a blood test be more accurate/help decide if it affects my gerd?
Posted 10/11/2015 9:46 AM (GMT 0)
Alcie, you may have just helped me immensely. I have been having unexplained episodes of tachychardia which drs keep picking up on but never seem concerned about, but naturally it has been freaking me out, I'm only 28 I shouldn't be having weird heart stuff happening, but I had NO IDEA that reflux could cause tachychardia. I was going to talk to my GP about the tachychardia at my next appointment anyway, but now you've giving me one possibility as to what might be causing it so I thank you so much.
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