I am changing things up with this post as it is quite a different take from my usual creative writing content. I do feel it is important to share though, given my experience with chronic heartburn (gastro-esophageal reflux disease or GERD) and what I found to be a serious lack of relevant and useful information and alternative remedies online (by alternative I am referring to an alternative to mainstream prescription heartburn medication). I know from my own experience that living with any chronic health issue can be difficult, as the impact it has on your overall well being and standard of living can be draining and all-consuming. Although I firmly believe in the life-saving contributions of modern science, I also recognize that the trend in health care has, over the years, become the application of band-aid solutions to chronic health issues that are often better treated if the root cause is known and addressed. These band-aid solutions often come in the form of pharmaceuticals and prescription medication that mask symptoms, without addressing what is causing them.

In my experience, natural remedies and dietary changes can –  if implemented in a consistent way – make a big impact in improving overall well being and in alleviating chronic health symptoms. A future without chronic pain is possible and it can be achieved without getting caught in the vicious cycle of prescription medication. I always recommend that people keep both their health care provide as well as other practitioners such as naturopaths informed of health changes and implement an approach that considers both perspectives.

How it all started

This all started for me in 2012. I remember sitting at my desk at work and a burning sensation crept up my throat. I’d had heartburn before but this was something different. It was intense, direct and overwhelming. It actually made me break into a sweat, followed by a strong wave of nausea. This discomfort continued on for the rest of the day and into the following week, which prompted an appointment with my family doctor. The first time I saw him about this, he gave me the standard info on ways I could deal with it:

1. Avoid ‘triggers’ – spicy foods (that sweat inducing curry), caffeine (difficult to do), greasy foods (aka Mcdonald’s fries), chocolate (impossible) and other culprits like smoking or excessive/rapid eating which often causes food to come back up, along with stomach acid, into the esophagus.
2. Take over the counter anti-acid medication like Tums or Zantac (for more persistent cases).

So I went home and tried to cut out some of my favourite things, including morning coffee and spicy foods and eliminate some bad habits, like eating right before bed or eating too fast. Although this helped a bit, over the span of a couple of months, the heartburn came back with a vengeance and no amount of Tums or Zantac brought relief (at one point, I was popping 2-3 Zantac a day which is not recommended). I went back to see my doctor and that’s when I was given my first prescription anti-acid medication: Rabeprazole. It worked wonders! It was like a little magic pill and I was soon back to eating and drinking all the things I wanted.  However, as is the case with chronic acid reflux – it is just that – chronic – and so it was only a matter of time (about 6 months or so) that the heartburn came back, this time accompanied with a constant sensation of having something stuck in my throat.

This part, the constantly feeling that I had a piece of food stuck in my throat, really scared me (Googling it didn’t help). I found out that it meant that the tissue around my esophagus had eroded from the excessive acid refluxing back into my throat and needed to heal before the sensation would go away. This time, my family doctor prescribed a different anti-acid medication called Pantoprazole, hoping this one would ‘suit’ me better. Again, from the first pill that I took, it worked like a miracle and I went back to living and eating normally, but as you might have guessed by now, this was a vicious cycle that got incrementally worse with incrementally stronger medication being prescribed to me. Finally, with not many more options to provide me with relief, I had  reached the point where my doctor felt I needed to be put on what are called proton pump inhibitors (PPI) – strong, chemically based medication that actually prevents your stomach from producing acid, essentially altering its main function. I was on this medication, with mostly successful results, for the next 2 years.

What Changed

This past year, I found out that my husband and I were expecting our first child. At my first appointment with my family doctor, he reviewed my medical history and recommended that I get off the PPI medication I had been taking and switch to a different one which was considered to be ‘safer’ for a fetus. That being said, he did mention that overall, there was about 2 decades worth of medical research on what the long-term effects of PPIs were on a fetus and growing baby, which wasn’t reassuring at all. The new PPI, which I took for a few weeks, was not very strong and along with the regular softening of muscle tissue and slowing down of the digestive system that comes with pregnancy, my acid reflux got worse. This is when I started to wonder – why am I even taking this medication? I was taking a capsule every single day, with effects on my body and baby that were still not fully understood by the medical community and above that, the medication was bringing me little to no relief. I was miserable, every single day, especially after the first trimester nausea subsided, and taking medication that wasn’t even providing me with any relief wasn’t making any sense. I also started to wonder why being on PPIs for over two years hadn’t cured me of this chronic heartburn. What were the long term, unknown side effects I was imposing on my body? And more importantly, what was the root cause of all of this? This is when I made the drastic decision to stop taking the PPIs – cold turkey.

Alternatives 

In July of this year, I made an appointment with a naturopath. It had been a week since I’d stopped taking any PPI’s all together (a cold turkey break from a medical crutch I had leaned on every day for over 3 years) and the heartburn was back with a vengeance. An absolute, non-relenting burn that left me drained and miserable with throbbing headaches and a pain in my chest and burning in my throat that became unbearable. My quality of life deteriorated rapidly, which in turn made me realize how much we take our health and simple things like not having heartburn, for granted. I started doing a lot of research on how I could battle this without medication and harm to my baby and my own body. After all, I’d tried modern medicine’s various options for over 3 years and I had gotten no long-term, consistent relief, so what did I have to lose?

My first appointment with the naturopath, I remember feeling defeated – I sat in her office with my heartburn brewing in my chest and listened to her with a mixture of hope and suspicion. She seemed to think that a change in diet – a serious change in diet – along with introduction of daily probiotics intake would help relieve my symptoms. One thing I did agree with was that the medication I had been taking all these years had been addressing the symptoms of my stomach and acid problem and ignoring

The Natural Way

A Consumer Report article I came across during my research reported that proton pump inhibitors were one of the highest selling drugs in North America with a revenue of over $9 Billion US (!!) every year. It also stated what I had come to realize myself – that ‘PPIs have been widely advertised to consumers and heavily promoted to physicians, and this has led to an overuse of the drugs in the treatment of garden-variety heartburn‘

Although it is not recommended to stop PPIs cold turkey the way I did (your body essentially goes into withdrawal and into a high geared over-production of acid), I had been off of them for a couple of very painful weeks, and I was not willing to go back and start at zero again. So I started to implement the changes recommended by my naturopath. There were many and it was a trial and error type of exercise until I found the ones that actually worked for me. I’ve listed below the ones that worked best for me but I recommend speaking with your health care providers to solutions catered to your specific needs. The things that worked for me are:

1. Probiotics
   • Daily intake of probiotics (I use the Cyto-Matrix brand. They are a Canadian brand and have the highest multiple strain count in probiotics that I have seen on the market – it is amazing!). This was a life changer for me. When reviewing my medical history, my naturopath pointed out the number of times I had been on antibiotics over the years. This and the intake of processed foods had led to a complete deterioration of my gut flora. She instructed me to take 3 capsules of 11-strain probiotics every day to rebuild my gut flora and increase levels of good probiotics in my system. Within the first two weeks I began to notice a dramatic difference – not only in heartburn reduction but my overall digestive and even physical health.
2. Dietary Changes
   • Complete elimination of processed foods. My rule was simple – if I don’t recognize an ingredient, I didn’t eat it. This usually meant most things that come in a box were not allowed. This dietary change was key to healing my gut and improving my stomach acid production.
   • Complete elimination of starchy carbohydrates and wheat based products. I am not gluten intolerant but I had developed a sensitivity and this helped reduce my heartburn as well.
   • GINGER! Ginger in food, ginger in chamomile tea – ginger became my saviour. There are also ginger chews that helped a lot after meals. My favorite are Chimes. The ginger-chamomile tea was an acquired taste but has not become a staple in our home as an evening wind down hot drink. We make a big pot (bring water to boil with chamomile tea bag, grinded fresh ginger, cinnamon to taste) and enjoy it in the evenings after meals. Ginger is proving to improve digestion and stomach acid production.
   • Elimination of heavy oils like canola oil or corn-based cooking oils. I started to use coconut oil and olive oil only, especially for cooking and baking.
   • Cooked vs. uncooked foods – although salads are great, for a stomach that is healing, processing raw foods is difficult. Soups were the answer for me in this category – especially if cooked with fresh ingredients and alkaline vegetables. I made my own veggie broths (just boil veggie scraps you can save in a freezer bag in the freezer for a couple of hours on low simmer and drain out veggie bits) and used this to make soups with whatever vegetables I had in the fridge.
3. Supplements
   • Introduction of enzyme tablets (like papaya or pineapple) before every meal. Enzymes help your stomach break down foods easier. I found this one worked for me but I had a hard time doing it consistently.
   • Slippery elm capsules– made from the bark of the slipper elm tree, it provides a mucus coating for the throat. This one I only took for a while since I later found out it could potentially be harmful during pregnancy, but the time that I did take it, I found it to be extremely helpful – looking forward to trying it again post pregnancy. You can find this at any health food stores in both the capsule and powder form. The powder form is more effecitve in my opinion as you can mix it with some water and take a shot which provides instant relief. Slippery elm is essentially nature’s Zantac! Update: 2020 and I still use slippery elm instead of popping tums when I get the occasional flare up and it still works great!
4. Introduction of fermented food products like kefir and sauerkraut and kimchi into my diet. Kimchi was the one I liked the best (there are some great natural brands out there) and it enhances the taste of almost any protein based meal. It has natural probiotics that contribute to gut health. This has also become staple in our home and we have it as a side to most meals.
5. Alkaline vs. Acidic foods
   • Overall, being conscious of my intake of alkaline foods vs. acid foods made a big difference for me. I would recommend doing your research on this and based on the fruits and vegetables available to you, making dietary changes that involve increase your intake of alkaline foods. Everyone is different and what worked for me might not particularly work for you. However, in general, the human body is at it’s optimal health when in a slightly alkaline state and the foods we eat are the main contributors to changes to this state. The less acidic foods you eat, the better your chances of balancing out your body pH towards a more alkaline state which helps your overall health, including eliminating acid reflux. My husband bought me a book which listed all common foods and if they are alkaline or acidic – I read it in one day and catered my meals around that knowledge.
   • Almond butter and almonds. Almonds are an extremely alkaline food (as opposed to acidic foods) that brings almost instant relief to heartburn. Almond butter on apple slices are also a great snack and I started carrying almonds around with me every where to nibble on when I was hungry. The alkaline nature of almonds helps to stabilize acid levels in your stomach.
6. Apple Cider Vinegar
   • A tablespoon of apple cider vinegar before meals was my naturopath’s recommendation. This one really caught me by surprise since I always thought that my acid reflux was caused by too much acid. However, my research showed that often acid reflux is caused by a lack of stomach acid. A lack of stomach acid causes the opening of the stomach to not fully close as it is supposed, allowing food and acid to come up to the esophagus, causing heartburn.
7. Inclined Sleep
   • Putting your bed at an incline can also be beneficial, especially if you made sure to wait a couple of hours after dinner to go to bed. Sounds simple but it’s effective. Gravity can be your best friend, so use it to your advantage. We out a few books under our mattress and even my husband, who doesn’t have GERD, has found that it’s improved his sleep.
8. Managing Stress & Anxiety
   • They say that the majority of health conditions are based on stress and I found this to be true for heartburn as well. Stress and anxiety are one of the key drivers to heartburn which can be aggravated by poor eating habits, smoking and alcohol. It can become a bad cycle and mental health awareness can be key in preventing heartburn. For me, I found that periods of high stress or anxiety were always followed with periods of chronic heartburn and the lump in my throat sensation returning. Speaking to a mental health care provider is an important part of improving overall gut health as more research shows the connection between gut health and mental health, including the production of cortisol that happens in the gut.

Setting Realistic Expectations 

One thing you need to keep in mind about natural alternatives to acid reflux is that it doesn’t work over night. There is no instant gratification the way you get with your over the counter or prescription medication. There’s no magical pill that makes everything go away fast. It is something that takes time, commitment, self-control and a complete change in lifestyle before you start to see results. It’s hard work, but you have to keep the faith. For someone like me who absolutely loves food, this was an extremely difficult period. I kept thinking that my life was over, that I’d never get to enjoy the foods that I liked to cook and eat and was having a hard time staying positive. My husband and family’s encouragement helped a lot.

I realized through my research that the lifestyle I’d come to adopt – the daily intake of processed foods, high sugar, high carb meals, gluten heavy breads and heavy meat had significant impacts to my digestive system. My mom also suffers from GERD, and given that it is genetic, I already had a predisposition for it which made me much more susceptible. I also learned that the sugars and processed foods I was eating everyday took a lot longer to decompose in my body, leading to the growth of ‘bad gut bacteria’ which fed off of these and released gases which put pressure on my diaphragm, causing food and acid to come up. Too much of this bad gut bacteria lead to various digestive issues, GERD being one of the main ones.

Don’t get me wrong – I think modern medicine is essential and often times necessary to our well-being and survival. However, there is an important distinction that must be made in cases such as chronic acid reflux when modern medicine aims to only eliminate symptoms without addressing the root cause. These band-aid solutions only work temporarily to cover up pain often have severe adverse side effects that only show themselves over long term use (they’re pretty bad, including chronic pneumonia, cancer and poor ingestion of vitamins and minerals that can lead to a slew of other health problems). There is also the unfortunate profits of pharmaceutical companies that are reaped from the over use of acid reflux medication and our (avoidable) growing dependence on them. That is why I encourage everyone to take in medical advice from both their regular medical professional but also naturopaths, acupuncturists and dieticians.

I will likely always have a ‘sensitive stomach’- this is something I’ve come to accept, but I can now happily say that after 5 months of implementing a healthy, acid conscious diet I have cured myself of my GERD. Well, more like 90% cured – which, for someone who was heavily dependent for over 3 years on prescription medication to get through the day, is pretty incredible. I went from popping a pill everyday to simply eating healthy and taking daily probiotics and other supplements which didn’t just help my acid reflux, but my overall digestive health. What you should know is that it’s doable, it is treatable and there is a light at the end of the tunnel. You have to be willing to do the work, to cut back on the trigger foods and really be determined to change your diet in a significant way. They say hard work always pays off, and this is no exception.