The Dirty Little Secret of Acid Blockers

Who wouldn't want want relief from a stomach and throat that are on fire? This is what acid blockers offer. What nobody mentions, though, are the side effects.

Acid blockers seemed like a godsend to me at one time. It was three years ago, when I couldn't eat tomatoes or oranges, my throat felt hot at night, food got stuck in my throat, there was a sour taste in my mouth, and finally, I got diarrhea that lasted a month and a half. A blood test showed two antibodies for Helicobacter pylori, the bacteria that causes most stomach ulcers. I wasn't making the third antibody, instead I was going downhill. An endoscopy showed an ulcer in my throat. A high dose of antibiotics and a prescription for an acid blocker stopped the pain and healed the ulcer.

All was well until I tried to go off the acid blocker. I think I have a pretty high threshold of pain, but last year, I lasted a day without it before stomach pain compelled me to start taking it again. Sometime later, I ran out and had to wait a few days for more to arrive. My stomach burned on the over-the-counter remedy. I thought of my grandfather, who used to take baking soda, an alkaline heartburn remedy, by the spoonful. Was it genetic? Would I have to take these pills the rest of my life?

I tried apple cider vinegar, but it made my stomach sour. Then I remembered how good my stomach felt when I ate some uncooked oat bran. Could that help?

I tried again today to go off the acid blocker, and I'm happy to report that I feel fine, and the oat bran did help. What else is different from last year? I've stopped eating wheat and have cut way down on the sugars in all forms. Could that be the difference? Dr. William Davis, a cardiologist who encourages all his patients to stop eating wheat, reports that some of his patients experience "reduction or elimination of gastroesophageal reflux."

But why not eat whatever you want and take the little pills? Those little pills interfere with vitamin and mineral absorption (which can lead to osteoporosis and iron deficiency anemia, the latter of which I happen to have), and they can lead to intestinal infection and indigestion, according to an article, which cites medical literature, called "Heartburn, GE Reflux (GERD) and Acid Blocker Drugs" by Jeffrey Dach, M.D. A double-blind study published in Gastroenterology: The Official Journal of the AGA Institute in July 2009 shows that withdrawal from acid blockers can lead to "acid rebound": healthy participants who took acid blockers for a few weeks developed acid-related symptoms when they stopped. They call it acid rebound, I call it hell in your stomach.

The article by Dr. Dach includes a video (scroll down) by Mark Hyman, M.D. on avoiding acid reflux--and some eye-opening statements about drug companies originally stating that the drugs shouldn't be used longer than six weeks. (Transcript here.) Among many other things, he recommends eliminating gluten and dairy for a few weeks. As good as this advice is, based on my own case, I'd say gluten isn't the problem, since I don't have celiac: it's probably just wheat. (After all, the oat bran seems to help.)

Comments

30-second Fix for a Cracked Stick Blender

Use Mighty Fixit (if you still have some from 2012) or Rescue Tape (which looks like a similar product) to fix a cracked stick blender. After I fixed the attachment, I washed it in the sink and the tape held up. I also wrapped a knife handle several years ago, and it's been through thousands of washings.

Holiday Dinner Tip from Restaurant Pros: Limit the Menu

After watching some people online getting freaked out about trying to put on holiday dinners and getting overwhelmed to the point that they're thinking about canceling the whole thing, I thought I'd put out a restaurant tip that will help people put on a dinner with less aggravation. A big complaint among the frustrated home cooks I've seen is that family members are not contributing to the dinner. But a bigger problem I see is that their menu is just too big. One lady's family is having her make 12 dishes all by herself, and some of these dishes look pretty complicated. Watch the video here or read on. The reason this is aggravating is that more dishes mean more shopping, more prep, and more cleanup. It's hard to make several dishes that will all be ready at the same time. Even though I used to be a prep cook at a restaurant, I've put on Thanksgiving dinners myself, and I cook from scratch almost every day, there's no way I'd try to make a 12-course di...

Moving on to YouTube

Remember when the blogosphere was a wild ride? Doctors, writers and researchers dove into research, picked apart studies and stood up to official advice and conventional wisdom that didn't work. We found each other in the comments and made a community. Along the way, Dr. T. Colin Campbell's research got exposed as shoddy by an English major, Tom Naughton made us laugh, "safe starch" fads made us scratch our heads, "Diabetes Warrior" Steve Cooksey almost went to jail, CarbSane trolled everyone who was anyone, and CarbSaneR trolled the troll. Now it's very quiet. Blogs don't come up in Google search results anymore and even if they did, most of the bloggers have stopped writing. That's why I've moved on to YouTube. Videos do come up in search results and my shorts--which are mostly what I make--get pushed out to hundreds of people or more. My videos are on food and health (biohacking), but also on growing things and fixing things. If you...

The Inner Circle Site is a Maze!

If you're a member of Dr. Davis's Inner Circle site, you know how hard it is to navigate. But I have a YouTube Playlist of videos I've created on using the site--finding yogurt recipes, using the search function, uploading lab tests, finding which lab tests you should take, and more. All videos are under 11 minutes, the longer ones have chapters and time stamps in the description, and in about 30 minutes, you'll be navigating the site like techno-boss. Link here .

Results of my Carrageenan-Free Diet

Certain things should be left in the aquarium. Readers may recall my ordeal last Saturday with a migraine headache and a trip by ambulance back to my parents' house. Thanks to one of the paramedics jogging my memory, I researched the almond milk I'd started drinking around the time I quit dairy. One of the ingredients was carrageenan, a substance used to induce inflammation, sensitivity to pain and other problems in laboratory animals. Supposedly, the "undegraded" form is safe for human consumption, but undegraded carrageenan has been found to be contaminated with degraded carrageenan, and there are ways that the digestive system could degrade carrageenan itself. For the past few months, I've felt a little bloated, and was starting to have some mild pain in my lower stomach. I thought it might have been the effects of the antibiotics, oral steroids or decongestant (which gave me an allergic reaction) from back in February. I didn't connect it to the sev...

Pain, Pain, Go Away!

Search This Blog