Pain, Pain, Go Away!

Note: I'm reposting this with some edits. When I first wrote this article, I was under the impression that my dog had a tiny hole in her tooth that had healed (see photo). What looked like a pinhole may have been some crud on her tooth. I've also made another change in my diet. -Ed. A week ago, I went on a cavity-healing diet and put my dog, Molly, on the same diet a few days later when I noticed she had a cavity in her lower-right canine. As described in the highly researched book Cure Tooth Decay by Ramiel Nagel, the experiments of Weston A. Price showed children's cavities healed when they were fed one highly nutritious meal a day of tomato or orange juice with cod liver oil or high-vitamin butter, meat/bone marrow/vegetable stew, cooked fruit, milk, and rolls made from freshly ground wheat. (Note that this experiment and others like it were done in the 1920s and 1930s when meat and milk were from grass-fed, pasture-raised animals, wheat was very different in its genet

"You let me in your house with a hammer." -"Candy Shop" by Andrew Bird Low-carb proponent Gary Taubes appeared on the Dr. Oz Show March 7. In one entertaining segment, Dr. Oz spent a day eating a low-carb diet and complained of the greasiness of the sausage, feeling tired, constipation and bad breath. That's a drag, but when I stopped drinking Coke in 2007, I felt even worse: stomach ache, headache, tiredness, and mental fog. Should I have gone back to drinking Coke? If you quit a bad alcohol habit and start seeing snakes, do you need a drink? If my legs hurt from working out Monday night for the first time in two months (which they do), maybe I should resume my exercise hiatus indefinitely. I respect Dr. Oz for having Gary Taubes on his show and letting him share his ideas. I'd respect Oz even more if he looked into low-carb diets more carefully. What he didn't seem to consider regarding his one-day low-carb diet was that he spent a day

The readers of this blog have spoken: a lot of you are suffering from bloating and acid reflux and want to know what to do about it. At least, that's what my statistics tell me: the top two posts for the past month are Gas Bloating: The Incredible Shrinking Waistband and Exploding Intestines and My GERD is Cured: Low-Carb Hits the Mark . If you're like a lot of people, you might also have made a resolution to lose weight. I sympathize with all these problems: I used to suffer frequently with gas pain and acid reflux and a year ago I set out to lose 20 pounds. Why do so many people have bloating and acid reflux this time of year? Too many Christmas cookies, too much stuffing and mashed potatoes, too many holiday potlucks with dishes made of cheap, high-carb food, and too much dessert. In other words, too many carbs. That's the short answer. What do Carbs Have to Do with It? Dietary fat doesn't give you gas. Protein gives you very little gas, and it's farther along i

My healthy diet doesn't include fruit. Shocked? You're not alone: this surprises people who continually hear "eat lots of fruits and vegetables!" I initially stopped eating fruit when I read Norm Robillard's theory of carbohydrates causing acid reflux in susceptible individuals. I found fruit to be the worst food for giving me acid reflux, and I've rarely touched it since. Anytime I have, I've almost always regretted it within 20 minutes. Non-starchy vegetables quickly became a much bigger part of my diet: they're low-carb and full of nutrients. Am I missing anything by avoiding fruit? Lots of vitamin C and fiber? I made a chart to find out. Using Nutritiondata.com, I chose five fruits and five vegetables that I eat (or used to eat) and looked up how much of certain vitamins they contained. I chose vitamins that most of them had at least of little of. I also noted their total carb and fiber content. (Click for larger image.) Note that the bottom lines

Some of the most frightening experiences I've ever had were when food got stuck in my throat and I couldn't breathe. I've had the Heimlich Maneuver done to me a few times and have had to go to the hospital once I could breathe, but couldn't get the food to go up or down. The doctors injected me with Valium; when that didn't work on one occasion, they had to mechanically push down the calcium pill that was stuck. (Calcium causes muscle contraction; that may have had something to do with it being stuck so badly.) Since I seem to have found something that has ended my trouble swallowing food, I'm sure you'll understand why I feel like I've found the holy grail. A few years ago, my swallowing problem got to the point that food was getting stuck in my throat a couple of times a week. A gastroenterologist did an endoscopy and found an esophageal ulcer, or hole in the lining of my throat. Food and phlegm were getting stuck there. I also had an acute infection o

It's a good day for paying your bills And it's a good day for curing your ills So take a deep breath and throw away the pills 'Cause it's a good day from mornin' til night A low-carb diet has cured me of GERD! Thanks to the work of Dr. Norm Robillard, author of Heartburn Cured, I no longer have acid reflux--and I don't have to avoid "trigger foods" like onions, caffeine, chocolate (in the form of baking cocoa), mint, tomatoes and fat. This is a big change from the Body-for-Life program I was on just a few months ago. Body-for-Life involves eating (among other things) six small servings of "authorized" carbs like whole-wheat bread, pasta, fruit, beans, brown rice and winter squash per day. Now I mostly eat meat, eggs, nuts and non-starchy vegetables like leafy greens, broccoli, cauliflower, cabbage and green beans. Low-carb diets defy just about every official dietary guideline out there. How often do you hear "eat plenty of healthy whole

"Avoid trigger foods!" is common advice to people who suffer from acid reflux. (This is more advice than I got from my doctors.) The theory is that certain foods cause the LES (lower esophageal sphincter muscle) to remain open and allow stomach acid into the esophagus. Today I put that theory to the test. Two trigger foods are fat and garlic; another trigger is a big meal. For lunch, I ate a two-egg omelet with garlic-herb cream cheese and reduced fat cheddar cheese (it was what I had on hand). For good measure, I put half an avacado on top and added some mushrooms, thyme, salt and pepper for flavor. Except for the avacado and absence of salsa, this was the same meal I ate last Sunday when I had blistering reflux. For a mid-afternoon snack, I ate about a cup of mixed nuts and sunflower seeds (a high-fat snack) and chased it with two cups of white tea, which has caffeine (another trigger food). For breakfast, I had a plain Spiru-Tein protein shake with a few drops of orange an

If I had any doubt that sugary or starchy carbs give me acid reflux, my experience yesterday removed them. I felt fine except when I ate high-glycemic foods. I ate some lentil salad, berries and oat bran in the morning and got acid reflux. I ate about 10 blackberries last night and got acid reflux. The rest of the time, the only carbs I ate were cabbage and cauliflower--two supposedly gassy foods that didn't give me gas or reflux. Dr. Robillard is right about high glycemic foods causing reflux, and I can't wait for his book, Heartburn Cured, to arrive. Yesterday, Day 2 of my low-carb experiment, started with a workout I couldn't finish: I didn't have the energy. But after I showered and got dressed, all those Saturday chores--shopping, sorting papers, mopping the floor, clearing out clutter, putting away laundry--got done easily. I normally hate, dread, and often put off those chores. I noticed the same thing the day before: I was flying through my work. Last night, th

Readers know that I am trying to avoid acid reflux without going back to acid blockers. Today, I tried a limited-carb approach to controlling reflux. Here is what I ate today: Vanilla Spiru-Tein shake with berries (about 1/2 cup) and 1 tablespoon of oat bran Mixed unsalted, unroasted nuts Salad with ham, a boiled egg, spinach, grated ginger, cucumbers and balsamic vinaigrette dressing, green beans Same as before but without the green beans Chai tea (straight) The breakfast shake and chai tea either gave me slight reflux or just caused throat irritation. (I never had much feeling in my esophagus below the neck, so it's a little hard to tell.) Nothing else caused a reaction. So far, the limited-carb, low-glycemic approach gets a thumbs-up. Other foods I've had good results with: Sardines, salmon, chicken, romaine lettuce, orange bell peppers, sunflower seeds, pistachios (unroasted, unsalted), red wine vinaigrette (homemade with just olive oil and red wine vinegar), gouda cheese (

Biologist Norm Robillard, Ph.D. blames acid reflux on carbohydrates: eating carbs causes microorganisms in the gut to produce gas, which causes reflux. Before you laugh, consider a few facts: Reflux, or GERD, has been on the rise right along with high-carb diets eaten by many Americans. I started getting bad reflux--enough to put an ulcer in my esophagus--a few years after I started Body for Life, which involves eating a lot of carbohydrates. I was able to stop taking acid blockers only after I cut out wheat and cut down on sugars in all forms--both of these are carbohydrates. Protein has been shown to help close the lower esophageal muscle, which helps prevent acid reflux. (Protein, carbs and fat are the three basic food groups.) Some people report that Manuka Honey helps their acid reflux . Manuka Honey is strong enough to kill MRSA (methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus) and Helicobacter pylori, a couple of die-hard infections. Maybe it kills gas-causing microorganisms, too. I

A few years ago, my stomach was on fire even though I was taking a proton pump inhibitor. Since there was a three-month wait for an appointment with the gastroenterologist, I talked to the office's nurse over the phone. "I'm not overweight, I don't eat big, fatty meals. I don't understand why I have such an acid stomach." "Some people just do," said the nurse. Such is the progress gastroenterology has made in 40 years. The 1970s may have been an economic and sartorial failure, but it was a golden age of natural cures for acid reflux, or heartburn. Doctors had learned how to test things like stomach acid and the lower esophageal muscle (LES), but hadn't yet developed proton pump inhibitors, like Aciphex and Nexium, or Zantac, an acid blocker. An article(1) from 1975 addressed the effects of various foods on the working of the LES, the muscle at the top of the stomach that is supposed to close when it's not transporting food from mouth to stoma

Day 3 without acid blockers has been rough. The day started out perfectly well, but I ended up with a stomach full of acid and a throat that still feels burnt. Days 1 and 2 were great, but today was my free day, when I eat anything I want. What did I do differently today? I didn't have my usual Spiru-Tein protein drink. Maybe one of the 5,000 ingredients in it helps prevent acid reflux. I had a full-sugar, full-fat hot chocolate. I ate a big, cheesy omelet and had a few berries, a little low-fat, unsweetened yogurt and a spoonful of oat bran. Big fatty meals gave me a stomach ache even when I took acid blockers. Since I stopped them, I get full a lot faster. This meal made me so full I got sleepy. The big cheesy omelet was probably the culprit, and the hot chocolate, the accessory. Several hours later, I felt well enough to eat again, not that I really wanted to. Round 2 resulted in another lesser bout of rebound. Let's see where I might have gone wrong: I had half a Spiru-Tein

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