Hi,
I'm desperate. I was diagnosed with gastritis, reflux, and small ulcers. The ulcers were healed last year. For the past 2 years I constantly have phlem and white acidy stuff in my throat that I have to spit up. I am always burping, clearing my throat, and at times I am throwing up the acid and food that isn't digested from my throat. I am getting married in 8 months and don't see any hope to make this better. I am currently taking nexium in the morning and zantac at night.
Please any information or ideas would be appreciated.
Hi Dawn,
I am just looking ing buying a wedge pillow, meant to help stop the reflux from coking up the osphecus. Watch what you eat, avoid spicy and acid foods, nowadays Fri king mostly water with Odd cup of tea. No fizzy drinks. I use the fodmap diet. Worth looking up. Was told to look up Dropping acid by Kauffman. Phelm is something which has started about three weeks ago. Will be checking it out with GP once have got ridden of this awful cold.
I would say your taking to much medicine which is causing more symptoms, cut back on the medicine and you will probably feel better, that is what I did
I just started this medicine regimen a few weeks ago and have had the same symptoms I mentioned for months and months longer.
Thank you for the advice. Ive tried all of these with tje exception of the wedge. I have no trouble sleeping where many people do but I do elevate my head.
Hi Dawn sorry to here about your struggles but it will take time with the diet which is really important I tried all the meds and eventuallu ditched them for the diet , its tough to give up things you love but worth it to fell better. I am feeling much better since this change, i still have the occasional goody like red wine , one glass with dinner at the weekend, one coffee a day, and still get a little phlegm but not as bad as when i first stopped my meds and this also indicates that I need to reign in my diet again if i have erred off it . Its a complete and utter pain and makes socialising a nightmare but there is hope if you can get in the habit of cooking and eating fresh food such as veg chicken and fish a nd drinking camomile tea and water it does work. There are may ways to manage this each of us is different but diet is crucial to recovery ,Good luck.
Hi Mo, am always interested in other people's experiences. Do you stick to the low acid diet? I'm trying but I haven't felt much benefit yet. Also do you take any supplements? It's abit of a minefield knowing what to try!
Hi Julie I do try most of the time, yes, but have moved onto more of the maintainace diet using koufman as a guide but make up my own menu's and keep it simple. I do not take supplements because I believe that eating a well balanced diet with lots of fruit and veg should give me al the nutrients i need like steaming veg and stirfrying in a little coconut oil making casseroles wihout onions and garlic and substitute fennel instead. Oven baked chicken and fish stir fry prawns etc., which keeps all the nutrients in and use herbs instead of spices. I cannot advise what you should eat as you may not tolerate foods I like but my partner also eats this food too which is good and healthy and he enjoys it, once you get organised its quite easy to manage .It was October when i was diagnosed took meds for month Felt so ill so then ditched them and its taken a while to see results. by the way some vitamins are not kind to the stomach as some contain ascorbic acid(vit c). and colors and preservatives so I avoid them.
Hi Mo, that's interesting you've only been diagnosed recently. Did you have a scope by an ENT consultant? I wonder if LPR is on the increase, I suppose it must be because Gastric Reflux is more common. But I gather LPR isn't always caused by reflux but "silent". It's very complex isn't it?
Had endoscopy as i had been suffering with a congested throat and difficulty swallowing , thought it was sinus problems but gp snet me for edoscopy fast which was good, i cant say i enjoyed that and i feel it made my condition worse initially, made my gut more acidic as i did not have this originally, diagnosed with oesophagitus , hiatus hernia and a polyp in mystomach what a shock was that. You are right it is complex and as I,ve said many times different for everybody. i just wish doctors would recognise the dietary aspects of this condition. have an appointment to see my GP tomorrow I will be discussing my approach with her . She is good and does listen . All I really need now is something for a quick fix if i get a flare up . Someone told me Gaviscon is good for this but on med for high BP so need to check its ok to use as there is some meds that dont mix with BP meds . I 'm afraid I question everything and research as much as possible as knowledge is power when it comes to Doctors as they can intimidate us with science.
Hi Mo, thanks for the reply. Yes I have quite a good GP. I don't know which part of the country you are in but I'm up in the North West and luckily don't have to wait too long for referrals. I've got an ENT referral in 2 weeks to check out my throat. As I've said I think that I have LPR caused by reflux. My main problem is a sore throat, I don't cough or have excess mucus.I'm not sure how much diet would help me with this.
I have this ans wondered what the white stuff was! Is this acid? It's by my tonsils x I follow fodmap for food intollerance but have cut out tomatoes now too I already don't eat citrus or onions or garlic and many other things! Exercise really helped tonight! I am taking PPI though daily at the moment to get it under control x
Ridding yourself of reflux is no easy task. It took time for the problems to occur, it takes time to fix your body. I went 35+ years of eating crap with no problems, then all of a sudden, bam. One thing you have to remember, when you take drugs to reduce acid, you are also allowing bacteria to thrive in your stomach, mainly because the acid normally kills the bacteria. A white tongue can signify bacterial overgrowth. Also remember that sugar is bacterias best friend.
In my own personal opinion, each case can be different. Eradicate all processed food, (tinned, microwaved, anything with preservatives in) instantly. Remove all caffeine from your diet, pop, chocolate etc. Caffeine relaxes your stomach sphincter muscles. Remove all processed sugars. The only sugars you should be getting are naturally from fruits, or the sugars that are converted from carbs. Only Eat vegetables, preferrably steamed. Any meat you eat, make sure it's well cooked and is organic. I would elimimate grains too as they are fairly difficult to digest while on acid reducers. These are only temporal until you get better. Because you are reducing acid, try purchasing some digestive enzymes to help break down your food. Also take apple cider vinegar, preferrably Braggs.
Like i said, each case is different, what works for some, may not work for you. You need to experiment with foods and see what works for you. It may take a while. Good luck.
Cautious why Apple cider vinegar? I do not eat apples due to the acid in them, can you enlighten me?
Hi Ricardo, your comments were very interesting. There seems to be a lot written about Apple cider vinegar but I must admit I've always been nervous of acidic things. I've just started digestive enzymes and wondered how you're doing with them and how long it took before you noticed any effect.
Hi Julie as my symptoms started in the throat i found the diet has made so much difference i dont choke on my food now and only get some mucus build up if i have indulged in something I shouldn't. I cannot always ignore th odd biscuit or glass of wine from time to time , we all have weaknesses its just trying to keep them to a minimum. I went to see GP to day and talked about diet and not having any information from consultant about diet and she said that's because for most people the medication works ,From these pages i would not agree whole heartedly with that) However i have a low tolerance to chemicals and medications so meds do not easily work for me. She has agreed to refer me to a dietitian so will see what they have to say ,watch this space . I dont know how long it will take to get this appointment so i will continue to manage the diet my way until then.By the way i live in the Midlands and my GP is great at getting referalls fast. I am very lucky too.
Thanks for the reply Mo, that 's very encouraging that you cleared your throat problems with diet. My big trigger I think is chocolate and I have been eating it over X-mas! Hopefully if I lay off it this sore throat should settle down and I'll feel abit calmer.
Hi Dawn,
Your experience sounds remarkably similar to mine. I have suffered from stomach ulcers for the past 10 months and have only recently healed them. I too was throwing up food that was too acidic that my belly could not digest. 10 months of antacids (omeprazole) from the doctor didn't really help, so i stopped taking them and tried the cabbage juice "miracle cure" and it REALLY WORKS!
You need a proper juicer for this (NOT a blender), I borrowed my neighbour's to start with but I have just puchased my own - expensive but worth it for the sake of my health! You have to drink roughly a litre of fresh white cabbage juice (3-4 cups) per day, best between or 20 minutes before a meal. Don't ferment the cabbage juice, drink it fresh. Around a third to half a cabbage will make one cup of juice, so expect to get through a lot of cabbages! Do it for 7-10 days and then you can ease off and just do it occasionally when you feel the need. I have a cup of cabbage juice instead of taking antacids like "Rennies" now, whenever I feel a bit refluxy or my belly doesn't feel quite right - or if I know I'm going to be eating a very acidic meal! Google "cabbage juice ulcers" for more info about the properties of cabbage juice and the studies they did on prison inmates with ulcers. Also you can mix it with pear juice (or apple or carrot etc) if you want it to taste better. Personally I didn't mind the taste of it as it was, it's quite sweet really.
Another thing I did was to increase my fibre intake, (almonds are amazing 12% fibre, and sweet potatoes and pears are great too) which helped my belly to heal but also really helped with, er, downstairs issues too (the ulcer left me permanently backed up). Sorry if TMI!
Hope this helps and good luck, I know how horrible it is to feel that way! It really worked for me, and now I feel better than I have in a long time. So if you decide to give it a try let me know how you get on. x
Oh also all the things mo04226 said about cutting out coffee, wine, acidy foods etc, I had done all that too, very important! I can now have an occasional glass or two of wine and even mince pies or dark chocolate without feeling worse for it. xx
About quitting the diet, you may want to be extremely careful. I've been off the diet for about 3-4 weeks now and everything's been normal until today when I woke up not being able to swallow at all because of pain. Later I realised that it was probably because I ate dark chocolate ice cream the night before, so make sure that you don't eat anything too acidic before bed and if you do take antacids!!
Anyway, apart from that I've had LPR for about 9 months and unfortunately my parents seem to have given up on treatment and claimed it's stress-related when it's totally not (I'm 14) so I've had to just deal with this problem for the past few months because no medication is working 