2010/03/05
Published
Acid reflux symptoms plague millions of people daily so much so that people resort to ineffective over the counter anti-acids and acid suppressing prescription medications to mask symptoms and give them temporary relief. Acid reflux symptoms vary in severity. Sometimes there is a slight burning sensation over the upper stomach after eating that can persist for a few hours after meals. Sometimes a person feels this burning sensation after they have gone to bed and are lying flat on their back. Sometimes there is actually reflux of sour fluid into the throat causing a burning sensation.
What are the potential causes for acid reflux?
In order to understand the causes for acid reflux you need to understand the mechanism. The body is responding to a stimuli, generally something that is either eaten or a pathogen living in the stomach such as helicobacter pylori aka h. pylori or peptostreptococcus. Immune Matrix has also found a little known phenomenon where patients that test sensitive to HCL, which is produced in the stomach, can become reactive to their own HCL. In most cases this immune sensitivity to HCL results in the body’s suppression of HCL; however, in some cases it also causes the body to over react and produce excessive HCL resulting in the acid and burning symptoms.
Do anti-acids and prescription medications for acid reflux cure the condition?
No. In the case of anti-acids, prolonged usage can increase the “rebound effect” causing the body to increase the output of HCL resulting in a vicious cycle of more frequent or more severe acid reflux attacks. This is when patients then resort to prescription medications to suppress their HCL.
The downside to suppressing your HCL is that you need it to properly digest your food! Insufficient HCL makes it easy for certain pathogenic bacteria to live specifically in the stomach, mostly h. pylori and peptostreptococcus. Low HCL also prevents the body from completely breaking down your food from proteins to simple amino acids, fats to simple fatty acids, sugars and carbohydrates to single chain sugars such as glucose. This type of breakdown is essential if our cells are to absorb the nutrients from our food. When the breakdown is incomplete, these larger molecules cannot enter the cell receptor sites and pollute your blood and lymphatic system. The immune system then is called into action to clean up these “foreign” antigens. You are now beginning to train your immune system to develop food sensitivities, and increasing your overall inflammation as a result, even though your medications relieve you of your acid reflux symptoms. This can be occurring without any other symptoms coming into play besides acid reflux! Inflammation is called the silent killer for many reasons which we will address in future articles. It is a leading cause of death in America. Immune Matrix tells its patients that there is no such thing as an anti-acid deficiency so don’t become dependant upon them. Take it as a signal to get to the cause of the problem. Complacency will erode the quality of your life and kill you over time.
What you can do to unravel the mystery of your acid reflux:
If you are unable to see a practitioner experienced in de-sensitizing food sensitivities, you can try these things to help navigate your symptoms. The first thing patients suffering from acid reflux are told at Immune Matrix to do is to eliminate high acid foods temporarily, such as: lemon in water and on salads and fish, stop eating tomato sauce, especially dishes with tomato paste, avoid limes and orange juice, grapefruits and grapefruit juices. It has been found that these items cause an almost immediate discomfort for acid reflux sufferers.
Next patients are told to eliminate gluten from their diet temporarily, such as oats, oatmeal, granola bars, white flour, whole grain breads, and all products made with gluten such as crackers, flour tortillas and breaded fish and chicken. Trader Joe’s has a brochure in their store of their non-gluten products. It makes it easier to shop. Making these immediate change will help to reduce the irritant factor from the high culprit food list for acid reflux and reduce the severity sometimes of the symptoms, thus reducing the need for anti-acid assistance. Patients are asked to do this for a week to see how their symptoms change. However, it can take as much as three weeks for the body to eliminate gluten and gliadin proteins from the body and therefore improvements in symptoms caused by gluten intolerance or sensitivity may not be apparent after a week’s abstinence.
If you find your symptoms are beginning to improve after eliminating high acid foods then its highly likely your body has become sensitized to HCL and you will need to get de-sensitized to it otherwise your body will react to HCL produced in your stomach and react to high acid foods. If you find that after eliminating gluten products
After a week of trying the above you can then try taking a broad spectrum digestive enzyme like “Digestion” which is sold in veggie cap and is a medical grade digestive enzyme designed especially for those suffering from food allergies. Go to online store at www.ImmuneMatrix.com. It is recommended to take digestive enzymes as soon as you begin your meal. The reason this is suggested is that the digestive enzyme will help you break down your food better, increasing cellular absorption, and decreasing the amount of undigested food that triggers your white blood cells to remember the food as a foreign antigen and to set off the cascade of inflammation that leads to the development of food sensitivities and food allergies. By improving digestion therefore, you can decrease your body’s reaction of increasing HCL in an attempt to digest something it is sensitive/allergic to. Therefore, if you find that digestive enzymes begin to reduce the severity or frequency of your acid reflux, then this is telling you that you indeed have food sensitivities and possibly food allergies that need to be de-sensitized and in some cases entirely avoided.
The last next thing that you can do is to have a laboratory test done to rule out the presence of helicobacter pylori. A licensed health care provider can give you this test. The best one is via breath testing. It is also highly advisable to also run a microbiology stool test with Doctor’s Data, available online at www.ImmuneMatrix.com. This test will tell you the amount and type of good probiotics your system has, determine the strains and the amount of bad bacterial flora your digestive tract is harboring and also culture yeast and candida strains that need to be eliminated. The more pathogenic bacteria your digestive system harbors the more likely you are to become reactive to foods and suffer acid reflux.
Acid reflux is completely treatable and curable. No one needs to remain dependant upon over the counter anti-acids or prescription medications to control this condition. Eliminating high acid foods, eliminating gluten, taking a broad spectrum digestive enzyme and eliminating pathogenic bacteria, yeast and candida from the digestive tract and taking a good probiotic will do a lot to reduce the severity and frequency of the acid reflux symptoms. After that you need to find and confirm the presence of food allergies, best done with a blood test, NOT a skin scratch test! Then, find a practitioner that is experienced in de-sensitizing your food allergies and versed in supportive nutritional therapies to reduce inflammation. You will then successfully embark upon a healing journey towards better health!
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