Hi all,
I know many or some (?) of us have problems with reflux and I should like to know more about it.
What kind of problems?
It is related to (too low or too high) stomach acid, but how exactly?
how do you cope with it and is it possible to get it under control?
I can understand that is related to MC, because of our vulnerable intestinal system, but how exactly?
Shall I continue to get it under control with diet/eat early or is it good to go to the doctor for diagnostics?
I developed reflux complaints 4 years ago, but at first I did not really notice them, because I only have them at night.
Then I was treated for helicobacter pylori (2 antibiotics and a ppi for 7 days) in januari 2019 and I reacted very bad on the ppi (I got the symptoms where it is used against). I stopped the ppi immediately.
I think after that I kept refluxproblems in the night, but I was not really conscious of them. In september they worsened in a period with stress and I was tested (blood) positive on h. bacter again and treated. After this my refluxproblems worsened and I wrote about it in this forum and got advice, which I follow.
I don't drink alcohol anymore and I eat, if possible, very early, 4 hours before bedtime. I sleep at my right side. The head of my bed is 15 cm higher than the end. This seems to help, but I feel that it is still there, however less severe.
6 weeks after the antibiotics I was tested on h. bacter again and negative, this time in faeces, because I am afraid that I tested false positive in blood (IGG). I often tested false positive on lime. I guess my blood is full IGG.........
I would like to hear what your experiences are. Thank you in advance.
Sonja
reflux
Moderators: Rosie, Stanz, Jean, CAMary, moremuscle, JFR, Dee, xet, Peggy, Matthew, Gabes-Apg, grannyh, Gloria, Mars, starfire, Polly, Joefnh
Re: reflux
Reflux is usually caused by low stomach acid, because the higher the level of stomach acidity, the stronger (tighter) the lower esophageal sphincter holds. As stomach acidity declines, the lower esophageal sphincter tends to loosen, which can cause it to allow reflux to escape. PPIs also weaken the lower esophagus sphincter (by lowering stomach acidity), so that eventually the lower esophagus sphincter loses its strength, and it cannot clench tightly enough to prevent refluxing.Sonja wrote:It is related to (too low or too high) stomach acid, but how exactly?
.
Doctors almost never get it right, because if you have reflux, they will prescribe PPIs, and PPIs are guaranteed to cause continuing reflux. After using a PPI for a while, and then stopping, it usually takes about six months for the lower esophageal sphincter to regain its strength, so that it can clench tightly enough to prevent reflux. If you go to a doctor, insist that they test the pH level of your stomach acid, and not prescribe a PPI. You may need to take Betaine HCl, in order to help your stomach acidity to recover to a normal level (low pH level).
if you mean that you sleep while lying on your right side, that makes reflux problems worse, because when we lie on our right side, our lower esophageal sphincter is below the level of our stomach, and if the lower esophageal sphincter cannot hold tightly enough, we will have reflux. Always sleep either on your back, or on your left side — never lie on your right side in bed.Sonja wrote:I sleep at my right side.
Tex
It is suspected that some of the hardest material known to science can be found in the skulls of GI specialists who insist that diet has nothing to do with the treatment of microscopic colitis.
Re: reflux
Thank you Tex for this answer and explanation.
No, I am certainly not going to take a ppi and I already bought the Betaine HCL some weeks ago. It is good to know how it works with the stomach acid and the lower esophagus sphincter. If the Betaine gives me more stomach acid then te lower esophagus sphincter possibly gets stronger. I am going to try the Betaine first before I go to my doctor.
Sorry I made a mistake in writing: I am sleeping on my left side, not on my right. But good to know that lying on my back is also ok.
I have reset all the necessary settings, but I still don't get notification mails. Is it possible that somebody takes a look at it?
Sonja
No, I am certainly not going to take a ppi and I already bought the Betaine HCL some weeks ago. It is good to know how it works with the stomach acid and the lower esophagus sphincter. If the Betaine gives me more stomach acid then te lower esophagus sphincter possibly gets stronger. I am going to try the Betaine first before I go to my doctor.
Sorry I made a mistake in writing: I am sleeping on my left side, not on my right. But good to know that lying on my back is also ok.
I have reset all the necessary settings, but I still don't get notification mails. Is it possible that somebody takes a look at it?
Sonja
Re: reflux
Whenever you write a post, or reply to a post, or reply to a response to a post, be sure that you check the "Notify me when a reply is posted" option below the "Submit" button, before you click the "Submit" button. If that doesn't work for you, please let me know.
Tex
Tex
It is suspected that some of the hardest material known to science can be found in the skulls of GI specialists who insist that diet has nothing to do with the treatment of microscopic colitis.
Re: reflux
Hi Tex,
This is to try if it works. Notify me when a reply is posted is on.
Sonja
This is to try if it works. Notify me when a reply is posted is on.
Sonja
Re: reflux
Did you receive a notice about this reply?
Tex
Tex
It is suspected that some of the hardest material known to science can be found in the skulls of GI specialists who insist that diet has nothing to do with the treatment of microscopic colitis.
Re: reflux
Hi Tex,
No, I did not receive a mail.
Sonja
No, I did not receive a mail.
Sonja
Re: reflux
The email is sent to the email account with which you registered here. If that's the email account that you're checking, and it's not there, it's probably going into your spam folder, or your computer firewall may be blocking it, because it contains a Livelink that you can click to read the new message. You may have to whitelist this forum in your browser, so that your computer will accept the email messages.
Tex
Tex
It is suspected that some of the hardest material known to science can be found in the skulls of GI specialists who insist that diet has nothing to do with the treatment of microscopic colitis.
Re: reflux
Thank you Tex, I will do that.
Sonja
Sonja
Re: reflux
Hi all
This is an update about my refluxproblems, for which you gave me good advises.
It is now half a year later. I followed your advises and also changed my lifestyle. Since january I don't drink alcohol anymore and I don't eat anything from 4 hours before bedtime. I take Betaine HCL with my dinner. I take a high dose of Zinc and p5p (and of course MG,B12 and D3)
My refluxproblems became less, but they are still there, just as my voice problems, that I have since december.
I got diagnostics by a specialist and he saw irritation on my vocal cords and my oesophagus, which was probably due to reflux problems. My normal doctor prescribed homeopathic medication, because she accepts that I don't want to take PPI's.
We will see after 6 weeks how things will develop with my voice and reflux. If it is not better than, she wants diagnostics of the oesophagus/stomach.
In the meantime I could finetune my diet even more and had to eliminate some nuts. When I drunk wine, I always thought it was due to the wine, when I had a reaction, but since I stopped it is more easy to monitor what happens.
I posted earlier about probiotica, because i noticed my stools were improved when I used them during my helcobacter pylori treatments. Since a few weeks I take them daily (Solgar advanced multi-billion dophylus) and it is really amazing what this does with my stools.
In the meantime I still have eczema since some months and also developed hay fever complaints. So it looks like I get more and more allergic problems, while my intestines are mostly ok.
This was my update. Thank you again for your advice! I'll keep you informed.
Love, Sonja
This is an update about my refluxproblems, for which you gave me good advises.
It is now half a year later. I followed your advises and also changed my lifestyle. Since january I don't drink alcohol anymore and I don't eat anything from 4 hours before bedtime. I take Betaine HCL with my dinner. I take a high dose of Zinc and p5p (and of course MG,B12 and D3)
My refluxproblems became less, but they are still there, just as my voice problems, that I have since december.
I got diagnostics by a specialist and he saw irritation on my vocal cords and my oesophagus, which was probably due to reflux problems. My normal doctor prescribed homeopathic medication, because she accepts that I don't want to take PPI's.
We will see after 6 weeks how things will develop with my voice and reflux. If it is not better than, she wants diagnostics of the oesophagus/stomach.
In the meantime I could finetune my diet even more and had to eliminate some nuts. When I drunk wine, I always thought it was due to the wine, when I had a reaction, but since I stopped it is more easy to monitor what happens.
I posted earlier about probiotica, because i noticed my stools were improved when I used them during my helcobacter pylori treatments. Since a few weeks I take them daily (Solgar advanced multi-billion dophylus) and it is really amazing what this does with my stools.
In the meantime I still have eczema since some months and also developed hay fever complaints. So it looks like I get more and more allergic problems, while my intestines are mostly ok.
This was my update. Thank you again for your advice! I'll keep you informed.
Love, Sonja
Re: reflux
Thanks for the update. Did I mention that you have to make special arrangements while sleeping? If your vocal cords are being damaged, that suggests that you might be having reflux while you're sleeping.
While you are sleeping, make sure that you never lie on your right side. When we lie on our right side, the stomach is above the lower esophageal sphincter (LES), so if the LES spasms or otherwise leaks, acid will get into the throat, and other places where it shouldn't be. Lying on our back, or on our left side, the LES is above the stomach and reflux shouldn't occur. If you're turning onto your right side while sleeping, you might need to place a pillow or something in the way so that you can't turn onto your right side while you're asleep. It might help to raise the head of your bed a few inches, by placing a brick or something under each side.
Love,
Tex
While you are sleeping, make sure that you never lie on your right side. When we lie on our right side, the stomach is above the lower esophageal sphincter (LES), so if the LES spasms or otherwise leaks, acid will get into the throat, and other places where it shouldn't be. Lying on our back, or on our left side, the LES is above the stomach and reflux shouldn't occur. If you're turning onto your right side while sleeping, you might need to place a pillow or something in the way so that you can't turn onto your right side while you're asleep. It might help to raise the head of your bed a few inches, by placing a brick or something under each side.
Love,
Tex
It is suspected that some of the hardest material known to science can be found in the skulls of GI specialists who insist that diet has nothing to do with the treatment of microscopic colitis.
Re: reflux
Dear Tex,
Thank you for your reply. If I did not have you and Gabes and this forum, life would be a lot more difficult, really.
Yes, you told me earlier about the sleeping on the left side and I practice it since then, for more than half a year now. I also heightened my headend of the bed.
Interesting that reflux should not occur when the LES is higher than the stomach. How is it than possible that I still have reflux? Maybe I need a pillow to make sure I don't turn to my right side when sleeping.
And indeed the reflux is in the night, because I don't notice anything of it, behalve of pain in my chest when waking up in the middle of the night or early in the morning (but less severe than first) and pain in my throat bij waking up. I use the betaine hcl since some time (one a day during dinner) and I am going to raise the dosis now to add one during breakfast/lunch and maybe two during dinner. Laine uses 5 or so and it helps her a lot!
Love
Sonja
Thank you for your reply. If I did not have you and Gabes and this forum, life would be a lot more difficult, really.
Yes, you told me earlier about the sleeping on the left side and I practice it since then, for more than half a year now. I also heightened my headend of the bed.
Interesting that reflux should not occur when the LES is higher than the stomach. How is it than possible that I still have reflux? Maybe I need a pillow to make sure I don't turn to my right side when sleeping.
And indeed the reflux is in the night, because I don't notice anything of it, behalve of pain in my chest when waking up in the middle of the night or early in the morning (but less severe than first) and pain in my throat bij waking up. I use the betaine hcl since some time (one a day during dinner) and I am going to raise the dosis now to add one during breakfast/lunch and maybe two during dinner. Laine uses 5 or so and it helps her a lot!
Love
Sonja
Re: reflux
Your reflux is probably caused by gas pressure in your stomach during the night. The digestion of carbs usually produces gas, and even though I don't eat anything after about 1 o'clock in the afternoon, I notice that I still sometimes have gas during the night. Occasionally, I will notice slight discomfort while I'm getting ready to go to bed, and if I can manage to belch, that discomfort will disappear. So apparently, our digestive system can generate gas long after our last meal.
Love,
Tex
Love,
Tex
It is suspected that some of the hardest material known to science can be found in the skulls of GI specialists who insist that diet has nothing to do with the treatment of microscopic colitis.
Re: reflux
Thank you for your reply. O, that doesn't sound good. Don't you eat anything after 1 o clock because of refluxproblems?
That is a long time without food.....
Love
Sonja
That is a long time without food.....
Love
Sonja
Re: reflux
I've been eating on this schedule for about 13 years, now, not because of reflux, but because I have an ileostomy. I inherited a genetic defect from my father that causes massive colonic bleeding without warning, and surgeons had to remove my colon to keep me from bleeding to death one day in 2010.
After the surgery, as long as I didn't eat anything after about 1 o'clock in the afternoon, I didn't have to get up during the night to change my ostomy pouch. if I ate a meal late in the day, as most people do, I would be up two or three times during the night to change my pouch, and accidentally sleeping through a needed pouch change, could result in a very unpleasant accident if my ostomy appliance ruptured.
During the last few years, though, my small intestine has learned to try to do some of the duties that my colon used to do, so that I still have to get up some nights to change my pouch, because my turnaround time has been slowly increasing as my small intestine learns to take on additional duties. Anyway, that's why I eat on such an unusual schedule. Once I got used to it, it worked fine, and I never get hungry before breakfast.
Incidentally, if you look back in the medical literature that was published about 20 or 30 years ago, you can find articles claiming that a colectomy (removing the colon) cures microscopic colitis. I can verify, based on my own experience, that the claim made by those articles is totally false. I still have to totally avoid all my food sensitivities, or I get diarrhea. And diarrhea with an ileostomy is a bigger problem than it is normally, because it causes many, many pouch changes, and changing a pouch with diarrhea is a major problem.
Tex
After the surgery, as long as I didn't eat anything after about 1 o'clock in the afternoon, I didn't have to get up during the night to change my ostomy pouch. if I ate a meal late in the day, as most people do, I would be up two or three times during the night to change my pouch, and accidentally sleeping through a needed pouch change, could result in a very unpleasant accident if my ostomy appliance ruptured.
During the last few years, though, my small intestine has learned to try to do some of the duties that my colon used to do, so that I still have to get up some nights to change my pouch, because my turnaround time has been slowly increasing as my small intestine learns to take on additional duties. Anyway, that's why I eat on such an unusual schedule. Once I got used to it, it worked fine, and I never get hungry before breakfast.
Incidentally, if you look back in the medical literature that was published about 20 or 30 years ago, you can find articles claiming that a colectomy (removing the colon) cures microscopic colitis. I can verify, based on my own experience, that the claim made by those articles is totally false. I still have to totally avoid all my food sensitivities, or I get diarrhea. And diarrhea with an ileostomy is a bigger problem than it is normally, because it causes many, many pouch changes, and changing a pouch with diarrhea is a major problem.
Tex
It is suspected that some of the hardest material known to science can be found in the skulls of GI specialists who insist that diet has nothing to do with the treatment of microscopic colitis.