How I seem to have fixed acid reflux, aka GERD

When I was a kid, my dad had GERD (aka Gastro Esophageal Reflux Disease). This resulted in him burping a lot, having hiccups (not the ordinary kind, but it's hard to explain), and worst of all, acid reflux. I remember he used to always drink water with baking soda in it to ease his symptoms. Eventually, he got esophageal cancer and died two years later at the ripe old age of 57.

We always assumed he got cancer because he smoked, and I'm sure that was a contributing factor, but his acid reflux probably was, too. In my early 30's, I began having some of the same symptoms my dad did--the elongated hiccups (especially after drinking Sprite), and the burping. Acid reflux wasn't that common, but I'd get it sometimes after eating pizza and drinking Dr. Pepper. By the time I reached my 40's, it had gotten almost as bad as my dad had it. A year and a half ago, my acid reflux got so bad that it was an every day occurrence, and it was keeping me up at night. It got to where I could hardly eat anything without being in a lot of pain. I was convinced that I'd probably get esophageal cancer and die around the age of 60 just like my dad and his dad before him.

Then one day I was having lunch with two friends, and I told them about my troubles. They told me how one of them had the same problem a year earlier but he cured his acid reflux. They claimed the acid reflux is caused by low stomach acid, and to cure it, you just have to take hydrochloric acid capsules to increase your stomach acid. That made absolutely no sense to me because I seemed to get worse acid reflux when I eat acidic food and drink acidic drinks (especially lemonade).

I went home and began googling and watching YouTube videos, and through it all I was persuaded that my friends were right after all. The primary cause of acid reflux in most people is low stomach acid (aka hypochlorhydria).

I want to explain, as best I can, what I think the mechanism is and how it can be fixed. Before I do, let me give a disclaimer. I'm not a doctor or a nutritionist. I'm just a regular guy who did a lot of googling and had some personal success getting rid of acid reflux. Also, acid reflux has more than one cause. Low stomach acid is the primary cause for most people, but there are other causes, like the H-Pylori bacteria and hiatal hernias. If you have H-Pylori, the method I'm about to explain is probably not a good idea until you get rid of the H-Pylori. You'll have to google about that yourself because I'm not going to provide any information about it in this post. This post deals strictly with acid reflux caused by low stomach acid.

Let me explain the mechanism first. The lower esophageal valve is a sphincter type valve that separates the esophagus from the stomach. When the acid in your stomach gets too low the muscle that operates that valve relaxes, allowing the contents of your stomach to come up into your esophagus. It's still acidic, which is why it burns your esophagus, giving you that awful feeling of heartburn. Also, when your stomach acid is too low, you don't digest your food properly. This results in your food staying in your stomach longer, festering, causing you to burp a lot and feel bloated and uncomfortable. Moreover, your food doesn't get broken down as well as it should so when your food leaves your stomach, not as much of the nutrients in your food can be absorbed by your small intestine. You can actually have vitamin deficiencies because of having low stomach acid. So there's a cascading effect from having low stomach acid that affects the rest of your digestive system and your over all health.

The traditional treatment for acid reflux are things like proton pump inhibitors that are designed to lower your stomach acid even more. The problem with this approach is that it treats the symptoms but doesn't fix the problem. Of course if your stomach acid is much lower, you won't feel the burn when stuff gets up into your esophagus. So you may feel better, but you're still not digesting your food properly, and you have to keep using this treatment for the long haul to avoid having heartburn.

But there is a better way, and that's to increase your stomach acid. When you increase your stomach acid, your food digests better, it leaves your stomach faster, and you don't have all the burping and feeling bloated. You get more nutrition out of your food, too, and this fixes problems you didn't even know were related. I used to think I was lactose intolerant, for example, but discovered that wasn't the issue. Also, somehow or other, when you have good acid in your stomach, that causes your lower esophageal valve to close, preventing you from regurgitating your food, preventing acid reflux.

The acid in your stomach is HCl--hydrochloric acid. A good pH level is between 1.5 and 3.5 pH. That's really acidic!

They sell these dietary supplements called Betaine-HCL that you can use to increase your stomach acid. It's a capsule that's kind of big and hard to swallow. I couldn't find any locally, so I ordered mine on Amazon. But I was losing sleep, and I was impatient, so I went to the CVS and got some apple cider vinegar capsules to tide me over. Some people recommend diluting apple cider vinegar in water and drinking it, but that's unpleasant, so I used these capsules. They're not as acidic as HCL, but I noticed a big difference immediately after using them. I had my first good night's sleep in over a month after taking the first capsule.

The way the internet recommends doing it is taking one HCL capsule with each meal for the first day, and see how you feel. Then the next day, take two with each meal and see how you feel. Keep increasing your dosage every day until you start to feel a warm sensation in your stomach. That means you have too much acid in your stomach, and you're about to get an ulcer. Then you back off by one capsule. That's your dosage going forward. Supposedly, you don't need to keep taking HCL indefinitely. Your stomach somehow learns to produce its own acid, and you can wean yourself off of them. My friends told me it took three months, and he was completely cured. It had been a year since he had any problems with acid reflux.

I was too chicken to take so many capsules that my stomach would start to burn. After watching that guy on Downton Abby spew blood all over the dining table because he had an ulcer, I didn't want to push it. So I toyed with the dosage, only taking as many as required so I didn't have acid reflux.

Usually, I would just take one capsule right in the middle of the meal. Sometimes I would take an apple cider vinegar capsule just before going to bed to make sure my lower esophageal valve stayed closed while I slept. For the most part, my acid reflux went away, and I'd stop taking the capsules, and then it would come back. This went on for about a year. Then earlier this year I decided to go ahead and be more aggressive like the internet had recommended. I got my dosage up to three HCL capsules during each meal. I'd take one just before eating, one in the middle of the meal, and one at the end of the meal. I didn't dare go higher than that. This made the acid reflux go away, but I kept taking the capsules until one day I started feeling that warm feeling they said you'd feel when you took too many. I backed down to 1 capsule during each meal for a few weeks, then stopped taking them altogether. My acid reflux was gone for the most part, but if I ate pizza and Sprite together, I'd get a little acid reflux anyway. Or I'd get acid reflux if I ate a lot of bread. I love bread!

About a month ago, I decided to lose weight. I haven't changed the amount I eat. I've only changed what I eat. I gave up Reeses Peanut Butter Cups, pizza, Sprite, Rootbeer, ice cream, bread, pasta, and potatoes. Now I eat mostly meat (roast chicken, fish, shrimp, and steak), vegetables (salads and asparagus), and some fruit (apples and watermelon). Basically, I gave up all sugar and most carbohydrates. Besides the weight falling off of me, my acid reflux is completely gone. I haven't had any HCL capsules in two months or more, but I haven't had any symptoms at all of acid reflux during the last month. I'm not totally sure whether this is mostly attributable to the HCL capsules or the change in diet, but I suspect it's both.

I read in one place that besides your stomach learning how to produce more HCL while you're taking the supplements, allowing you to wean yourself off of them, there's another mechanism for why it works. That value has to be able to open so you can get food into your stomach, but what makes it close is high stomach acid. Your stomach naturally produces more stomach acid when you eat, which is supposed to make that valve close. Well, if you've gone years with low stomach acid, resulting in that valve not closing, the muscle that closes the valve atrophies. When you start taking HCL and increasing your stomach acid, that causes the muscle to contract, closing the valve. But it takes time for the muscle to build up strength. After a while of taking HCL capsules, the muscle gains strength so it can close on its own without the need for the HCL capsules, and that helps you wean off of them.

Just thinking about it, I don't see how that can be the primary cause for how you're able to wean yourself off. After all, if your stomach acid were low, that muscle still wouldn't close the valve. So you'd need to have some way of keeping your stomach acid high in order to keep that valve closed. So I suspect the primary reason you're able to get off the capsules is because your stomach does start producing more acid naturally. I don't know why that works, but it seems like it does.

Let me make one more disclaimer before I end this post. If your low stomach acid is caused by H-Pylori, taking HCL capsules can cause you to have ulcers. So there is that risk. There are different ways to test for H-Pylori, some more effective than others, so google around about that if you want. There's a method for testing to see whether you have low stomach acid, too, that you might want to google. The test involves drinking some water with baking soda in it and waiting to see how long it takes you to burp. Google that one, too, because I don't remember the details. I never tested for low stomach acid before I started taking apple cider vinegar capsules. They're pretty safe anyway, and since they worked (and since HCL worked), I figured low stomach acid must be my problem.

I hope this helps. Since I've had so much success with dealing with my acid reflux, I'm a lot more confident about my longevity than I used to be. For a long time I was convinced I would die around the age of 60, but now there's no telling how long I'll live.