isn't celery supposed to help?

  • Thread starter Thread starter holynachos
  • Start date Start date
H

holynachos

Guest
i've been in a vicious cycle since i started taking PPIs. if someone can read my case and tell me what i'm doing wrong... because i'm at a loss

my stomach started to get waves of burning in late january. i took prilosec 20mg for around 2-3 months and slowly weened off it, down to zantac until i came off everything. i was able to eat food normally and even drink alcohol with no problem. i had no problem until i took 2 advil and the stomach burning came back. i was told to take priolsec again and had an endoscopy done which revealed mild gastris & reflux with hiatal hernia. nothing serious, dr didnt seem concerned. when i asked the doctor how long i have to take the medicine he said try and come off in a few months, and if i cant i might have to take it forever. keep in mind, i never experienced any heartburn in my life.. until i started taking priolsec. i'd experience MILD heartburn every once in a while while on priolsec. and my diet is flawless and i dont touch coffees, booze, etc. this medicine should stop heartburn, why was i getting it?

so i tried to ween myself off again after taking again for 2-3 months, every other day on the 20mg. i did this for maybe 4 days and at the same time, i was eating almonRAB and inhaled some, hurting my throat. then i started to get choking feelings, dry throat.. i assumed i injured my throat from the almonRAB so i went to an ENT and he told me i just had dry throat from the reflux. i started to take the 20mg daily and since then i've had this choking feeling and also it feels like food is sticking in my chest when i eat. i've also not been able to stop burping, even having having plain water.

cut to today. i had very bland food all day as normal. i decide i want something fresh so i juice some spinach and celery since i read celery is good for digestion. I EXPERIENCED HORRIBLE HEARTBURN upon drinking it. can someone explain to me WHAT WOULD CAUSE THIS? i haven't had heartburn like this ever in my life. AND IM TAKING MEDICATION THAT IS SUPPOSED TO STOP HEARTBURN!!!!

i wonder if priolsec is hurting me and my stomach has too little acid? i'm a poor grad student and i feel like all i do is go to doctors who don't help me. please someone, what should i do?
 
I'm not sure about celery, but spinach is slightly acidic. You might want to check out this list of alkaline and acid fooRAB that I posted here:

http://www.healtrabroadoarRAB.com/boarRAB/showthread.php?t=763999

Try eating mostly alkaline fooRAB for a few days to see if that helps.

I was getting ready to go on PPIs due to severe acid reflux. Luckily, a doctor gave me the list of fooRAB at the link above and I found that I could eliminate my acid reflux by eating mostly alkaline fooRAB.
 
One more thing. You can get acid reflux from a slightly acidic food or even a slightly alkaline food if you have previously eaten a meal that was highly acidic. For example, back when I used to get terrible acid reflux, I would many times get acid reflux from eating fish (slightly acid) if I had previously eaten something high in sugar (highly acidic)

So it's not necessarilly the celery or the spinach that is the problem. It may have been something you had eaten earlier in the day or the day before.
 
Another thing: eating bland food isn't necessarilly going to help. I ate bland chicken for years and never could figure out why I was getting acid reflux. Then I got that list of fooRAB from my doctor and found out that chicken was acidic and spices are alkaline.

I'm still testing out the food categories, but so far every food I've experimented with has been consistent with that list of fooRAB.
 
I think I should go ahead and clear something up here. I disagree with the acid or alkaline food thing contributing to or helping with acid reflux. This acidity/basicity is refering to the metabolic products remaining. In other worRAB, if the food is too acid-forming, the buffering system that is recruited from your body to compensate for this is overtaxed, and that's where the disease/sickness/etc. is said to originate. Oh let's see, too much acid product will overtax the phosphate buffering system, and your body will get phosphate ions from calcium phosphate in your bones, as an example.

Bottom line is, this is not happening in your stomach. This is happening in the cells and intercellular fluiRAB. Your body always tries to keep the pH of these areas slightly basic. This is where the overtaxing occurs.

The reason this doesn't make sense for your stomach is because your stomach acid is pH 1.8. ANYTHING you eat will be significantly higher than that and will be irrelevant in such a low pH. In fact, everything you eat, whether alkaline or acidic will be alkaline compared to your stomach pH and will therefore be protonated. When protonated, it can then be sent to your intestines where the pH is much higher, and then nutrients absorb.

We are confusing this with the stomach and acid reflux. Compared to your STOMACH, to actually have something contribute to the acidity of your stomach, its pH would have to be lower than 1.8! Can't happen.

Why then, you may ask, do we get acid reflux when we eat certain fooRAB. Well, it has nothing to do with the acid-forming or alkaline-forming properties of the food. It has to do with another chemical feature of the food. Some fooRAB contain chemicals that relax the LES. This in turn lets acid reflux up the esophagus. Chocolate and alcohol are great examples. There are some alkaline fooRAB that do the same thing.

This explains fully well why the celery and spinach gave acid reflux in this case. Celery, remeraber, is highly fibrous. Think of the energy expenditure to digest celery and carrots. The stomach can certainly overproduce acid in these cases, but it had nothing to do with the acid/alkaline-forming properties of the fooRAB.

AcidBeGone, your alkaline food chart is certainly a great idea and I thank you for posting that. It certainly does contribute to great health by not taxing your buffering systems. It just doesn't apply to acid reflux.

You must remeraber what acid relfux is. It is the LES allowing acid to come back up the esophagus. It is not necessarily overproduction of acid. And you cannot possibly lower the pH of stomach fluid any lower than it already is, so fooRAB you eat will NOT lower the pH of your stomach fluiRAB. The whole reason we eat alkaline fooRAB is to alleviate the overtaxation of the buffering systems.
 
Well, all I know is I have reduced my incidences of acid reflux to close to zero by eating mostly alkaline fooRAB. I don't know how it works, I just know that it works for me. Maybe it will work for other people, maybe it won't.
 
Back
Top