my diet isnt the best. but for the past 12-16 months for the first time in my life I noticed INCREASINGLY bad heartburn/indigestion, after I eat some food sometimes I just feel bad and burp and fart a lot(which I assume is indigestion?)

aside from TUMS what can I do to solve this problem? is it weird that i have been eatign the same foods for forever but just "recently" this stuff has been happening to me?

there you go

No, it's not weird or unusual.

GL. Maybe consider starting your own thread over in Health & Fitness.

We need you back in the NBA threads my man

Tums sucks; try an H₂ antagonist like Zantac or Pepcid. Or eat better and reduce stress.

Some fool invented the internet so that we can be told that someone farts a lot. Tx for sharing.

not until they unban my jetto account. My knowledge will not be dropped there.

feel l ike im not at that BIG of a stage yet, its just kinda tilting I cant eat what I uses to eat. Also it might be ketchup as well. wendys gives me indegestion but mcdonalds does not. weird.

bottom line is my diet needs to change but ive been saying that for a year now

Diet is probably the key. Stress can also result in digestive problems. On the odd occasion my bf gets indigestion I make him a herbal tea with ginger and a combo of peppermint, sage, lemon balm or chamomile depending what's in my garden. It's quite effective. You can add a little honey if you absolutely need to have it sweet.

You put the lime in the coconut and drink it all up.

But seriously, quit yer bellyachin!

Over the counter?

Omeprazole.

Just in case you're serious.

Eat slowly, chew your food completely, and keep portions small. Drink way more water. Exercise, relax, and eat healthier.

Ignore the hippie and lifestyle ****. Nothing will help. It's mostly out of your hands. If you have no life you can spend some time figuring out your triggers.

Take Zantac and Pepcid. They're mostly no big deal. Don't lie down right after eating.

take none of that stuff and get your eating straight or it will progress into a bad case of acid reflux and can go into cancer or at least forcing operations. not worth it. many or most older guys that ate bad go through this and the ones that dont change get worse off.

you can take a tum or pepto bismal once in awhile when you slip of the tagamet knockoffs on a bad one. but change quickly and eat smaller portions and stop the things that dont sit well. and dont eat anything near bed time especially if it gets to you.

There are some good ideas posted so far. I started drinking an apple cider vinegar and water mixture a few times a day. Also, avoid sleeping or laying down on your right side as much as possible.

Ray Zee is right, stay away from the pills. They hide the problem and don’t actually do anything to cure it. Eat smaller portions and stay away from foods that are acidic.

I've been on prilosec/omeprazole for 20+ years. Always had issues with heartburn even in my 20's, got progressively worse and probably wasn't helped by 6 cups of coffee a day thru med school/residency. And I could stand to lose a few pounds, too.

OTOH, I could stand to learn how to play the piano, and that ain't happening either. There are some theoretical risks about increasing rates of pneumonia in older folks, but that seems to be mostly in nursing home patients. Recently a paper came out suggesting a link between prilosec/prevacid and kidney problems - but the studies aren't that great or convincing. For starters, they didn't control for NSAID use in a population where the use is high, and NSAID's are known kidney killers. Also, they didn't control properly (maybe) for diabetes/hyperglycemia as a risk factor - again a kidney killer. So I have my chem panel once a year and stay on the prilosec.

As someone noted above, long term reflux tends to lead to Barret's esophogitis, which is basically a precancerous condition. Which is most likely due to acid irritating the unprotected lining of the distal esophagus - in theory, at least, this shouldn't occur if you're taking prilosec/omeprazole. I'm not aware of any studies looking at this, and doubt any will be done, as it's hard to see how a pharmaceutical company would benefit from the millions of $$ it would take to do them. I started prilosec because I was eating Tums like they were skittles, which has its own risks. The thought of pills "covering up the problem" sounds logical - but pills for hypertension "cover up the problem" too - you're still hypertensive if you don't take them. So what.

In sum - I was pretty miserable - anything slightly acidic (think tomato sauce/oranges/etc.etc.) tore me up. I'm much happier now - but I recognize the trade-offs, and you should take every med you need, and none you don't......Starting off with pepcid and tagamet, as another poster suggested, is probably prudent. Unfortunately for me, I might as well taken a sugar pill. I would agree that the proton pump inhibitors like omeprazole should be long down the decision tree, but they have their uses....

MM MD

i had wild acid reflux out of nowhere 3-4 times in a week a few months back. just really excruciating pain that left me short of breath.

thankfully it stopped, dunno how anyone could live with that!

As strange as it sounds, when I get reflux I take a few sips of coke and it goes away. I thought the person was crazy when they told me that but it really does work for me. Now I make a point to always have a few cans in the frig

Dont eat tomato anything
Dont eat after 8 pm
get a costco membership for omeprazole, its way cheaper.
avoid red meat
avoid fried foods
talk to your dentist, they will know exactly how long/bad it is WRT esophogitis

Probably forgetting some stuff but im a perfectly healthy 27 year old minus the GERD(acid reflux/heartburn)

all these idiots saying its 100% lifestyle dont know wtf they are talking about. Its certainly heavily influenced by it but i can tell you there have been times where i eat something like grilled chicken and sauteed veggies at 6pm, no acids, and that night have issues.

Never mattered what or when I ate. Reflux so bad I couldn't swallow. Bread stuck in my esophagus.

Omeprazole makes my life bearable. I'll risk the cancer to be able to live without that pain.

I'd urge you to see a GI guy if stuff was getting stuck. Your problem might be more structural (like a schatzki's ring - they can sedate you and pop it open - problem solved) - and you don't want to obstruct your esophagus a third of the way thru your dream cruise to Australia. While they're down there, they can make sure you dont have any other issues.

And you have it backwards - you might be risking cancer by not treating the reflux. No cancer from omeprazole - just potential kidney issues.....

MM MD

look at sceaming ***** rexx over here bragging she has a bf!

*M SIREN*

eat a wholesome diet with no shortcuts. Eat foods with no ingredients. If it does have an ingredient list, make sure it's short. If it has a bunch of weird words, cut it out, completely. No shortcuts. Eat healthily and walk a lot. then eat healthily some more and do some weights, start small. Pushups, sit-ups, pull-ups, dumbell shoulder/fly squats, lunges, whole nine yards, start small and, use discipline, get better, each minute, each hour, each day. The continue to eat the wholesome stuff, do research, no shortcuts, don't lie to yourself, use discipline. then go walk some more, then eat wholesome, get good sleep too(I'm not always the best but preferably something like 10 to 6). **** a *****. then continue to eat healthy, then some more dumbell flys/curls/shoulder, whole nine yards. Forget the tums during this whole process. Do it for awhile and then do it some more, and then some more, discipline! heartburn cured

I don't know about indigestion, but that would be a hell of a way to lose weight.

apples, bananas, celery, pork, eggs only become ingredients when entered into a compound. u want to point out the BS and let the big picture escape you, your loss

Why do you hate pharmacists? Tons of drug interactions for no reason imo.

I really doubt there's anything to this PPIs kidney stuff. I think the 2 issues are 1) long-term absorption of stuff that needs acid to be absorbed (iron, calcium, magnesium, etc), and 2) Increased risk of pneumonia (your stomach acid usually kills all the bacteria so when you burp stuff up and it gets in your lungs you don't get sick).

We've got 3 classes of stuff for stomach acid:
1) Proton pump Inhibitors: They work awesome for prevention, can't be used to treat heartburn you have now as they take 3-5 days to fully work (tho the placebo effect is much faster but i just ruined that for you). Should probably taper off them when you stop taking them.

2) H2 blockers: Work in about 30 minutes, last about half a day. Pretty cool as you can take them before you eat something that's gonna be a problem. They don't work as well as the PPIs tho. Also, if you get all red and flushed when you drink (Asians, looking at you) you can take these to stop that from happening, if you want. And like i said, don't take cimetidine because it makes my life harder for no reason.

3) Antacids: Work immediately on contact, can be a good source of minerals. Tums are cool as they're basically the best calcium supplement on the market. Calcium can be constipating, magnesium the opposite, and if you've got bad kidneys don't take aluminum-based antacids.