Disclaimer: I’m not looking for doctor advice, more of a poll, really.
Starting in July I suddenly got really bad heartburn and I’ve recently been diagnosed with acid reflux. Prevacid and normal antacids haven’t exactly been helping so I’ve been at loss what to do. Most foods, like meats, apples, and soda, give me heartburn so I’m looking for foods that don’t. So far on my list I have water. What foods don’t give you heartburn?
I can honestly state that I’ve never had heartburn. I have no idea what it feels like. I love really spicy food, but as I get older it’s the other side of my anatomy that suffers the consequences.
Psh, lucky. I went from having zero heartburn to severe heartburn in about a month.
Well, I’d be impressed and confused if milk gave you heartburn. So unless you’re lactose intolerant there’s an entire category of food products right there.
Alas, I’m allergic to milk. Well, not so much anymore but I will get a stuffy nose and a stomachache if I have too much dairy.
sighs
IANAD, this is not medical advice, et cetera.
Did you ask your doctor about proton pump inhibitors? I used to have really bad acid reflux pretty much constantly, until I started taking a PPI. That stopped it within a few days.
I’ll have to ask him about it then because it sounds like what I need.
You should ask your doctor first, but Prilosec is an OTC proton-pump inhibitor.
You know someone was bound to point out …
Your screen name with that question is kinda funny!
I’m sorry but this has me giggling. Like meat, apples, and soda are somehow representative of “most foods,” so if you can’t have any of the three, your diet will seriously suffer. “What? No more meat and apples and soda? THIS IS MADNESS!”
Maybe I’m sleep-deprived.
One of my girlfriends had serious, debilitating heartburn and related stomach problems, and she could eat most “bland” foods without a problem. Chips, bread, cheese, cream-of-whatever soups, vegetables with bland dressings like ranch, etc…she’s a vegetarian so I don’t know if meat would have been a problem for her condition, but for awhile there she couldn’t eat much of anything. Particularly tomatoes–in any form–for some reason, which meant she could only have white pizza. (She’s one of those lazy vegetarians who basically lived on junk food, like cheese pizza and chips and dip, vs. pursuing a healthier meat-free diet which would have taken more work on her part. That was probably part of the problem.)
If it makes you feel better, after several months of watching her diet, her stress levels, and taking her medicine, she hasn’t had an episode in quite awhile now, and can even eat some of the “bad” foods, like tomatoes, without problems.
Me, I only get heartburn when I drink anything containing sweet-and-sour (like margaritas) on an empty stomach. It only lasts about ten minutes, so I’ve never taken anything for it, but man does it suck! You have my sympathies.
Funnily enough, I’ve found that apples are the very best remedy for heartburn – better than most antacid’s I’ve tried.
Ha, apples give me some of the worst heartburn I’ve gotten!
This is only my personal experience, YMMV and all that good stuff, but anyway:
Before I had my gallbladder attack, I had heartburn all the time. Now, maybe that was one of the symptoms of having a gallstone, I don’t know. But after the attack, I was told to cut way, way back on my fatty food intake, cholesterol, etc. FTR, I still have the stone in me; I won’t have the operation until February, so the stone itself doesn’t seem to cause any heartburn (for me, anyway).
Citrus fruits still give me occasional heartburn, but since I changed my diet so drastically, I’ve had virtually no heartburn.
Lean meats, lots of vegetables, plenty of fruit, lots of water, lots of fibre, and no more heartburn. Watch out for spices - they don’t have to be hot to cause heartburn, either.
I only drink water, green tea, a little milk (I’m lactose intolerant as well), and apple juice. Too much orange juice gives me heartburn. I don’t eat red meat and only eat lean turkey and chicken, no eggs, no oils, no peanut butter, that kind of thing. It sounds harsh, and even kind of bland, at first, but I’ve found all kinds of substitutions and I sometimes feel like I am not on a special diet at all.
Another trick is to not eat until you are stuffed. That can cause heartburn.
Anyway, I don’t know if any of this will help at all. It could help, though, to keep a close eye on fats/cholesterol, spices, citrus fruits, sodium, etc. Becoming a label-reader could help, but it might be a tough thing to stick to if you’re not motivated to do it. (Hell, my only motivation is the fear of horrifying, crippling pain - if it weren’t for my stupid gallstone, I wouldn’t have changed my eating habits despite the awful heartburn I used to get.)
Good luck.