Acid reflux is a terribly common problem among people in today’s fast paced culture of high fat foods and things that can be eaten on the go. There are a number of acid reflux foods to avoid, and certain things that will help eliminate and prevent your heartburn.

First, let’s look at what acid reflux actually is and how it happens. Stomach acid helps to break down food in your stomach so that your body can extract the vitamins and nutrients it needs. Certain things like difficult to digest foods, stress, smoking, or lying down after eating can cause that acid to creep up into your esophagus. This causes pain, indigestion, burping, hiccups and can even result in damage to the esophagus if the reflux occurs frequently.

Trigger Foods

Everyone has their own foods that will set off acid reflux, however there are a few common triggers. These foods should be avoided to help prevent damage to the esophagus, and keep heartburn at bay. They include:

• Garlic
• Caffeine
• Alcohol
• Citrus (including juices that are high in acids)
• Onions
• Meats that are difficult to digest (like ground beef, marbled sirloin and chicken wings)
• Dairy

To help find out what your own triggers are, start a food journal. Keep track of what you eat, how much you eat and when you eat it. That will help you to better understand what sets your acid reflux off, and narrow down your specific triggers. Some of your food triggers may surprise you!

What you can do

Now, just because there are a ton of foods you should avoid doesn’t mean you need to go on an extreme, crash course diet. It’s always best to try to maintain a balanced diet, so things like dairy, citrus and meat that are part of a healthy diet should not be completely cut out. They should just be consumed in moderation, and possibly in tandem with other heartburn preventatives.

Heartburn Preventatives

Sometimes foods that are known to cause heartburn for you just can’t be avoided. Maybe you’re at a friend’s house and they cooked nachos for you with ground beef, onions, and a whole host of other heartburn triggers just waiting to settle into your stomach. So what can you do?

Try taking a papaya enzyme tablet after you eat. Papaya contains digestive enzymes that will help your body to digest foods and prevent acid buildup that causes reflux.

Try drinking a full glass of water after you eat. This will help dilute stomach acids and flush your digestive tract out so you won’t have to experience excess irritation. For more effective relief or prevention, try adding a tablespoon or two of apple cider vinegar to a full glass of water. This will help neutralize the acid in your stomach in addition to washing it away.

Eat an apple before or after your meal. Apparently the old adage “an apple a day keeps the doctor away” has some basis, as many people are finding success with this technique for keeping acid reflux at bay.

There are countless home remedies you can try to prevent and relieve heartburn. The Reflux Remedy Report promotes natural heartburn remedies and can help you prevent your acid reflux, as well as formulate a diet appropriate for acid reflux. For more information on acid reflux food to avoid and other preventative measures you can take, visit refluxremedy.com today!

You can spell relief for acid reflux any way you want, but chances are the root cause of it is still lurking in the deep somewhere.

This whole idea of self treating your acid reflux symptoms is just what keeps the doctor in business.

Recall the old saying, ‘Eat an apple a day to keep the doctor away”?

Whatever happened to good old fashion common sense? I’ll tell you what . . . it simply fell out of fashion.

Too bad that millions of people who suffer from diseases like gastro-esophageal reflux disease, hiatal hernia and throat cancer didn’t know better than to treat their acid reflux symptoms.

Treating your acid reflux symptoms relieves the pain and discomfort of acid reflux and isn’t that all you want?

Put that way, most people obviously say “YES”.

What they don’t see is they were just sold temporary relief for their acid reflux, heart burn and acid indigestion, but they traded their long term quality of life for it too.

The price of relieving your acid reflux symptoms is cheap . . . but the cost of making that a way of life costs way too high.

They say a person without a philosophy is a fool, but I’m telling you some philosophies are just plain foolish. The philosophy of relieving the symptoms of any problem always leaves the cause of it to continue to do harm.

Acid reflux has been brushed off as something everyone has, as if it wasn’t a health problem at all. This may surprise you but not everyone gets heart burn and acid reflux.

Millions of people who have experienced acid reflux have found permanent relief of the cause of it and rarely if ever experience it again.

Recurring symptoms of anything, especially acid reflux, is a serious health problem and you must get to the root of it . . . that’s the ONLY relief.

So don’t worry about how to spell relief, just learn how to read your body’s own language of symptoms and signs . . . learn to listen to your body/mind relationship closer . . . all you need to do is read the signs so you can help remove the cause of acid reflux.

The natural healing process is constantly working for you; don?t close your eyes to the signs by just treating your acid reflux symptoms over and over.

All that will do is create recurring acid reflux symptoms, not lasting relief.

You were born to heal,

Todd M. Faass

Health Advocate

Is your newborn always coughing and just seems miserable?

It may not just be a case of colic . . . it could be your baby has infant acid reflux.

When I found out that about 50% of newborns and up to 85% of all premature babies suffer from infant acid reflux I was shocked.

Most outgrow the acid reflux symptoms after the first few months, but then there are those who never seem to overcome it. In fact many that receive the best medical treatments continue to suffer from infant acid reflux and its dangerous complications.

Having a child with infant acid reflux can be about the most challenging things you can face as a parent. The constant misery of infant acid reflux symptoms can exhaust both parent and child.

Here are 8 signs of infant acid reflux:

1. Constant crying

2. Irritability and pain

3. Disturbed sleep patterns

4. Arching of the neck and back

5. Vomiting

6. Chronic hiccups

7. Ear infections

8. Sinus problems

Even one of these symptoms could indicate your child may have infant acid reflux.

If the root cause of infant acid reflux isn’t addressed it could lead to these complications:

• Anemia
• Constant drooling
• Sinus infections
• Swallowing problems
• Chronic hoarseness
• Sore throat
• Chronic ear infection
• Sleep apnea
• Lung problems
• Esophagitis
• Failure to thrive
• Eroded teeth
• Sandifer’s syndrome
• Halitosis

The obvious cause of infant acid reflux is generally straight forward. Normally, the ring of muscle between the esophagus and the stomach (lower esophageal sphincter) relaxes and opens only when you swallow.

Otherwise, it’s sealed tightly – keeping stomach acid where it belongs. Until your baby matures, infant acid reflux may cause food to flow up the throat, into the lungs, ears and sinus cavities and out your baby’s mouth.

Sometimes air bubbles in the esophagus may push liquid out of your baby’s mouth. In other cases, your baby may simply drink too much, too fast.

The artificial milk or baby formula you’re using could be the real problem.

Breastfed babies have been shown to have fewer and less severe infant reflux problems than artificially fed infants. Mother’s milk is more easily digested than artificial milk and is absorbed and digested from the stomach twice as fast.

Proper digestion and speed are vital to minimize irritating infant acid reflux. Mother’s milk is by far less irritating and much healthier for your baby than artificial milk products.

The bond between mother and baby is an important factor to preventing and curing infant acid reflux. Unhappy infants get overwhelmed and stress out which can trigger infant acid reflux.

Nursing is nature’s perfect way to protect your infant, plus hormones made when you breastfeed help relax you both . . . another reason to nurture your infant with breast milk.

Here are some tricks to help your infant to nurse:

1. Create a soothing peaceful environment-soft pleasant music helps.
2. Try nursing when your infant wakes from the acid reflux or when sleepy.
3. Give your infant lots of skin-to-skin contact and cuddling.
4. Try to keep your infant upright while your hands are free. Try a baby sling.

Research all the emotional and nutritional benefits of breast feeding . . .

You were born to heal,

Todd M. Faass

Health Advocate

Source: Breastfeeding the Baby with Reflux, La Leche League International, 1999

Treating acid reflux symptoms can be dangerous if they keep you from taking care of the cause of it.

Medical researchers are just beginning to understand the root cause of acid reflux symptoms, whereas science has known the cause for literally thousands of years.

It goes unsaid that if medicine can’t cure your acid reflux it’s time to take a closer look at the science of healing digestive balance.

The Western approach tries to treat the symptoms of digestive imbalance because it is truly ignorant of what causes acid reflux and its complications.

There are plenty of misconceptions about digestive disorders like acid reflux . . . the biggest one is assuming your acid reflux is some kind of drug deficiency. Why else would millions of people pop useless antacids, such as Tums, while simple cases of heart burn inflame into acid rebound cases and then gastro-esophageal reflux diseases (GERD)?

Did you know the makers of TUMS just recalled 15,000,000 packages of the antacid because they are full of pieces of metal scrap and wood chips? Apparently someone is sweeping the shop floor and dumping the garbage into the antacid mix. Who knows what other mystery ingredients have been swept up in the process?

From a medical standpoint your acid reflux happens because the lower esophageal sphincter (LES), a muscle between the stomach and throat, relaxes and allows stomach acid to invade your throat, lung and mouth area, but they never tell you what causes this.

Because the medical industry depends on selling acid reflux sufferers their drugs to treat symptoms, they really don’t need to tell you what really causes acid reflux.

Explaining the mechanics of acid reflux is limiting medical treatment to the effects and never addressing the root cause.

For thousands of years, as long as civilization has been recorded, science has offered acid reflux sufferers the remedy for the underlying cause.

Simply remove the cause and the effects or symptoms vanish as if they never were.

Acid reflux symptoms turn into what the medical industry calls a disease, only because the real cause of the symptoms has been ignored and allowed to fester and complicate.

In fact, acid rebound is a man-made or should I say . . . a drug-made disease.

It’s well known that antacids like TUMS are gateway products for stronger medications that can lead you right down the path of degenerative diseases like hiatal-hernia, gastro-esophageal disease (GERD) and even throat cancer.

So remember . . . when you want to cure acid reflux follow the real science. If all you want is to treat the symptoms, then follow the money . . . it will lead you right to your pharmacist and maybe even the surgeon.

All great science is learned by observing nature . . .

You were born to heal,

Todd M. Faass

Health Advocate