About This Blog

  • Why a Heartburn Blog?
    Back in 2003-2005, I had so much trouble with heartburn (acid reflux, GERD, call it what you like), I couldn't sleep at night because it felt like I was having a heart attack. I'd end up getting a couple hours sitting propped up in a chair. I was only 25 at the time! I always felt lousy, and I had RSI, acne, headaches, and other issues, too (only later did I find out this was all related).

    The doctors wanted me to take prescription-strength acid-blocking pills every day; I was afraid of what taking this stuff all the time might do, and it didn't even help that much. Finally, I came across a couple of books that led me to get tested for food allergies; it turned out I was gluten- and dairy-intolerant. When I eliminated these foods from my diet, my heartburn and acid reflux symptoms disappeared within a couple weeks (my other health problems gradually went away as well).

    I stopped posting to this blog when my problems went away, but recently I've seen so much utter BS on the web (buy my ebook and I'll cure your heartburn!) that it made me want to start posting again. I'm not a doctor, so please find a natural practitioner (or at least a doctor who will help you look for root causes rather than prescribing drugs) to deal with your own problems. But if you find this blog more useful than the sites trying to scam you into buying get-well-yesterday products, please link to it and let's try to help some people...

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May 29, 2006

Do You Have a Gluten (wheat, rye, and barley) Intolerance?

If you have chronic heartburn / acid reflux, you may have a hard time pinpointing exactly what it is you're eating that gives you trouble.  I know I could never point to one particular food (it turned out I'm allergic to all dairy and all gluten, so pretty much everything I was eating every day!).  When that happens, it may be something ubiquitous that's causing your trouble.  Gluten is a protein found in wheat, rye, and barley.  Because regular white flour is made from wheat, that means it's in almost everything (even sauces and condiments frequently use flour for a thickener).  This is why I always suggest people head to an allergist for food allergy testing if they are having chronic heartburn (do this before you go to some mainstream doctor who will just tell you to take Prilosec without trying to get to the root of the problem).  However, if you don't have money to spend on a doctor right now, you could try a gluten free diet for a while and see if that helps.  Here are some sites that can help you get started:

http://www.gicare.com/pated/edtgs06.htm -- gives you the basics on what a gluten-free diet is and also helps you decode ingredient lists that can contain hidden gluten.

http://www.glutenfreeforum.com/ -- a very active form that's full of people on gluten free diets, who can give advice

Posted at 08:58 PM in Diet & Exercise |

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Comments

Heather M

My heartburn was getting imposible to deal with. I used to nearly cry at night from the pain. I stopped wheat and within a day I noticed a hugh difference. Within 2 days it was gone. I feel very proud of myself that I thought to elimate wheat as a cause. I cant shout it out loud enough. "GIVE UP WHEAT"

Posted by: Heather M | September 19, 2009 at 02:50 AM

leonardo

I though I have heartburns from "complicated" wheat products. I was even suspected that hydrogenated oil in wheat products as the source of the problem. However, today, after not eating bread for several days, I made "bread" myself that contained only unbleached white flower and water, and guess what... in about one 30 minutes to 1 hour after eating it, I began having terrible heartburn.

Posted by: leonardo | May 02, 2010 at 01:47 AM

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