Heartburn and bloating

Hi, welcome back to me describing my health issues. This hasn’t been the funnest topic to blog about but it’ll be helpful to have it all written out so I can look back and see the progress I’ve made in the future.

Heartburn & Bloating

When I was 13 years old I remember sitting in Junior High School and not feeling well. My stomach felt yucky and my head hurt and I felt like I was in a fog. I felt like this almost daily and I was miserable. Looking back and reflecting on my doctor visits I now see that I wasn’t good at expressing exactly how I felt. I just said that I didn’t feel good. Whenever doctors would ask me specific questions I had a hard time answering them because I wasn’t tuned in to where specifically I felt ill in my body and didn’t have the conversational skills to explain it in detail. My regular doctor at the time prescribed me Prilosec which I continued to take every day for many years. Prilosec is prescribed for heartburn and I really doubt I was having heartburn back then. I think I just had a stomach ache and didn’t feel well in general. I believe it was due to me eating an unhealthy diet, I was (probably still am) addicted to sugar and I used to eat a ton of processed food. It was probably psychological as well, as I didn’t know how to cope with my emotions especially with everything that goes on as a young teenager. I took that heartburn medication, Prilosec and sometimes Nexium for the better part of 15 years. I think I didn’t need it when I was a teenager but perhaps my body got used to it and then I started having heartburn, and then I began needing it. I eventually started reading about the long term use of Omeprazole, which is Prilosec. There are health complications to using these long term and doctors are finally recognizing that. My Primary doctor from Iowa City told me that there are long term complications, and it was nice to hear that from a doctor because I had read about that years prior. 

I got myself off of the heartburn meds at one point by eating healthy and if I ever got heartburn I would make really strong ginger tea and that would make the heartburn go away. I ended up getting an upper endoscopy at that time because I had stomach pain and bloating. They found multiple things wrong with me but one that was alarming was that I had pre-pre-cancerous erosion in my esophagus. I told the Rheumatologist that I hadn’t been getting heartburn anymore so why would there be erosion in my esophagus, she said it’s that I am just not sensing it anymore. So that was enough to scare me into taking heartburn meds again. But I take the less strong stuff, Famotidine. And I don’t take it every day, just as needed (even though she told me to take it daily…). 

As for the bloating, I haven’t totally figured it out yet, but it seems to be better since I quit drinking alcohol 2 and a half years ago. It still happens almost every time I eat… but if I consume fruit juice, eat enough fruits and veggies, and stay active then it isn’t as bad. I had numerous tests done through my doctor and we didn’t really find any answers through those tests. I think it may be a food intolerance or something of that nature.  

So if you have issues with heartburn and/or bloating, here are some helpful, short term tips that can help you right away!

Bloating Cures:

From Medical News Today

1. Go for a walk 
2. Yoga Poses: Child’s Pose, Happy Baby Pose, and squats.
3. Take peppermint capsules
4. Gas relief capsules
5. Abdominal massage: “Placing the hands just above the right hip bone. Rubbing in a circular motion with light pressure up toward the right side of the ribcage. Rubbing straight across the upper belly area toward the left rib cage. Moving slowly down toward the left hip bone. Repeating as necessary.”
6. Essential oils
7. Warm bath

Heartburn Relief

From Harvard.edu

1. Identify and avoid foods that cause heartburn
2. Don’t eat late at night
3. Don’t exercise soon after meals
4. Sleep on an incline
5. Chew sugar-free gum after eating
6. Rule out medications causing heartburn
7. Lose weight if you need to

https://www.medicalnewstoday.com/articles/322525#long-term-solutions

https://www.health.harvard.edu/staying-healthy/8-ways-to-quell-the-fire-of-heartburn

https://www.uspharmacist.com/article/longterm-consequences-of-chronic-proton-pump-inhibitor-use