Jonathan Hatch
How to Get Rid of Heartburn
Natural Remedies for Heartburn:
Exercise induces gastric emptying, helping to get rid of heartburn by aiding in the movement and digestion of food lower down the intestinal tract. This keeps the acids from your stomach where they should be, in your upper GI tract, rather than in your esophagus.
Fennel has been used as a traditional digestive and heartburn aid for quite some time, which may explain why Indian restaurants hand them out like candy when you're done with one of those curry platters. Fennel tea is a good place to start for natural heartburn relief.
Think of Slippery Elm Powder as nature's Alka-Seltzer. Just add one teaspoon of slippery elm powder to a ¼ cup of water in order to make a paste, releasing the active properties of the elm powder as you would when making wasabi. Then, heat up a mug of water in the microwave, add the paste, and drink it up!
I dealt with an episode of heartburn just recently—I've suffered from stomach aches my whole life—and I thought, why not write an article about how to get rid of heartburn? The problem is that there are a number of different illnesses (GERD, Ulcers, Pancreatitis, Helicobacter pylori infection) and symptoms (chest pain, back pain, sore throat, sinusitis, stomach pain, diarrhea, flatulence, cramps) that mimic, are quite similar to, and may actually be the cause of, heartburn. Heartburn, heartburn, heartburn. Just saying the word heartburn, otherwise known as pyrosis, makes me want to run to the medicine cabinet and take a Tums or a Rolaids, or drink a gallon of Pepto bismol. But, before you go running to the store for this year's newest heartburn medication, here are some things you might want to do to prevent heartburn in the future.
Controlling your diet is the best form of heartburn treatment. Caffeinated drinks like coffee, tea, Coke, Pepsi, Barq's and other carbonated drinks should be avoided, as well as spicy foods, foods with lots of fats, dairy products, citrus, chocolates and mints, tomatoes and tomato sauces. Avoiding these types of foods will reduce your heartburn symptoms tremendously.
Heartburn Medication and Treatment
As I mentioned before, the possible diagnoses surrounding heartburn can be GERD (known as gastroesophageal reflux disease), ulcers (including H. pylori infection), and/or acid indigestion. Aside from pancreatitis, most heartburn symptoms and gastric illnesses are treated with a small collection of common drugs. Antacids like Tums and Rolaids are certainly effective means of treating heartburn symptoms, but their effects are temporary at best, and only seem to adequately control about 25% of the people who take them. There are of course acid reducers like Zantac and Pepcid that you can take before eating, but the most effective class of drugs available for heartburn sufferers are called Proton-pump inhibitors. Many well known heartburn medications included in the proton-pump inhibitor class would be Prilosec, Losec, Protonix, Nexium, Prevacid and Aciphex.
