Heart-burn cure may be worse than cause

The Seattle Times ^ | December 20, 2005 | Lindsey Tanner

[Banjoguy]

You, of course, are somewhat right about all that.

Many cases of acid reflex have nothing whatsoever to do with diet or fluid intake.

I would argue that, anecdotally speaking, most of the people who are complaining about heartburn are more than a little overweight, have emotionally based eating habits, have a non-intellectual approach to food selection, and sit around entirely too much.

When people say eat better and exercise it kind of reminds me of when lay people prescribe the same thing for severe depression and think it's going to work.

It's usually a matter of degree and only a fool would think that it will work every time to cure what I call lifestyle maladies. Regardless, intellectualizing food intake and a regular, rational exercise routine, are in the enlightened self-interest category of lifestyle choices, will often produce feelings of well being, thereby ameliorating common depression, (probably will not help severe depression.)

Thanks for your input and suggestion that it is somewhat situation dependent (not feeling picked on).

[Bella_Bru]

Speaking of donuts, Blue didn't bring any on Tuesday. He brought fruitcake, cookies, and candy. Good ol' Blue. I love him. :-)

[steve86]

I would argue that, anecdotally speaking, most of the people who are complaining about heartburn are more than a little overweight, have emotionally based eating habits, have a non-intellectual approach to food selection, and sit around entirely too much.

Maybe so, I wouldn't know. My case is unrelated to any of that and is a reaction to a long-term prescription medication.

[LadyDoc]

Ah, but I'm old enough to remember when we treated ulcers and heartburn with Tums and milk...

And we saw a lot of Kidney stones from too many Tums...and ended up doing surgery for bleeding ulcers and severe esophagitis...

There is surgery for Reflux, but it is MAJOR, and rarely done anymore...before Prilosec, we had to do it sometimes...not only for pain, but for repeat aspiration pneumonia in children with Cerebral palsy...

Now they can do the surgery with a small hole, so maybe it will come back into fashion..

Two things about reflux/heartburn...one, if you cough at night, sleep with a pillow (pneumonia can be caused by reflux even with PPI's) Two: Long standing heartburn can cause precancerous changes of the esophagus...and these pre cancerous changes go back to normal on the PPI's...

Finally, long term PPI's decrease absorbtion of Vitamin B12...since you can't absorb B12 very well without acid...now, about 30 percent of the elderly don't have acid normally, and we haven't seen any a major problems with PPI's, but you might want to consider B12 drops if you have been on PPI's for a couple years...