Yoga to Cure GERD

So in my search for a GERD cure, I read some stuff about how Yoga can help with GERD.  There's a number of yoga postures that people recommend to help with digestion.  So I went to Youtube and grabbed some videos.  It's really a simple search for Yoga and GERD.  I did some of the postures, and it was alright but didn't really stick with it.

After that, I was talking to a friend of mine who goes regularly to Bikram Yoga, and she finally convinced me to go:

Bikram Yoga is a series of twenty-six Hatha Yoga postures and two Pranayama breathing techniques designed to provide a challenging, invigorating, rejuvenating and effective yoga experience. During this 90-minute class, you will work every muscle, tendon, ligament, joint and internal organ in the entire body, giving you an incredible sense of well being.

There's Bikram or Hot Yoga studios around the world, so you can definitely find them, hopefully not too far from you.

I've been doing Bikram Yoga for the last 40 days or so, and I can tell you, I feel amazing:  I've lost weight, posture is better, stomach feels stronger, and have increased my overall flexibility.

It's to the point that I really don't feel like I have GERD anymore, at at least the symptoms have virtually disappeared.  About 3 weeks after I started doing Bikram, I started to: drink alcohol again, eat spicy food, eat closer to bed time, and eat bigger meals.  I do try to keep my portions smaller than before, but overall I'm to what to me is normal.

Kicking the Omeprazole / Nexium / PPI Habit

So, lately I've been wondering if it would have been better to not stop my nexium/omeprazole (started on Nexium) medication.  I went on a hunt to see what other people found to work best.  In reading, I found that simply stopping the PPI or H2 blockers because this may cause a sudden and nasty rebound effect.  It seems that gradually stopping may work best.  Take a look at the following schedule that was suggested for stopping Omeprazole:

1.

Week 1: Alternate 20mg of Prilosec (Omeprazole) with 100mg Prilosec
Week 2: 10mg Prilosec
Week 3: Alternate 10mg of Prilosec with 80mg Pepsid (Famotidine)
Week 4: 80mg Pepcid
Week 5: Alternate 80mg Pepsid with 40Mg Pepsid
Week 6: 40mg Pepcid

2.

Week 1 : alternate 10 mg Prilosec with 20 mg Pepcid
Week 2 : alternate 20 mg Pepcid with 10 mg Pepcid
Week 3 : same as week 3
Week 4 : 10 mg Pepcid
Week 5:  Use Apple Cider vinegar, DGL Licorice & ginger.

3.

Week 1: 40mg Omeprazole
Week 2: 20mg Omeprazole
Week 2: Alternate 20mg of Prilosec (Omeprazole) with 10mg Prilosec
Week 3: Alternate 10mg Prilosec, 40mg Pepsid
Week 4: Alternate 40mg Pepcid (Famotidine), 20mg Pepcid
Week 5: 20mg Pepsid, 10mg Pepcid
Week 6: 20mg Pepsid, 10mg Pepcid
Week 7: 10mg Pepsid
Week 8: 10mg Peps, Off (take DGL Licorice, apple cider vinegar at night, ginger)

4.

Take your Omeprazole/Nexium/Etc. capsule and begin to remove 1, then  2, then 3,  then 4, etc., of the capsule's content every day, until you're down to none.  This takes some effort, but has been known to work.

My GERD Plan of Attack

So, I'm a pretty methodical person.  Also, despite feeling depressed over my GERD, I do deep down have hope that I can beat this and will get most of my life back, if not all of it.  But these are the steps I feel I have had to follow:

1.  Hope for my life back, but not despair.

Alright, so I do hope to get my life back but I realize that this may not be possible.  In fact, it wont be possible at all because the reason I'm in this situation is because I led a life that my body could not sustain.  My body couldn't handle the way I drank, nor the way I handled pain killers.

2. Life style / food change.

Yes, my life has to change forever!  Only through changing my behavior for good can I make sure that  a) I can cure GERD, or b) I can cope with GERD.  This is quite hard for most of us because it's so easy to fall on our past behaviors.  I have to walk past an ice cream shop every day, and I sometimes feel like crying at the idea that I wont ever taste ice cream or any of my favorite foods again.  I now try not to think about it.

Instead, I've changed my diet and feel quite strong.

3.  Pay attention to what I put in my body.

So, generally I'd go around eating and drinking whatever I wanted, whenever I wanted.  That just can't be so.

I have been keeping a journal.  At first I was simply writing what I was eating, then I started writing down how I was feeling and how I was reacting to my food and natural supplements.  Guess what?  It's helped a lot.  I now can look back and see what has caused me pain, how bad, how much burping, everything.  I have an app on my tablet, but any phone app should work too.  I write the time, then what I ate, or how I was feeling.  (This has included many burping notations.)

4. Educate myself.

I'd like to thank the internet community for this part.  I have read countless articles, both scientific and amateur, countless blogs and their comments.  The comments have been so wonderful because they've helped me see I'm not alone and what I thought was an odd symptom is really not.

From my readings, I believe that GERD may be caused because of either too much or too little acid in the stomach.  I now many would say is really one and never the other, but I disagree.  You can have GERD with both, and they both have the same symptoms.  I'll delve into the difference in subsequent posts, including the different treatments.

5.  Try and try again.

I have tried so many things now that I feel my kitchen has become a mini "natural foods store."  The thing is, that so many different things work for different people that you really have to just keep trying stuff.  Something that worked for someone out there is bound to work for you.  I'm definitely determined to try every little thing people have done out there.  If they say it works, then why not give it a go?

6. Don't let depression win, shake yourself out of the house.

So, because I was so weak, I just became quite depressed.  I read that making your stomach muscles can help, so I started doing yoga at home.  Well, it seems I was way too weak for that and then not only did my stomach hurt, but also the muscles.  All this made me even more depressed.  Finally, I just told myself, get the hell out of the house!  I went walking.  Just walking has lifted my spirits.

So what's the plan you say?

a. Change diet.
b. Keep a food/symptom journal
c. Educate myself on GERD
d. Try each different remedy
e. Exercise

GERD Hell / Symptoms / Suffering

So my Nexium medication ran out, except for 1 pill I had in my bag, a few weeks ago.  I took my last capsule on a Thuraday.  I went out with friends that night.  I tried to be good but we ate quite late.

The next day I felt ok.  Saturday was not too bad, but I started to feel like I couldn't eat as much.  By Sunday, I was already feeling stomach distress.  That Thursday I had to take off work.  I was trying hard to keep things under control.  I ate tiny meals, every two hours.  But at some point it wasn't enough.  I was quite weak.  I weighed myself and I had lost almost 4 pounds in what was about 7 days.  That's virtually impossible for me.  I rushed to get Pedyalite.  I recommend Pedialyte for anyone that thinks they might be dehydrated.  It works fast, and to me, it doesn't taste horrible, bad yes, but not horrible.

It was probably Friday, so 1 week after I quit Nexium that the pain started.  It's hard to describe pain that never goes away.  I had the following symtoms:

Stomach pain
Stomach burning
Lightheadedness
Head pressure (from the back of my head to my skull)
Shortness of breath
Nausea
Constantly clearing my throat
Taste of acid in the back of my throat or slowly rising from my stomach
Painful bloating for hours
Extreme weakness
Sore Throat
Constant burping (particularly after eating or drinking)

I rarely felt hungry because I was in almost constant pain.  It was agonizing that when I did feel hunger, I was too scared to eat.  I knew I had to, so I forced myself to eat, but always with the same consequences.  Worse, even water made me sick!!

I realized after the first few days of being at home that whenever I drank water with my meal: before, during, or immediately after, I felt the acid in my stomach rising up my esophagus.  This is torture because I love water.  I only drink water or alcohol.  So, I did some researched and found out that  water is actually not good to have during meals if you have GERD.

As soon as I read this, I stopped drinking water, which did cut down on my feeling all the acid flowing up my esophagus.  However, I needed to do more, and so I set out to look on the internet for natural ways of curing/treating my GERD.

Enjoying Nexium

I have read a lot of blogs the last few weeks and currently feel quite fortunate that Nexium did work for me.  It seems there's many out there that take PPIs twice a day, in addition to other medicines but nothing works.  I was lucky in that 1 Nexium in the morning was enough to keep me, mostly, symptom free all day.

Alright, so what is Nexium and what are PPIs?

Nexium:

Nexium (esomeprazole) belongs to a group of drugs called proton pump inhibitors. Nexium decreases the amount of acid produced in the stomach.
Nexium is used to treat symptoms of gastroesophageal reflux disease (GERD) and other conditions involving excessive stomach acid such as Zollinger-Ellison syndrome. Nexium is also used to promote healing of erosive esophagitis (damage to your esophagus caused by stomach acid).
Nexium may also be given to prevent gastric ulcer caused by infection with helicobacter pylori (H. pylori), or by the use of nonsteroidal anti-inflammatory drugs (NSAIDs).
Nexium is not for immediate relief of heartburn symptoms.
Nexium may also be used for other purposes not listed in this medication guide.

Nexium Side Effects:

Get emergency medical help if you have any of these signs of an allergic reaction to Nexium: hives; difficulty breathing; swelling of your face, lips, tongue, or throat.
Stop using Nexium and call your doctor at once if you have any of these symptoms of low magnesium such as:

• dizziness, confusion;
  
• fast or uneven heart rate;
  
• jerking muscle movements;
  
• feeling jittery;
  
• diarrhea that is watery or bloody;
  
• muscle cramps, muscle weakness or limp feeling;
  
• cough or choking feeling; or
  
• seizure (convulsions).
  

Less serious Nexium side effects may include:

• headache, drowsiness;
  
• mild diarrhea;
  
• nausea, stomach pain, gas, constipation; or
  
• dry mouth.
  

This is not a complete list of side effects and others may occur. Call your doctor for medical advice about side effects. You may report side effects to FDA at 1-800-FDA-1088.

Proton Pump Inhibitors (PPIs)

Proton pump inhibitors (PPIs) are medicines that work by reducing the amount of stomach acid made by glands in the lining of your stomach.

• Relieve symptoms of acid reflux, or gastroesophageal reflux disease (GERD), a condition where food or liquid travels backwards from the stomach to the esophagus (the tube from the mouth to the stomach)

• Treat a peptic or stomach ulcer

• Treat damage to the lower esophagus caused by acid reflux

Types of PPIs

There are many different names and brands of PPIs. Most work as well as another. Side effects may be different for different ones.

• Omeprazole (Prilosec), also available over the counter without a prescription (Prilosec OTC)
• Esomeprazole (Nexium),
• Lansoprazole (Prevacid),
• Rabeprazole (AcipHex)
• Pantoprazole (Protonix)
• Dexlansoprazole (Kapidex)

Although I was scared, I started taking the Nexium every morning as soon as I got up.  At first, I felt just as sick, like the side effects were worse than the disease; within a week most side effects were gone.  It became a habit, something I just didn't think about.  I just knew I had to take my medication and couldn't drink too much.  Mainly limited my drinking to 1-2 drinks.  That definitely slowed my social life.  I wasn't 100% but I was close enough where I just didn't think I was sick anymore.

After 1 month on Nexium I tried to stop it.  I felt fine the first day, so I went on my usual super drinking and eating.  The following day I was so sick I ran to get another refill.  As the end of my 3rd month approached, I realized I had to some how find a cure for whatever was wrong with me.  At least that's how I was thinking: I just need to cure myself naturally.  No more drugs.  No more risk of 101 side effects.