The Underlying Cause Of Acid Reflux, Heartburn or GERD Can Vary Greatly From Person To Person

The mainstream advice on how to correct reflux is very symptom oriented and has very little to do with correcting the underlying cause.  Watch this video below to understand how you can figure out why YOU are are having reflux and steps you can take to correct YOUR underlying cause.

 Disclaimer – T.C. Hale is not a doctor and does not claim to be a doctor or licensed in any type of medical field.  Any information found in any of T.C. Hale’s books, videos, newsletters, or websites are intended for educational purposes only and should not be used for medical advice.  You should contact your doctor for any medical advice.

 

Listen To Our Acid Reflux, Heartburn & GERD Episode

To learn more about Acid Reflux, listen to our “Understanding Acid Reflux, Heartburn & GERD” episode from the player below.

Don’t forget to subscribe to our podcast to get all our shows for free HERE.

If you review our show on iTunes, and say nice things about us, you will be a rock star in our book.

You may also be interested in listening to one of the following shows. Understanding Constipation – Dec. 17th, 2013 Understanding IBS, Crohns, and Colitis – Mar 2. 2014 Food Sensitivities & Food Allergies – Mar 24, 2014

 

Leave us a comment or share on Facebook.

 

 

Almost FREE 4-Week Online Digestion Course

This 50 cent course (Yes, it’s 50 cents.), will help you assess how your digestion is functioning, and explain steps you can take to improve issues like acid reflux.

Learn more and register HERE

This free course will also teach you how to use the supplements listed below.

Supplements & Protocols

 

Betaine HCL

 

The dosage for Betaine HCL can be more complicated and it is important that you read the instructions on how it often used. HCL can be found in most health food stores.

 

*** HCL Warning *** If you’re going to use HCL, be sure to also use Beet Flow (explained below in You Need Good Bile Flow) or a similar product.  I never allow any of my clients to use HCL unless they are also using Beet Flow.  If you don’t have your bile flowing correctly and you add more acid into the stomach, you could create a duodenal ulcer or diarrhea issues.  I cover all of this in more detail in chapter four of my book, Kick Your Fat in the Nuts.  I just want to make sure you understand not to use HCL without also using Beet Flow.  It is also imperative to read How to Use HCL Supplements below before you begin supplementing with HCL.

 

How to Use HCL Supplements

Hydrochloric Acid (HCL), also labeled as Betaine HCL, is the most widely needed digestive supplement in my opinion.  It’s also the one that comes with the most important instructions.  This is NOT a supplement you want to take willy-nilly. Here is a list of important guidelines to follow while using HCL supplements:

• HCL capsules should always be taken in the middle of the meal and chased by at least one bite of food.  If the capsules were to get stuck in your esophagus and dissolve there, it could feel like heartburn.
• Start by taking one capsule with a meal containing no starches.  This means avoid foods like potatoes, bread, pasta, cereal, rice, etc.  If you don’t feel a warming sensation in your stomach, or any other new digestive discomfort, about twenty minutes after the meal, you know it’s okay to move up to two capsules at your next meal.  You can continue in this manner until you reach a maximum of five capsules per meal.
• Most people will hold at five capsules per meal for months.  However, if you begin to feel a warming sensation after your meal, you know you have taken too many capsules.  At your next meal, you can reduce by one capsule and hold at that dose until you feel a warming sensation again.  This is telling you that your body is starting to make more of its own HCL and you can begin to reduce the amount you are adding in.
• Be sure to adjust your dose according to the amount of protein in each meal.  If you have a meal with very little protein, you may need to reduce the number of capsules you use with that meal.
• If you experience any diarrhea or loose stool issues after you begin to use HCL, reduce what you are taking until you can improve your bile flow.  If you have more acid than your bile flow can handle, that can create a loose stool issue.  This may not mean that you don’t need the acid, you may just need to improve your bile flow before you can handle more acid.  If you experience this issue, read more about loose stool issues in chapter four of my book, Kick Your Fat in the Nuts.
• Some people will never feel a warming sensation and that is okay.  If you no longer feel bloated after meals and you are no longer having little burps, any reflux issues, or any digestive discomfort, you can try to reduce your dose at that time and see how you do.  You may be able to eventually reduce to zero capsules and your body will continue making enough HCL on its own.
• If you experience magnified acid reflux when you begin using HCL, be sure to listen to our podcast episode on Acid Reflux below.

Buy Betaine HCL on NaturalReference.com

 

Beet Flow

Most people use 2-3 Beet Flow per meal to help thin bile so it can flow better.   It’s important to use Beet Flow, or to ensure you have bile flowing well if you’re going to use HCL supplements.  It can be a good idea to make sure there is enough bile to neutralize stomach acid before you add additional stomach acid. Beet Flow is not available in stores and is only sold through qualified health professionals.  The manufacture has agreed to sell Beet Flow online on NaturalReference.com only to T.C. Hale’s book and newsletter readers.

 

 

Buy Beet Flow on NaturalReference.com

 

Heartburn Free

Don’t let the name fool you.  This product is not enough to correct reflux for most people.  However, it can be a very helpful part of the process if your stomach acid is low enough to allow bacteria to set up camp in your stomach.  Much of the pressure that can push acid and food back up our esophagus is created by bacteria living happily in your stomach.

In many cases, HCL will start to kill the bacteria, but they can hide in the mucous layer so it may not wipe out all of the bacteria.  If your stomach is acidic enough, it will often prevent bacteria from setting up camp, but once they are in, you may need more than HCL to wipe them out.  Heartburn Free seems to be very effective at wiping out bacteria that lives in the stomach.  I follow the suggestions on the box for this product and take just one in the morning, every other day.  It can be a very strong pro-catabolic product.  If you do your self-tests in the free 4-week digestion course and find that you have a catabolic imbalance, you may want to limit how much of this product you use since it can make a person more catabolic.  Most people only use it for a week or so and then often see improvement if they are using it in conjunction with an acidification protocol.

This product is not available on NaturalReference.com so I’m placing a link so you can find it on Amazon.  Many local health food stores carry this as well, but you might want to call ahead to see if your local store has it before you run all over town.

Transcripts from our Acid Reflux, Heartburn & GERD Radio Show

Introduction:  T.C. Hale is not a doctor and does not claim to be a doctor or licensed in any type of medical field. Don’t be an idiot and use anything heard on this show as medical advice. This information should be used for educational purposes only and you should contact your doctor for any medical advice. Now get off me.

Kick it Naturally- Understanding Acid Reflux, Heartburn and GERD

 

Kinna:             Welcome to Kick It Naturally. I’m Kinna McInroe and I’m here with T.C. Hale. Natural health expert, author, film producer and porn star.

 

Tony:              Hahaha. Hahahaha.

 

Kinna:             He’s not really a porn star, but I like to think of him that way. Say hi T.C.

 

Tony:              I say hi.

 

Kinna:             Today we’re going to be talking about some crazy topics; acid reflux, heartburn, GERD…..

 

Tony:              And porn.

 

Kinna:              And porn. Exactly. Porn’s always gonna be one of the topics. You know?

 

Tony:              In the valley.

 

Kinna:             Uh huh. Exactly. So I just have one question right off the bat. So acid reflux, heartburn, GERD it’s all the same thing, but three different names?

 

Tony:              One some names are more fancy than the other. I think what happens is if somebody has heartburn they go to the doctor with heartburn the doctor’s like, “Oh, a lot of people have heartburn that’s no fun, but if I can say you have GERD, then I can diagnose you with something which means I can give you all these drugs and then that works out better.”

 

Kinna:             GERD sounds awful.

 

Tony:               I know, but It’s a it’s just a fancy Gastroesophageal reflux disease. And

It’s got disease in there, so that makes you feel like, “Oh, I have a disease I better have a bunch of drugs.

 

Kinna:             Yeah say that one three times. That one’s fun.

 

Tony:              I don’t want to.

 

Kinna:               Ok. Alright so hey, listeners out there, please follow us on Facebook at kick it in the nuts and we will post topics that we’ll be doing in future shows and then you can post any questions you might want us to cover in that show. So let’s just dive in a little bit to acid reflux, heartburn, GERD whichever one you wanna talk about cause they’re all the same.

 

Tony:              Yeah, let’s talk about GERD and acid reflux and heartburn.

 

Kinna:             Ok.

 

Tony:              And we’ve been getting a lot of questions now too, so go on and     start asking some so that we can cover more stuff. But basically what happens is we eat something and then we get heartburn and it feels like someone is stabbing us in the chest and that’s not very friendly of that person to do and it can really suck like especially at night people go to sleep and they’ll wake up like feeling like somebody’s drilling in their chest or in their throat. And it’s it’s not fun at all. So what we’ve been taught is that our stomach is making too much acid and we have to take these drugs that either neutralize the acid which are all those chalky kind of you know tums kind of things that people take a lot. And that just kind of neutralizes that acid. Or we take other drugs that turn off the body’s ability to make this acid and then that symptom goes away and we’re all good. Yaaaaayyy! Bah. Yeah, that’s not so right. It’s kind of wrong. So what happens is this heartburn feeling that you’re getting is just the symptom that you’re feeling of the acid coming back up the esophagus. It’s not supposed to come back up. Once we eat food, it’s supposed to go do other things. It’s not supposed to come back up and say, “Hey, what’s it like where I came from?”

Kinna:              Well, I don’t mean to brag, but I don’t suffer for any of these through any I can’t talk. I don’t suffer with any of these three things. So, I’m you know I have my own bag of crap, but I never know what people are talking about when they talk about this.

 

Tony:              Which we should probably dig into your bag and that’d be like 3 or 4 shows long.

 

Kinna:             Yeah, yeah.

 

Tony:              You’re lucky though cause this one really blows. And but what’s going on is when we turn off that acid we don’t feel the heartburn anymore so we figure that we fixed the problem. The issue is that in our stomach we also make digestive enzymes and those are still coming up there just not acidic so we don’t feel it. So if you have a reflux problem and you turn off the acid you’re still having reflux you just don’t feel it and these digestive enzymes that are coming back up are made to break down protein.

 

Kinna:               You know I keep hearing that Duran Duran song in my head. The reflux!

 

Tony:                 I think that was a different song, yeah but it was a long time ago so maybe that’s why you got confused. But these digestive enzymes come back up and their made to break down protein well guess what your esophagus is made of?

 

Kinna:             Protein.

 

Tony:              It’s protein. Yeah, so that’s not good. So even though you turned it off with the drug you could still be having damage to your esophagus from the enzymes.

 

Kinna:             So you’re basically a cannibal. You’re just eating yourself.

 

Tony:              You’re eating yourself. Yeah. And you don’t wanna do that. So it is a      problem. So here’s how the issue really works. Reflux is almost 100% of the time never caused by having too much stomach acid. It’s just never the cause. I think 1 in a million cases where a guy’s gonna have too much stomach acid. Your stomach is designed to handle the acid. It’s fancy. Like and the acid that’s in there is like the same pH’s you find in like a car battery.

 

Kinna:              Wow.

 

Tony:                So if you went and licked a car battery you wouldn’t like it that much.

 

Kinna:             Oh wow, cool. I’m on acid right now.

 

Tony:              Yeah. It’s different. That’s different. But so the problem is not too much acid. What happens is there’s this valve at the bottom of your esophagus at the top of your stomach and it’s called an LES. (lower Esophageal Sphincter)

 

Kinna:             Sounds like a light bulb.

 

Tony:              Right. It’s the same thing as a light bulb. But so this sphincter, I like to say sphincter.

 

Kinna:             Uh huh. Me too.

 

Tony:              So when food comes in this this valve opens and the food can come…

 

Kinna:             This is the porn portion.

 

Tony:              Yeah, we’re covering porn now. The food comes in and then our body makes acid. Cause the foods like, “Hey, I’m here!” And the body’s like, “Hey, it’s here. It’s time to make stomach acid.” So the body makes stomach acid. And then that acid triggers this valve to close so food doesn’t come back up. So the valve is like HCL triggered. HCL is what our stomach makes. Like it’s hydrochloric acid.

 

Kinna:             Hydrochloric acid.

 

Tony:              Ah….look at you knowing what words are.

 

Kinna:             I know.

 

Tony:              You’re so impressive.

 

Kinna:             I know. It only took me 6 years.

 

Tony:              I know. It’s a good thing you’re pretty.

 

Kinna:             Oh well that’s sweet. I don’t even have on makeup people.

 

Tony:                That’s why it’s radio.

 

Kinna:              Eahhhhhh.

 

Tony:                So this valve the stomach acid has to be there to trigger the valve. So a lot of people will make some stomach acid, but not enough acid to trigger that valve to close and then the food can come back up and we get reflux. So what we do is we help people supplement HCL they add more acid to their stomach and then once they reach a level that can trigger that valve to close abracadabra they don’t have reflux anymore.

 

Kinna:             That’s pretty brilliant!

 

Tony:                It is pretty brilliant. I didn’t make it up.

 

Kinna:               Oh.

 

Tony:                Yeah. It would’ve been awesome if I’d like figured that out.

 

Kinna:               Yeah, that would’ve been cool.

 

Tony:                I don’t think I’ve ever figured out anything. I think I just read what old people say.

 

Kinna:               Uh…you’ve been trying to figure me out for years and you can’t crack it.

 

Tony:                Yeah. Right. That’ll be Nobel Prize winning if I do that. So so that’s what we do a lot of people and this is not somebody did this and it worked I mean this is thousands of people do this where they improve their stomach acid level enough to trigger that valve and then the valve closes and we don’t get the reflux. And there’s a lot of reasons that people might not make enough HCL. There’s a lot of other reasons that contribute to reflux being worse and magnified, but the main point is that it all goes back to the stomach not being acid enough instead of what the pharmaceutical companies have been teaching us on TV for decades which is you have too much acid in your stomach you gotta turn that off.

 

Kinna:               Now they’re just evil.

 

Tony:                 Well, I don’t it’s more like evil geniuses.

 

Kinna:               Oh.

 

Tony:                 Yeah it’s all marketing stuff. And but the way to think about it is you know there’s a reason that we have stomach acid and mother nature did that for a purpose, so we might not wanna turn that off.

 

Kinna:               Yeah. Exactly.

 

Tony:                And the biggest problem that happens when you turn that off is it’s really two-fold and the first part is you can’t break down your food anymore. You wanna break down your food. You wanna pull the nutrients out of the food that you eat so that you can have the food. I was just hitting my mic didn’t I? Nina just yelled at me a little bit.

 

Kinna:               She yelled with her eyes.

 

Tony:                Yeah, it was an evil stare of death. Um, but so, if your stomach’s not making enough acid now the food is not breaking down properly that’s what that acid’s for. And if you can’t break down a food properly you can’t pull the nutrients out and now all of a sudden you’re creating deficiencies and the body needs this and it’s not getting this and when it doesn’t get what it needs it’ll break down your own tissues and now you’re eating yourself again. You’ve been eating yourself a lot in this show.

 

Kinna:              No comment.

 

Tony:               Oh.

 

Kinna:              We’re back to the porn part.

 

Tony:               That didn’t work out very well. So, but this stomach acid is important and it does matter and it helps us actually get nutrients to our body that we need and without it we can’t get those. Digestion doesn’t work properly.

 

Kinna:               So cavemen years ago, they weren’t having these issues?

 

Tony:                When you look at the drawings on the wall their weren’t a whole lot of like tums commercials where their stomach expands and INDIGESTION. Which I love that because we know I mean we’re taught in science class and all medical school how digestion works that the stomach makes acid we know that and indigestion is a lack of digestion which is a lack of stomach acid, but they still tell us when we have indigestion that we should turn the acid off. So we kind of fell for a story there that wasn’t accurate and we understand how the mistake can happen cause when you turn off the acid that symptom of the burning goes away so we figured that we fixed the problem. The issue is that when we turn off the acid you usually end up feeling bloated and gross because your food isn’t digesting instead it’ll rot and ferment and that creates gases and those gases expand and you get all bloated and yeah, you’re tooty. And none of that is…

 

Kinna:               Yeah. Blame the cat.

 

Tony:                Right. Yeah. I like to blame the cat. So that’s one problem the other issue is that that acid in the stomach is the barrier for your whole body it’s the protector. All the little bastards that are coming in when you eat on the salad bar and some kid just sneezed on the lettuce and you just scooped it up and eat those critters can get in if there is no acid bath in the stomach that would kill everything and fry it all.

 

Kinna:               I’m never going to the Golden Corral again. Thank you.

 

Tony:                I know. It’s a scary place. So when you lose this stomach acid you’re losing the protector of your whole body and now anybody can come in and set up a kegger.

 

Kinna:               So, it’s like your body guard.

 

Tony:                Yeah, it’s like a knight in disgusting armor. Cause it’s gross in your stomach if you ever hurl and you see all that that’s kind of what’s going on there. It’s not, it’s gross. Do it now let’s see.

 

Kinna:              Bleh.

 

Tony:                So, that’s the main issue, and we are going to talk about some other things that can happen, uh, and in this situation, and other things that can cause reflux. We’ll go over people’s questions, but that is the main thing to understand, is that it’s almost always the case that you need more acid, not less, so you can trigger that valve to close.  Um, and the only thing I don’t want you to do is, I don’t want you to just go and buy HCL, and just use it. That’s not, Beet flow, right, Because if you don’t have your bile flowing properly, what happens is, when that acid leaves the stomach and goes into the small intestines, then bile drops down, and that is real alkaline, and that neutralizes the acid, because if we don’t neutralize that acid, now it is screaming through the body, burning the intestinal track, and that’s why people have a lot of ass soup.

 

Kinna:               Yeah, I have thick bile, so I’m not fat, I just have thick bile.

 

Tony:              Ok right, you are thick biled. So, a lot of people that have IBS and Crohns and they are liquid poopin all day, a lot of times it’s a lack of bile flow so that the acid didn’t get neutralized so it’s burning up, and the body is like, “Get it out of here! Its burnin me!”

 

Kinna:             Wow, ok, so more acid.

 

Tony:              More acid is good, but I don’t want you to just use HCL supplements, because if your bile is not flowing you’re going to get a really loose stool, or you can even create a duodenal ulcer, because there is no bile to neutralize the acid. Duodenal, all the cool kids say duodenal.

 

Kinna:             Duodenal.

 

Tony:              Um, it’s a big score on words with friends too.

 

Kinna:             Ok. Great.

 

Tony:              Duodenal. So, uh, if you go to kickitinthenuts.com, um, you will see that we have a four week digestion course there, and it’s totally free, and so, I am nice, I gave it to you free, why you gotta whine at me?

 

Kinna:             He just gives it away, I mean.

 

Tony:              I put out.  I put out. So, uh, it will teach you how to use the supplements correctly, to make sure that you don’t hurt yourself, make sure, you know, some people have to adjust the amount they are taking, and stuff like that, so it will teach you how to do that. Um, so walk through that, and then you can go to the support group, that is free on Facebook too, and ask questions if you need them. Um, so, I don’t just want you doing it, without understanding what to do. I don’t want you to hear, HCL, and run down to Whole Foods, and buy some, and just start chugging it.

 

Kinna:             Ya, the support group is great, and you would be shocked at how many people talk about their poop, and the most personal things that you can talk about on there.

 

Tony:              It’s good times.

 

Kinna:             It’s good times, are we ready for some questions?

 

Tony:              Uh, huh.

 

Kinna:             Alright, Cortney, from Kalamazoo, MI. I’ve done some research into natural remedies for acid reflux, with my Crohns and being pregnant on top of it. Oh God, my reflux has been terrible, I started drinking aloe juice, which seems to help a lot, and I’ve also tried mixing 2-tablespoons of baking soda, with 8ounces of water, same with apple cider vinegar, lemon water also helps, because it turns alkaline when digested. There’s also a product call Asea? A-s-e-a? Asea?

 

Tony:              Asea. Asea.

 

Kinna:             “Uh, it’s almost like water, but helps balance the PH in your body. “ I don’t know where the question is there?

 

Tony:              I think it brings up a lot of questions though.

 

Kinna:             Oh, wow.

 

Tony:              Um, and, I like people who do their own research, about their health, they are my heroes, I think that’s awesome, but, what can happen, is sometimes you find crappy information, and you can make yourself worse. And I will say that Cortney sounds very sweet typing here, but I guarantee that it is some work to be her husband. She is pregnant, and has Crohns, um because when you have,

 

Kinna:             That could affect the baby.

 

Tony:              Ya, that cold happen, that would be a mess, and then her husband would be like, “That baby is brown!” And then that would be a big problem.

 

Kinna:             Ya.

 

Tony:              I think that we should stop the show now.

 

Kinna:             We went of the rails.

 

Tony:              We did, ok, but, when you have Crohns like that, your stool is moving to fast for you to absorb the nutrients that your body needs. It’s all screaming out the back door, and coming out too lose. And when you’re pregnant, you need a lot of resources to make that other human. So, um, she is probably low on resources, and that can be a problem. But, let’s stick to her reflux stuff. Uh, so, she talked about Aloe, and apple cider vinegar, so what a lot of people do, is they’ll try out these natural remedies, and they will find something that works for them, and what you don’t know is, did they really fix the problem? And they increase stomach acid enough to get the valve to close, or, were they just kind of on the fence there, so what they took, was enough to turn off their stomach acid, just like the drugs would have done. Something that would’ve neutralized the acid so now they’re not feeling the pain, but they still have the problem is still really there underneath. Um, so, let’s look at some of these things. Uh she says if she puts two teaspoons of baking soda in water and drinks it that she feels better and that’s just gonna neutralize the stomach acid cause it’s very alkaline, so with that remedy she’s just turning off digestion all together.

 

Kinna:             Sounds like we’re all just looking for quick fixes like we just don’t wanna be in pain and when we find something that we think is like taking us out of pain that’s it. That’s the answer.

 

Tony:              That’s the answer. It’s brilliant.

 

Kinna:             Cause we don’t know what else is going on in our body.

 

Tony:              Right. And nobody can tell me otherwise and three weeks later I have this other symptom that shows up and I have an extra arm growing out of my ear, but I’m sure it has nothing to do with the remedy cause the remedy worked and it’s magical and so that’s kind of how people look at it. What we really have to teach people to do is to look at their body and their chemistry and understand the underlying causes instead of just the symptoms. So one of the other things that Cortney is doing is she’s using apple cider vinegar and what that does is actually a great solution because it helps to acidify the stomach more. So if someone is making some stomach acid, but maybe they just need some help acidifying a little bit apple cider vinegar will totally work and it will increase the acid level in the stomach and trigger the valve to close and they won’t get the reflux anymore.

 

Kinna:             So apple cider good, baking soda bad?

 

Tony:              Right. When it comes to reflux. Um, aloe vera is another thing that is more alkalizing. So she may be….

 

Kinna:             I didn’t know you could drink that. I just thought you put it on your sunburn.

 

Tony:              Yeah, you can. It can be good for some issues. It can be healing, but you don’t wanna drink it with your food because when your foods in there you want the stomach to be acidic.

 

Kinna:             Uh huh.

 

Tony:              So that not only that valve can close, but so the food can be broken down like it’s supposed to.

 

Kinna:             This is off point, but coconut water? Is that good for you?

 

Tony:              That is mostly off point.

 

Kinna:             Yeah, that’s really off point, but that just made me think of it when you said you can drink it.

 

Tony:              Yeah, there’s lots of stuff you can drink. I don’t know if you knew that? There’s stuff besides alcohol.

 

Kinna:             That’s another show. Coconut water. A whole hour spent to coconut water.

 

Tony:              Coconut water has some nutrients in it, but it’s also mostly just sugar and you’re just so your just drinking sugar and it’s spiking your insulin levels and doing you can better, you can get the same nutrients doing other stuff better.

 

Kinna:             Ok. So, we done with Cortney, that doesn’t spell her name with a “u”?

 

Tony:              Right, and good luck, Cortney and your husband.

 

Kinna:             Yeah, we’re praying for you. Matt, from Minneapolis, MN. And Matt just has a quote here, “Don’t get heartburn in the first place.”-Larry the cable guy.

 

Tony:              That’s good. Thank you, Matt. That’s very helpful.

 

Kinna:             Yeah, that really shed some light.

 

Tony:              I know.

 

Kinna:             Uh, Patricia. Cucumber used to cause me reflux. Woa, I need to read that different. Cucumber used to cause me reflux. If I had cucumber for dinner and if I would go to bed with a full stomach right after the reflux would be unbearable. I couldn’t put my head down on the pillow.

 

Tony:              I like how you do different voices for different people. I think that’s helpful.

 

Kinna:             Yeah. Yeah.

 

Tony:              Um, so cucumber is kind of a weird food. Where it’s the a it’s one of the only foods that I see cause this a lot. Um, but it seems to be very alkaline. So if your stomach acid is not very strong, if your stomach acid is working correctly your gonna put a cucumber in your stomach and you’re gonna fry it. It’s gonna sizzle.

 

Kinna:             You’re gonna need some metal in your stomach. (? Inaudible)

 

Tony:              Right. You’re gonna be the captain.            But if you’re just on the border and you’re not making enough uh, stomach acid then cucumber can kind of push you the wrong way now you don’t have enough acid to trigger that valve to close and you get reflux. And there can be a lot of reasons that you’re not making enough stomach acid. And in the free course I teach people how to look at their chemistry and get ideas of what may be causing it, but a big one is a lack of resources, so if you test your blood pressure and it’s really low…

 

Kinna:             Hello.

 

Tony:              Uh huh. Talking to the girl right now. Then that can be a sign that you don’t have a lot of minerals and your body needs minerals to make hydrochloric acid.

 

Kinna:             Or you become a stark raving biotch!

 

Tony:              Yeah. Biotch. So you can kind of get caught in this catch 22 where if you can’t break down your food, you can’t pull the minerals out of your food, but if you don’t have enough minerals you can’t make HCL to break down your food properly. So you get, you can see how…

 

Kinna:             You’re in a cycle.

 

Tony:              Right. People can get really stuck for a long time. So we teach people how to use things like ya know sea salt, has the chloride ion in there that the body needs to make hydrochloric acid.

 

Kinna:             uh huh.

 

Tony:              Uh and teach some other things so that you have the minerals so you can make your own HCL.

 

Kinna:             Cool. So Patricia, don’t eat cucumbers. Ok, Jennifer, from Orlando, FL. I’ve read that reflux muds, oh my gosh, I can not talk today, I’ve read that reflux meds have been connected to Osteosporosis. Osteoporosis.

 

Tony:              Osteoporosis.

 

Kinna:             Osteoporosis. Is that true?

 

Tony:              I like how she got British as soon as she couldn’t pronounce Osteoporosis.

 

Kinna:             It’s makes me smarter so I can pronounce big words.

 

Tony:              uh huh. Right. Um, yeah I’ve heard this a lot and I’m not saying that there’s a connection. The big concern that you’ll see all over the internet is that they’re concerned about bone fractures if you’ve used these medications a lot. And if you think about Osteoporosis and well maybe we’ll cover that a lot in another show, but people view it as a disease where your body is attacking your bones and in my mind that ridiculous enough for me to laugh and point at people because the body doesn’t attack itself There’s usually reasons that things are being quote unquote “attacked”. I just did the finger quote things.

 

Kinna:             Uh huh. And no one can see it, but me. (inaudible)

 

Tony:              Right. I think Nina saw it. But uh what happens is think about that if your body doesn’t have the resources that it needs it’s going to get them or you don’t function anymore. So a lot of times the body will dig in to it’s own tissues to pull minerals out that it needs to function and when those start running low it can also dig into bones. So a lot of times these Osteroporosis, Osteopenia where bones are starting to get fragile and weak and it’s the body, yes, it’s attacking the bones, but it’s attacking the bones to look for nutrients. It’s not just pissed off at bones all the sudden. Like all the sudden….

 

Kinna:             Uh huh. It’s mining for minerals.

 

Tony:              Right. It’s just looking for what it needs, it’s not like…

 

Kinna:             You’re old. (inaudible)

 

Tony:              Right, one day it saw a skeleton, so it like hates bones and it’s gonna attack your own bones. It makes me laugh. Um, so, if we know that these drugs are turning off stomach acid they’re turning off digestion.

 

Kinna:             Well, you need to talk to Sally Field and Blythe Danner because they’re both on commercials right now for Osteoporosis.

 

Tony:              We’ll call Sally after this.

 

Kinna:             Ok. I’ve got her number.

 

Tony:              We’ll give her a talking to uh and just the other day uh at the gym you remember Smokey and the Bandit when Sally Field was in it, no it was Cannonball Run that’s a nevermind that’s the wrong thing. Okay, anyways, so if we’re turning off stomach acid we’re not getting the nutrients we need so yeah don’t you think that could lead to Osteoporosis?

 

Kinna:             Yeah.

 

Tony:              It makes sense. And on the package of these PPIs, you know the things that are the Proton- pump inhibitors, that means they turn off your body’s ability to produce the stomach acid, the hydrogen that’s needed to make that. So um when it says on the boxes you know you shouldn’t take this for more than two weeks that’s what they’re intended for, but people end up taking them for decades and so you’ve turned off your ability to get nutrients from food for decades.

 

Kinna:             There’s a lot of acronyms when associated with the body.

 

Tony:              Uh huh.

 

Kinna:             You know PPI, GERD. So OMG and all LOLs those are old those are not nothing new.

 

Tony:              Right. That’s not cool anymore.

 

Kinna:             Alright, so uh let’s see Carolyn, Zantac is the only thing that works for me and tons of water to flush my stomach.

 

Tony:              And today’s show is actually brought to you by Zantac.

 

Kinna:             By Zantac.

 

Tony:              Oh my gosh, we’re in so much trouble.

 

Kinna:             Maybe we’ll get some money from them.

 

Tony:              Right. So we know what she’s doing. Carolyn is turning off the acid. She’s neutralizing the acid with the Zantac in her stomach and then um, drinking a bunch of water can also neutralize that acid because water is more alkaline so she’s taking care of the symptom instead of taking care of the problem and that’s what a lot of us do because the pain sucks.

 

Kinna:             Uh huh.

 

Tony:              So when we find something that works we just do it.

 

Kinna:             Exactly. Oh, I love this one. Ryan, from Danville, IL. Ryan, and I need to meet you, Ryan. He just has Jim Beam and Airborne.

 

Tony:              Yeah, I support that. How could you go wrong with that combo?

 

Kinna:             I totally support that.

 

Tony:              I think that would fix just about anything.

 

Kinna:             He’d just be too drunk to know it. You know?

 

Tony:              Right.

 

Kinna:             And he wouldn’t get a cold.

 

Tony:              Ryan, it’s a good plan. It’s a solid plan and I want you to stick with it.

Kinna:             Yeah. Kathy, from San Georgiono, wherever that is? I make homemade bread and butter pickles all the time with stevia our family drinks a bit of juice whenever we feel heartburn coming on. My daughter is six months pregnant and is doing this pretty regularly right now. I thought she was gonna say my daughter’s six months old and pregnant that scared me for a minute. I was thinking that’s that’s….babies having babies.

 

Tony:              I don’t wanna visit that place. And when I read this I thought she was saying she was making homemade bread and butter and pickles, but bread and butter pickles are those slicey pickily things.

 

Kinna:             Oh.

 

Tony:              Yeah, so you make ‘em in a jar. And you do it with vinegar and stuff. So pickles are actually great for reflux. Especially like in a kid because I don’t like using you know strong supplements like HCL with a kid, but you can give them a pickle at the end of a meal and then pickles are acidic, so you can acidify the stomach more, help the valve close and now the kids happy because he’s not having the pain and all the sudden he likes pickles.

 

Kinna:             Uh, sweet pickles, sour pickles all kinds of pickles?

 

Tony:              Uh, those gherkin pickle things. As long as they’re the acidic ones, sweet ones work okay too.

 

Kinna:             A lot of kids won’t eat the sour ones until they get to a certain age.

 

Tony:              Right. But it’s the vinegar that they make it in that makes it more acidic too.

 

Kinna:             Put a cap full in their bottle. (? inaudible.)

 

Tony:              And that’s why you can do that. That’s why the apple cider vinegar can be a good thing to do at the end of the meal.

 

Kinna:             Look at me, I’m a good mom already. Who knew?

 

Tony:              Already. That was brilliant. But this thing with the pickles works better for the kids, but that’s obviously working for her and her pregnant daughter. Not six years old.

 

Kinna:             Yeah, that’s not six months old that is older. Aaron, yep pickle juice! Hey, here’s another supporter. I’m getting heartburn about 12, 15 times a day. That’s horrible Aaron. Even if I haven’t eaten anything, I still get it. It gets rid of it in about a minute.

 

Tony:              Yeah. And I think that’s Kathy’s daughter I think that’s why she was like agreeing with her.

 

Kinna:             We’re also sponsored by pickles too.

 

Tony:              Um, if you’re getting reflux 12 or 15 times a day, well if you’re pregnant that can help that for two reasons, um, if you’re putting all of your reeses resources towards building this other human cause they don’t just show up with nothing, um then you may not be having enough resources to make your own HCL to make enough to trigger the valve to close and then on top of that you have this basketball in your stomach that’s pushing up on your diaphragm and like it can push on that LES so that it can’t close properly and now you’re getting all kinds of reflux, but my thought is that if the pickle juice helps you that that additional acidification is at least helping that valve close some more.

 

Kinna:             Well, if she’s eating basketball that might be the problem right there.

 

Tony:              Right there. That’ll do it.

 

Kinna:             Don’t eat basketballs.

 

Tony:              Right. I don’t know that I would use HCL with a pregnant woman just because pregnant women freak me out cause so many things can go wrong with a baby and you don’t want ‘em thinking oh, I did this and screwed things up you know, but a you know maybe adding some sea salt or something like that to give the body more chloride, more minerals and it can be a gentler way to do it.

 

Kinna:             I think we should contact a pickle company and try to get some money.

 

Tony:              Vlasic?

 

Kinna:             Uh huh. Yeah. Elaine, from Los Angeles, CA. Hi Elaine. Is there any way to curb the reflux with food? Or certain types of foods I should avoid?

 

Tony:              Yeah, um as far as curbing it pickles or apple cider vinegar is the only food type item I’ve seen to actually correct the problem. Um, you know the other things are turning acid off more like water and stuff like that. You don’t wanna do that. Um, but foods to avoid, what goes on if a stomach is not acidic enough then bacteria can live in there and they’re happy and they have a keg party and it’s a good time uh because there’s no acid coming in there to fry them and then when they poop, they poop very alkaline they’re waste product is even more alkaline…

 

Kinna:             They’re pooping inside you?

 

Tony:              Inside your stomach.

 

Kinna:             Eww.

 

Tony:              That’s why you have bad breath.

 

Kinna:             Eww.

 

Tony:              Um, no but so when they poop in there and then that alkalizes the stomach even more making it a better environment for them to live and raise their families. So uh when that happens when you eat carbohydrates they love that they’re very excited about that they like to feed on sugars and it excites them, they create more gases and that gas can push the food product back up and we get more reflux. So for a lot of people reducing their carbohydrate and sugar intake can also reduce their reflux, if they haven’t fixed the problem yet. I like to see people just fix the problem, but that can be a good immediate remedy.

 

Kinna:             Hm. Ok. Uh, Sally, from Valley Village, CA. Is it something you can live with or is it something that needs to be addressed?

 

Tony:              I like to see it be addressed. You know it’s not going to be it’s not the acid coming up is not going to instantly melt your esophagus and when you eat a cheeseburger it ends up in your shoulder cause there’s no tube anymore. I don’t know how that would work. Um, but so it’s not gonna happen right away, but eventually it could damage your esophagus. You could end up with….

 

Kinna:             Duodenal ulcer?

 

Tony:              Well, you could end up with a duodenal ulcer too, but that’s usually with too much acid in the stomach, but with acid coming back up um on the esophagus it’s eventually going to be able to break down that tissue or cause it to be what they call Barret’s esophagus, which can be precancerous and so you don’t wanna have that. The acid is supposed to exist in the stomach, when it leaves the stomach it’s supposed to be neutralized so that it doesn’t harm anything else in the body. So it’s not supposed to come back up it’s not built to do that so you want to fix the problem.

 

Kinna:             Uh, back to kind of foods and stuff is it true that spicy foods are worse?

 

Tony:              You know in some situations that will trigger it so will like peppers and onions and I think that a lot of time it has to do with the way that bacteria react to those foods. But usually when something is causing more reflux it’s usually because the bacteria in your stomach are reacting to that food and being more activated and creating more gases, so if you can fry those bacteria with more stomach acid that can fix a lot of that problem and then all of a sudden you can eat peppers.

 

Kinna:             Cool. Jamie, from Berkeley, CA. We get a lot of people from California. I used to have it real bad, but the HCL fixed it. So nice not to deal with it anymore. Good for you, Jamie. Rub it in to everybody else who has the problem.

 

Tony:              Right. Way to show off. Um, but so we do hear that all the time. Especially in the support group with people fixing their reflux. Um and it sometimes they’ll start taking HCL and we teach people to build up to five per meal. Um, but you start with just one, so when somebody takes just one, now they’ve increased the acid level in their stomach, but maybe it’s not yet to the point where it’s enough to trigger that valve so all the sudden their reflux will be worse and it’s like more painful and they wanna punch me in the face, but we teach people to that if you continue to up it eventually it’ll get to where you’re triggering that valve to close and then it goes all away and we hear about people doing that a lot.

 

Kinna:             Hm. Another sponsor of our show. HCL.

 

Tony:              Uh huh.

 

Kinna:             Uh, Laura from Applevalley, MN. And Shane from Alcoa, TN. Wanna know more about hiatal hernia. Shane writes, I’d like to know since I have one, how the hiatal hernia causes heartburn and the best options for treatment. I don’t have a certain food that causes the heartburn just when my hernia is annoyed do I get it.

 

Tony:              So for Laura and Shane, um with your situation with having a hiatal hernia it sucks.

 

Kinna:             My grandma used to have one and she couldn’t take pills for one.

 

Tony:              Cause they would get stuck.

 

Kinna:             Yeah, they’d get stuck and she would always like get up in the middle of the meal and walk around for a bit.

 

Tony:              Yeah.

 

Kinna:             I don’t know why,

 

Tony:              Right.

 

Kinna:             But she would do that.

 

Tony:              Yeah, I have one too. I used to have to do that sometimes where they’d get stuck and I’d have to like jump up and down and it was really a weird feeling. Yeah because so we’ll talk about that um, so what happens is sometimes if the tissues not strong enough that above your stomach your esophagus kind of pokes through your diaphragm and then goes up where your mouth is um so but sometimes, but sometimes your stomach can kind of rip a bigger hole so part of your stomach goes up into your diaphragm. It’s not supposed to be there.

 

Kinna:             Ok.

 

Tony:              It’s uncool. It’s hard to explain on the radio, but we show on a video on the free digestive course, so if you have a hernia do the free course and there’s a few videos in there to show you other stuff too. But if part of your stomach is pulled up in there now that valve is right there at the top where that happens and it gets al jacked up and bent and it can’t close the right way. So even increasing your stomach acid is not enough to trigger it to close if it’s all bent and jacked. So now those people with a hiatal hernia sometimes increasing stomach acid can improve the valve’s function so it’ll close better, but it may not still close all the way. Um, so there’s exercises that you can do. We have a video in the course where you kind of like push down right under your xiphoid process you kind of push down and you kind of push your stomach back down.

 

Kinna:             Some chiropractors can do that as well.

 

Tony:              Right. Chiropractors, a lot of them, are very good at it and you can go see them and they’ll kind of help you put your hiatal hernia back in place and then maybe you just kind of massage it down every few days or so, but you don’t wanna try to manipulate it every single day. Cause you wanna pull it back down and let it heal in the right place and just like if you’re working a muscle you don’t work it every day the healing is where the good stuff comes.

 

Kinna:             Is it wrong that I wanna laugh every time you say diaphragm.

 

Tony:              Yeah, that’s wrong.

 

Kinna:             So, uh Keelie, from Los Angeles, CA. They just keep coming from California. They’re all totally imbalanced.

 

Tony:              Right. We’re kind of jacked out here.

 

Kinna:             Uh, why does Subway always give me heartburn. She usually orders a small drink, a club and a bottle of water. (can’t understand what’s said here)

 

Tony:              Oh, I thought she meant the I thought she meant the subway.

 

Kinna:             Yeah, riding the subway that gives me heartburn too. That gives me the heebie-jeebies.

 

Tony:              The subway? Yeah the stress. I thought you were like licking the seats on the subway or something and that would a lot of bacteria that we create. HCL problems. Um, So, when you eat bread that’s a really starchy carbohydrate that can activate that bacteria and a lot of people have a H. Pylori infection in their stomach which is a type of bacteria. Uh, and the weird thing about this bacteria is that it eats hydrogen instead of sugar like most bacteria does. So if this is eating all of your hydrogen, you can’t make HCL properly. And now the stomach’s more alkaline and they can live there happily so it’s kind of like they have they’re own trick that makes their neighborhood better. So, if a person has an H. Pylori infection it can be really hard to get rid it. You can go to the site at kickitinthenuts.com and I under the blog section I have page about H. Pylori and a protocol that I use to try and whack it out. But once they get in now the stomach’s alkaline and all other kinds of bacteria can come in too and it’s just like a big party.

 

Kinna:             So there’s a test you can take for H. Pylori?

 

Tony:              Your doctor can do a H. Pylori stool test. Some people do blood test it may not be as good. It can be expensive to get the test done. So if somebody thinks that they have H. Pylori, sometimes I’ll just tell them just do the protocol and see if you feel better.

 

Kinna:             It doesn’t hurt you either way.

 

Tony:              Right. It’s not gonna hurt you either way and it’ll end up being a lot cheaper than the $300 test that you’d have to do at a doctor.

 

Kinna:             Ouch!

 

Tony:              Right.

 

Kinna:             To tell you, oh, you don’t have it. Um, Christopher, I had horrible chronic heartburn for years. I was on prescription meds for it even. It went away all together when I started drinking green smoothies because of the alkalizing effect on my system.

 

Tony:              Right. So two things happened here and we kind of talked about them a little bit um, with a with Christopher. We talked about if somebody’s on the fence they’ll find relief if they either neutralize the small amount of acid they had or acidify it enough to trigger the valve. So a lot of those green shakes they’ll also add a lot of other minerals and nutrients in there. So if Chris wasn’t getting enough nutrients for his body to make his own HCL he could’ve used these nutrients to give his body what it needs. Now he can make HCL. The other thing is that they’re very alkalizing a lot of these green drinks, so it could’ve been that he just alkalized his stomach more and turned off the symptom all together, but now he’s not digesting correctly.

 

Kinna:             And he’s still doing damage.

 

Tony:              And that’s a lot that’s a lot of the bad information that’s out there. I saw some other people post questions about I take this alkaline thing and it changes the pH of my body to more alkaline so now I don’t get reflux. And that’s a misconception that they’re getting. Uh, there’s a lot of people out there that are teaching to alkalize, alkalize, alkalize! You’re too acid! You’re gonna die! Alkalize! And I fell for that for a while when I first started learning about nutrition and I was doing that myself until I couldn’t walk three steps up to my apartment because I was all so wiped out. Because the trick is that some people do need to push their bloodstream more alkaline because they’re leaning too acidic. So when they try to alkalize themselves quote unquote they start to feel better. But if you can have an imbalance in one direction you could also have it in the other. And a lot of people come to me and their bloodstream is already far too alkaline and when that happens, oxygen can’t get down to the tissues the bora effect kicks in. It’s a scientific thing, don’t worry about it.

 

Kinna:             Oh yeah. Yeah. He just saw me glaze over.

 

Tony:              Right. Yeah, but so a lot of people are alkalizing themselves and making themselves much worse. And it’s not like the whole body is one pH and you want to alkalize it, different compartments of the body should be different pH’s. There are pH’s that should be alkaline in your body, but there’s also others that should be acidic. And people get very confused and think it’s all the same thing. And it’s a bucket of wrong.

 

Kinna:             Hm.

 

Tony:              Yeah, it’s a bucket of wrong. So…

 

Kinna:             Well, that’s all the questions we have here.

 

Tony:              So another thing that we didn’t cover in questions is that a lot of people have the worst reflux when they go to bed. Um, because they lie down and the food can come up a lot easier in the esophagus, so this isn’t a this isn’t the remedy, I mean this isn’t the solution, but you can actually put lifts under the head of your bed to bring the head of your bed up a couple of inches and then you sleep at a little bit of an angle and it’ll keep some of that stuff from coming back up. And I like to see people with hiatal hernias do that if they can do it and they’re like sleeping almost on a slant like they’re almost standing, no it’s not that severe you don’t even really notice it. But it can be enough to keep the food from coming back up.

 

Kinna:             I sleep in a coffin that’s up straight. Like a mummy.

 

Tony:              Those look great. But so now we understand that it’s usually not turn the acid off to fix reflux it’s increase the acid so the valve can close and then um you don’t get the reflux anymore.

 

Kinna:             Cool.

 

Tony:              So tell your other friends that are doing it wrong and screwing themselves up. And having a decade of misery because they can’t fix the problem.

 

Kinna:             Alright, everybody! Thanks, y’all for listening. Oh, my Texas just came out there. If you wanna learn more about how to look at your own chemistry you can read any of Tony’s books or take the free 4 week digestion course at kickitinthenuts.com. Catch us on the next episode. We’ll be talking about something interesting I’m sure. And thanks for tuning in to kick it naturally. Where it’s o.k. to talk about your poop. I need to say that again. Where it’s o.k. to talk about your poop.

 

Tony:              If you can talk about your poop correctly.

 

Kinna:             Exactly! If you can say the words properly.

 

 

Disclaimer – T.C. Hale is not a doctor and does not claim to be a doctor or licensed in any type of medical field.  Any information found in any of T.C. Hale’s books, videos, newsletters, or websites are intended for educational purposes only and should not be used for medical advice.  You should contact your doctor for any medical advice.