Dr. Priti Nanda Sibal explains why antacids should be a last resort and walks through five steps to manage acid reflux without them: eliminate common food allergens over three weeks, address stress and magnesium depletion, check for bacterial or fungal overgrowth in the gut, cut caffeine and alcohol, and screen for H. pylori infection. Probiotics, fermented foods, and magnesium supplements can help while you fix the root cause.
Chapters
You have been on antacid drugs for the last 15 years. So let me tell you why antacids should never be taken unless you have tried everything else possible to take care of your acidity. Let's look at some of the causes of acidity. Now acidity can result because of simple food allergy such as allergy to gluten, allergy to dairy. I have patients who've been suffering with acidity problem for many, many years and when they have stopped eating oranges and Some of them only by removing eggs from their diet have been able to free themselves of acidity reflux. The first most important very simple thing to check is are you having any food allergy? If yes, remove that food for 3 weeks, introduce it back and see what symptoms you experience. Second very simple but very powerful thing which you need to rule out, are you stressed? If yes, stress actually can be one of the very very common reasons why you feel reflux or acidity. Why? It decreases magnesium, and magnesium is extremely important for proper digestion of food. Another reason which can cause acidity is gut microbiome imbalance or dysbiosis. If you have small intestinal bacterial overgrowth, small intestinal fungal overgrowth, mold infections, it can lead to acidity. The day you will have your PPI, you will feel good, and once you will not have it, you might feel acidity. Few other very simple things which you need to rule out is caffeine intake, alcohol intake, lot of sugar intake. All of these also can lead to acidity, and therefore you must avoid them for— again, as I said, my rule is 3 weeks. Introduce them and see what improvement do you feel. If all of these things you have done and your acidity has not improved, you are still feeling acidic, you still have anxiety, you still have low moods, To the extent that some people, because of this, come with suicidal thoughts. Rule out Helicobacter pylori infection. Now what is that? It is a bacteria. Every one of us has it, but the moment our immune system goes for a toss, this bacteria becomes the boss of our stomach. And the purpose of this bacteria is, in the initial stage, cause so much of acidity and reflux that you will get admissions in hospitals, you will land up in emergency, you will think as if you have some cardiac problem, you will have a lot of anxiety. But the moment you test yourself for H. pylori, find that you have H. pylori, and treat yourself with the 6R approach. You will see your acidity is gone for life. So of course, in all this, few things which can really help you: probiotics or fermented foods in your routine can be very useful. Products like licorice, like glutamate, like chamomile to just rest yourself and take control of your stress can help you pass that duration when you are working on the cause without any symptom. And all these products can be found in products like Leaky Gut, which is a combination of such products. Magnesium can help you because we all today are depleted in magnesium. One, because we are stressed. Second, because the soils are stressed. So from the soil, the plant has to get magnesium, and when we are stressed, we need more magnesium. The soil does not have magnesium, so the plants have less magnesium. It becomes a double whammy situation for us. Stay healthy, stay happy, all the
