GERD

Any of you got this?? Pepcid?? Tagament?? Tums?? Do I have to quit my vises?? Water and white rice???

Needs a doctor's scrip and it's not cheap, but Nexium's what you need.

Next best thing is Prilosec which fortunately just went OTC.

And they're both PURPLE!

awe no - BB don't get on the drug bandwagon... head to your local good health food store and solicit their advice first. try Mother's Market in Costa Mesa. they may be able to recommend papaya and pineapple enzymes or who knows what?

they'll have two great books, one called Prescription for Nutritional Healing (blue) and the other is Healthy Healing (orange). Consult them at length for insider info.

you might be able to get away with just being more careful about how you combine your vices.

don't support the big drug companie if you can avoid it. it ain't good for your long-term health. we need you around for a good long time...

[ Edited by: Futura Girl on 2003-09-09 00:29 ]

Yo Ben! Stop eating at Carl Jr!

I had terrible problems with this. It's one of the main reasons I went on the diet and cut back on my drinking. I am also taking tagamet and between it and the diet things have settled down very well. But Futura Girl has a good point, if you can manage it without the drugs you're much better off. GERD is not something to take lightly, though, or the results can be quite painful.

What's GERD? Is it like acid reflux (heartburn)? I started getting that bad about 3 years ago, caused by alchohol, coffee, greasy foods, and stress. The doctor put me on daily Tagamet doses for about 6 months. Since then I take a Tums tablet after meals and it seems to prevent it in most cases. Sometimes it flares up when I have tropical drinks with lime &/or lemon juice but I just pop a Tums and it's OK. Don't let it go untreated because your esophogus can be damaged.

It's another curse of being over 40!

Nexium was my wonder drug. I still take it with no side-effects. It has allowed me to continue toasting the Tiki Gods, and now my esophogus is as good as new

(Thanks, UB.)
Nexium helped repair the radiation damage to my mom's esophagus. Of course BB really needs to be evaluated by a doctor to determine if there is any erosion. If not, something like Nexium may not necessary.

This website offers some suggestions for natural remedies and naturally-derived products:

http://coastherbal.com/intestinal_health1.htm

try gaviscon. It's a lifesaver.

Ben, I feel your pain man (or at least I used to). After years of suffering, puking acid & gulping down hand fulls of rolaids & tums (and later tagamet), I finally went under the knife to repair the screwed up check valve in my esophogus. The proceedure was done with laproscopic surgery and is called a nassen wrap (sp?). Not too bad really...only one night in the hospital & a coupla weeks on a diet. The real drag is I wound up with an ulcerated esophogus that could become cancerous from all those years of neglect. So the moral of the story is don't fool around and blow this off...new esophoguses are hard to come by!