Downhill?

How little we knew, and what made things go downhill...

Around age 30 I started experiencing heartburn because of stomach acid, which I remedied using antacids. These antacids are, even still today, advertised as the ultimate remedy against heartburn. At the time I was not aware this had the opposite effect. Only at a much later date I learned why...

Located at the junction between the esophagus and the stomach, the lower esophageal sphincter is critical in preventing stomach acid and digestive enzymes from flowing back into the esophagus. When it does flow back, it causes what we experience as heartburn. The sphincter reacts to the acidity of the stomach contents. Is the acidity around a pH of 3, then it closes like a valve. To make sure the acidity gets high enough taking Betaine Hydrochloride and/or Apple Cider Vinegar can help remedy this. Thanks must go out to Dr Berg for helping me gather this knowledge.

You can imagine stomach acid being too alkaline can have a number of other side effects. Not having a proper acidity causes your food not to digest properly, and in turn causes a lack of number of nutrients. In my case the alkaline character of my stomach contents caused overgrowth of Helicobacter Pylori bacteria, which is present in anybody's stomach. When the number of these grow too high, they can cause ulcers, which resulted in my ulcer developing. Whenever I got a empty stomach the ulcer would get touched by the other wall of my stomach, causing a pain attack to happen.

As much as three attempts were made to get rid of the cause of that ulcer, This was done by fighting H. Pylori with heavy antibiotics combined with stomach protectors. (So-called proton pump inhibitors, in other words, putting a break on your production of acid) for periods of three weeks. As the word states, AntiBIOtics kills off biotics. This means also the good bacteria in the stomach, the small intestines as well as in the large intestines are being sacrificed in the process. Again, still unaware...

All this made things worse, and I kept walking around with a ulcer which sometimes gave me pain attacks. Those were easily fixed by simply drinking some water, but still, I couldn't get it fixed properly. Eventually I gave up and learned to live with it.