Reflux Management: From Gum to Water, My Unexpected Journey

Introduction: The Rollercoaster of Reflux

Reflux is the gift that keeps on giving. Thankfully, at least, I’ve stayed convinced that I can and will fully heal. And I’ve come tantalizingly close several times over the last three years, only to have one frustrating thing after another set me right back. Reflux has been the ultimate non-stop roller coaster ride, of the not fun variety. However, I have learned, and try to share, numerous valuable lessons along the way.  I still believe healing is possible for most people (just try to avoid the many mistakes I’ve made).

With each major or minor setback, I’ve become all the more determined to double down on the techniques that the best reflux experts in the world have told me should work. I’ve adopted an ever stricter and now the same diet every day (because trying new foods that were supposedly “compliant” cost me over a year of regular setbacks), eating more and more hours before going to sleep (now about 6.5 hours earlier), eating smaller and smaller dinners (I’ve struggled with this one as a distance runner), sleeping sitting straight up for over two years (this was also a struggle for nearly a year after my initial diagnosis until I found, after spending thousands of dollars on pillows alone, and a few more on used and finally new adjustable beds, the perfect sleep set up), and many more difficult lifestyle changes. 

Although reflux has ultimately, so far, persisted, I have also persisted. I still believe in the power of my otherwise very healthy body to heal. 

The Summer RV Adventure: Elevation and Yet Another Significant Reflux Setback

We spent this summer traveling around the country in our RV with our three cats. I’ll have to write another post detailing exactly how and scientifically why elevation clearly made my reflux much worse. I don’t think there’s a solution to that problem besides going back down. So one month in Colorado caused another bad setback, right when I was on the verge of starting another pepcid taper, from which I only started to finally recover in mid-July after we left Colorado (it’s September now). 

Chewing Gum: Maybe A Promising Reflux Solution (?) But With Hidden Consequences

As a direct result of that unexpected reflux worsening, I decided to start chewing a lot of gum again. A couple of leading reflux experts recommended chewing gum. But early in my reflux journey, most gum (and lozenges, an alternative they also recommended) caused immediate symptoms because of various ingredients known to worsen reflux (you have to wonder why docs so casually recommend random products that have known problems when you really dig deep into the science). 

The Quest for the Perfect Reflux Gum

At one point last year, I found a baking soda gum that didn’t cause immediate symptoms and would sometimes eliminate the slightly painful gas feeling coming into my mouth and throat after some meals. I was really upset when that gum became totally unavailable all over the Internet. I actually ordered and paid for that gum from several scam companies that never sent the gum (not the one linked above; can’t vouch for them however because I never tried ordering from them). And I kept trying other similar companies because I was so desperate for that specific gum. I even emailed the manufacturer several times and they never replied. So I finally had to give up on that gum. 

However, right after my elevation induced reflux worsening, the company that makes reflux gourmet (link to Amazon) (which I take before every run, before sleeping every night, then as needed after other meals) came out with their own gum (link to Amazon). I was thrilled, despite the price of over $20 for a pack of gum, immediately ordered two packages. Once the package arrived, and I bit into the first piece, I was also really thankful that it had a similar effect to the gum I struggled to reorder for many months the year before. No immediate symptoms but instead immediate relief. Score one for the reflux sufferers team.

Reflux Gum Overload

So what’s a girl to do? Of course, if you’re as obsessed with healing as I’ve been for over three years, you order many more packages of this gum. I was chewing whenever everything else I’m taking wasn’t working. I started chewing gum in addition to the reflux gourmet that I was taking before my run. Chewing again after dinner, sometimes several pieces. And this continued for months. 

However, I’m not sure how long after I started, and I made no connection, but I’m guessing about six weeks ago, I started having a horrible symptom that I’d never had before. This is really complicated to explain. But I’ve identified that pepcid causes anxiety in me. I know because the pretty severe symptoms start right after I take pepcid (sweating, tremors, feeling highly anxious). And those feelings have always stopped the few times I’ve managed to taper off pepcid (my desperate goal because pepcid, together with my extremely limited diet and distance running, has caused numerous severe nutritional deficiency symptoms, which have been difficult to treat). 

I had NO anxiety whatsoever before I started taking pepcid.

But this pre-existing pepcid-induced anxiety suddenly became FAR worse. The anxiety started causing a very severe reaction as I was falling asleep: reflux was rushing up, and causing me to gasp, every single night. This “rushing up” was causing me to feel acid in my mouth every night leading to severe dry mouth by morning – something I had only experienced a couple of times in two years. Now it was happening at least once and often multiple times as I was trying to fall asleep, every night. And sometimes overnight, this traumatic rush of acid would happen again, and startle me awake. 

This was a horrible experience that caused heart palpitations and woke me up completely, meaning there was no hope of sleep, regardless of how tired I had been before this happened. This would also reverse any and all healing progress made that day, cause my mouth, throat and tongue to hurt the next morning, and basically I knew for sure that I would never get better, unless I could stop this. The valve has to heal with no reflux or there’s no getting better, ever. That would mean there would be no stopping pepcid and getting back my normal, previously very healthy lifestyle.

And, side note, I’ve been so worried about my teeth through this horrible ordeal. A mouth full of acid cannot be made tooth friendly.

I have been assuming that this substantial worsening was caused by the known anxiety, caused by pepcid, getting far worse. 

But last week I started wondering whether these symptoms were, instead, the reflux itself getting worse. Then, in turn, the worse reflux was making the pre-existing pepcid\-induced anxiety much worse. (If you have reflux, you know these things are impossible to explain to anyone who doesn’t also have reflux, which is very upsetting and isolating.)  So I started eating even smaller and earlier dinners, but that didn’t help. I have been genuinely hungry so many nights. I guess I’ve adapted to less food (you have to find your sweet spot). But I was cutting back more than I could comfortably handle as far as hunger, and that made no difference. 

I have been telling my husband for two months that I’m in a severe medical crisis.  As usual, he can’t see it and feels completely helpless.

Reflux Turning Point Number ???

So I started thinking about one of the many gastro docs, who also recommended gum for reflux, but told me that gum can cause the bloating that was bothering me at the time. My stomach clearly gets bloated from both reflux gourmet and the gum. And I’ve been chewing a lot more gum since the elevation worsening ordeal, trying everything in my effort to get better again. 

A Serendipitous Discovery: The First Day I Cut Back My Gum Chewing & The Game Changing Night

Then the day before yesterday, I decided only to chew gum during my run. I have symptoms when running unless I take RG and chew the gum. But I forced myself not to chew any gum for the rest of the day or night before bed. Last night, for the first time in about 6-8 weeks, the rushing up was milder to the point that it almost didn’t happen. 

However, since it still happened (albeit milder), yesterday I decided not to chew gum even during my run. At that point, I needed to know what effect no gum at all might have. 

The Alkaline Water Reflux Alternative

I’ve had countless hours of discussions with AI about possible reflux causes & cures. AI suggested that I drink water during my run, instead of chewing gum. I’m already a huge fan of alkaline water for reflux (studies have shown that alkaline water has no negative effect on the gut microbiome, plus regular water causes me to have mild throat irritation). So I decided to try to replace the gum chewing with regular alkaline water sips during my run. And it worked! It wasn’t perfect, I had the very slightest reflux feeling periodically during the first 30 min of my run. But it was pretty close to perfect, and I knew that the alkaline water would offset any damage done by that very slight (almost imperceptible) reflux effect. 

The Game Changing Night After NO GUM For Reflux During The Day

I went through the rest of the day without any gum. Then was the big test. I laid down to sleep. This horrible, horrible feeling I’ve had, for which even my own longtime therapist has gaslit me to the point that I’ve at least temporarily stopped therapy, stopped! It was gone! 

This was PLENTY enough evidence to convince me, beyond the shadow of a doubt, that the gum I have been so consistently chewing for relief, was causing bloating, which was putting pressure on my stomach and the valve. I was chewing so much that my body couldn’t even begin to heal. That was pushing on the very little contents of my stomach at bedtime, causing worsening anxiety because the reflux effect was so intense, and causing this rushing up of acid into my mouth every night. Hopefully any persistent damage is fully repairable.

I’m also starting to wonder about the Reflux Gourmet (which is a sodium alginate gel that expands at the top of the stomach, preventing some acid from coming up, but also causing bloating). I’m not stopping that now. But I did take a little less last night, just in case that was somehow contributing to the bloat (usually I take two overflowing teaspoons, last night only one overflowing and one regular teaspoon). I might try very slowly decreasing my nightly dose. 

But now I hope this discovery will help me, once again, get me to the holy grail of stopping pepcid, and eventually expanding my diet. 

Best Products For Drinking And Spraying Alkaline Water For Reflux

I cannot more highly recommend my absolute FAVORITE alkaline water filter (link to Amazon). I discovered this brand from a plant-based doctor who was raving about all of the benefits. And you can really, really taste the difference in the purity, plus the alkaline is really necessary for those who have reflux. At least for me, alkaline water has not been a cure.  But drinking it regularly seems to speed up my healing overall (until I get another setback usually from a known cause – it’s very hard to stay perfect with reflux).

(If you buy the Aquatru countertop water filter, you are going to want the sliding tray, which makes it MUCH easier to move around your countertop for refilling and pouring.)

(Also, whenever I woke up with this rushing up acid, I immediately took a drink of my alkaline water, actually from my favorite water bottle, which is easy to keep closed right on my nightstand, doesn’t break when dropped in the middle of the night, and is easy to carry on my runs, and swished the water hard all around my mouth to clean my teeth before swallowing, in the hopes of limiting the damage done to my esophagus and the valve.  I also used this glass spray bottle (Amazon link) to spray the alkaline water in the back of my throat – important  according to the reflux expert doc, because, when you drink the alkaline water, there is a spot in the back of your throat that drinking water will not reach. I tried several other spray bottles including a smaller glass bottle (which I didn’t like because the spray wasn’t strong and broad enough), and several plastic spray bottles (which I hated because they had funky smells and tastes despite a lot of cleaning attempts).

We finally bought this alkaline water filter after almost a year of paying for expensive, bottled alkaline water.  (And this was my second filter – the first water pitcher alkaline filter, recommended by the reflux expert doc, was terrible and the water tasted gross.)  This (Amazon link) is the highest quality filter, actually the first countertop reverse osmosis system, which creates the perfect alkaline water (this same brand of water filters offers a regular pH water filter if you want). This water filter is one of my very favorite things. The water is truly perfect and I love drinking it. 

If you’re not ready to invest in an expensive filter, Evamor is my favorite alkaline water by the bottle (I spent way more on many brands of alkaline water bottles than the filter before I finally bought the filter; Evamor tasted the best). 

I’m trying to decide whether I can still recommend this gum. Maybe I just went overboard? I am very obsessive and was probably chewing 6-8 pieces per day. Plus I would chew them for long periods, like 30 minutes during my run. I know that gum can help right after meals. If you want to try gum, I would suggest only chewing for 10-15 min (minimum duration recommended by reflux expert MD), and maybe only after dinner (to limit the bloating effect). Then stay aware of the possibility that the gum could cause bloating (and gastro doc said that chewing gum also causes your digestion to slow, because of the air in your stomach, which can cause both constipation and reflux). And, taken to the extreme, that bloating does appear to have the possibility of causing severe reflux symptoms at night, even if you’re doing everything else perfectly. 

The Science Behind My Reflux, Chewing Gum, Alkaline Water Experience

Chewing Gum and Reflux

1. Saliva Production:
   • Chewing gum stimulates saliva production, which can help neutralize stomach acid.
   • Saliva contains bicarbonate, which acts as a natural antacid.
2. Swallowing Frequency:
   • Increased swallowing while chewing gum can help clear acid from the esophagus.
3. Potential Drawbacks:
   • Excessive air swallowing (aerophagia) can lead to bloating and increased intra-abdominal pressure.
   • This pressure may compromise the lower esophageal sphincter (LES) function, potentially worsening reflux.

Alkaline Water and Reflux

1. pH Balance:
   • Alkaline water (typically pH 8.8 or higher) may help neutralize stomach acid.
   • A study published in the Annals of Otology, Rhinology & Laryngology (2012) found that alkaline water with a pH of 8.8 can inactivate pepsin, a digestive enzyme involved in reflux.
2. Hydration Benefits:
   • Proper hydration can help maintain the mucus lining of the esophagus, potentially offering protection against acid.
3. Timing Considerations:
   • Drinking water during exercise, as you’ve found helpful, may dilute stomach acid and provide temporary relief.

Elevation and Reflux

1. Atmospheric Pressure:
   • Lower atmospheric pressure at higher elevations may allow for easier expansion of gases in the digestive system.
   • This could potentially lead to increased bloating and reflux symptoms.
2. Physical Exertion:
   • Increased physical activity at higher elevations might exacerbate reflux in some individuals.

The Role of Bloating in Reflux

1. Intra-abdominal Pressure:
   • Bloating increases pressure within the abdomen.
   • This elevated pressure can push stomach contents upward, potentially compromising the LES.
2. Delayed Gastric Emptying:
   • Bloating may slow gastric emptying, increasing the likelihood of reflux.

Individualized Responses

Reflux management can be highly individualized. What works for one person may not work for another. I’ve learned through the school of reflux hard knocks that you need profound self-awareness, and a good fit of knowledge and luck, to begin healing from reflux.  I know that healing is possible because I’ve done it a few times.  But I’ve had one setback after another (caused mostly by different foods, supplements and medications), after tapering from pepcid several times successfully, and this blog is my attempt at sharing my lessons learned and ongoing journey of healing with others.

Conclusion: Bridging Personal Experience and Scientific Understanding

While my journey with reflux has been deeply personal, it’s reassuring to see that many of my experiences align with scientific understanding. The complex interplay between gum chewing, alkaline water consumption, elevation changes, and bloating in reflux management underscores the need for a holistic and personalized approach to treatment.

As we continue to learn more about reflux, we must remain open to new insights and, above ALL else, including whatever any doctor might tell us, listen to our bodies. By sharing our experiences and staying informed about the latest research, we can work towards better management strategies for this challenging condition.

So what about you? What has been your gum chewing experience? And have you tried alkaline water? 

Wherever you are on your reflux journey, I truly wish you the best in health and healing from this terrible condition.