Natural Remedies for Acid Reflux Relief

WARNING!

Hello Erik from Pittsburgh,

Hopefully anyone intelligent enough to use the internet has enough intelligence to reject the idea if someone should be idiotic enough to recommend that they take strychnine or cyanide or some other poison! First off, I seriously doubt that anyone has written in recommending something that they haven't tried themselves.

I fully agree that these claims have not been evaluated by orthodox medicine studies or the FDA, but God forbid that I ever have to rely solely on the FDA's "GRAS" ratings or take every word spoken by a doctor as the gospel truth. But let's take a look at some of those that were. Remember the thalidomide that orthodox medical doctors prescribed for the normal nausea of pregnancy? How would you like to have been one of those infants born with severe deformities (the pictures of these babies, some with hands attached to shoulders instead of wrists because they had no arms or missing both arms and legs and worse) were heart breaking. I believe the FDA approved of this medication or at least passed it after taking the word of some doctor or doctors who performed a study paid for by the pharmaceutical company that produced it.

Or take a look at a more recent one called Viox. One of my aunts is one of those unlucky ones prescribed the latest thing for her arthritis pain - she has had a stroke, myocardial infarct, and a pacemaker implanted, thanks to this wonder drug that was supposedly FDA rated safe after the proper studies were done. This aunt had a lovely garden (vegetables) prior to this fiasco - I don't think she will ever be able to tend her garden again. I was raised to believe that pokeweed berries were poisonous, but after a very good friend and neighbor told me to take them for severe arthritis and she didn't back down when threatened with having to finish raising my 4 children if it killed me, I started taking them and am still taking them 40+ years later. I wouldn't be surprised to find that Viox was some substance isolated from pokeberries, and a synthetic version produced so it could be patented and make a fortune for the pharmaceutical company. I have come to the conclusion that one should never try to improve on God's product. I kept the "fail safe" by taking the pokeberries instead of a depleted synthetic version of what was found to be detrimental to the arthritis. Of course I had to work out how much and how often to take them myself, since she didn't know how her aunt took them. I do know that orthodox medicine was performing studies on pokeberries (as well as many other herbs/plants) since the 60's and 70's. We were told in a physiology lecture in l977 (at a prestigious southern medical school) "that we don't know why, but from a study we have going here, we know that pokeberries throws the immune system into gear to fight". I had already been taking them about l0 years at the time, so I just sat there & grinned. If you have a problem with herbs & plants, which I call "God's medicine", there is a wealth of information in the federal government's botanical data base, if you can find your way into it. If you can't find your way into it, James (Jim) Duke, retired PHD botanist, who amassed much of this information, has written a book titled "The Green Pharmacy" which is very informative. I own a couple of copies of it myself and have given some to my children.

Or how about the one (I forget the name) that was finally outlawed in this country after several years because too many of the ones taking it were developing irreversible blindness? The pharmaceutical company just continued selling it in other countries. This is not malpractice or neglect - it is criminal behavior secondary to greed!

I also find it amusing that many doctors are getting smart and passing up chemotherapy themselves when they develop cancer. Google Lorraine Day for a great & successful example of this.

If you are in the medical field, I am sorry if the job security is getting shaky, but I will have to "fess up" that I started taking vitamins, minerals, and supplements because I knew they worked. If I hadn't already been convinced of their effectiveness before, I would have been positive after seeing the AMA try to gain control of them by striving to make them available by "prescription" only and that prescription would have to be written by a doctor. Unfortunately Big Pharms and AMA haven't given up on this yet. Frankly, The FDA has been almost worthless and hasn't been earning the salaries that the taxpayer's money goes to pay over the past few decades. Apparently they find bigger money from lobbyists for the AMA and Big Pharm and court battles easier to win against the little guys who are selling us the vitaminsm, minerals & supplements.

It is way past time that the FDA admits that they goofed when they rated monosodium glutamate and aspartame "GRAS" but it may be too late to avoid many of us from developing Diabetes Mellitus, type 2, Parkinsons' disease, alzheimers and many other problems. I urge everyone to research these two toxins that permeate our foods and start fighting these in our foods, because the FDA is not going to do it. The latest thing I read on alzheimer's disease is that it is much more prevalent, striking at a younger age and in those without a genetic predisposition, than previously thought. That tells me that it is what they are putting in our food.

WARNING!

re: Untested Claims. Please take into account the claims that you are making have not been tested via prospective randomized controlled trials versus placebo and would not stand in court. If some one were to use your website and take its advice then have a true medical problem such as acid reflux which led to a GI bleed, then inplicated you for giving treatment advice without a medical practicioner's license you could woefully liable. Anectdotal evidence does not equal effective.

WARNING!

Someone on here asked about cough and reflux. My son had a chronic cough and was treated for asthma. He was in the worst category for asthma. He never had a wheeze. He just had a chronic cough. When he was finally diagnosed with reflux, he had developed Barrett's Oesophagous, a pre cancerous condition. Reflux causes asthma. The meds for asthma cause reflux. You see his problem. He had a laproscopic fundoplication operation which completely stopped reflux. He hasn't had asthma at all since. If you are coughing it could mean your reflux isn't under control. Chronic reflux isn't safe.