Betaine Hcl + Pepsin+Bitters??? Anyone with experience???

I got off the PPIs slowly and after a week I started Betaine Hcl for LOW stomach acid. I followed the suggested quidelines on progressing the dosage, but never did get the upset stomach from too many capsules...but I got horrendous acid reflux again. Every time. Yesterday I only took one with a very low protein meal and got terrible reflux again. Today, I took none and feel pretty good! I give up. Your suggestion with the vinegar makes more sense to me now. Glad it worked for you. I haven't found apple cider vinegar in Germany, so I bought a jar of large green pickles (also with vinegar) and cut them up into a zip-lock bag to carry with me. They saved me today! Thanks for the tip about the vinegar. (My ENT doesn't believe any of this about acid reflux from low stomach acid. In 6 weeks he never gave me anything to help against it.) How right you are - I am so sick of being in constant pain. I just want my life back - if I have to eat pickles every day, so be it! They are much less expensive than all of this stuff I've been trying, which hasn't helped a bit!

I hope you continue to improve..wow hard to believe ya'll don't have acid cider vinegar..Mmmm...do yall have a canning section, where u can buy stuff to can yr own food? If so, it should be there..but if pickles work, hey, that's GREAT!! Take care..and stay healthy...

I will have a look in Reformhaus - a health food chain in Germany. Maybe they carry apple cider vinegar. I am definitely considering going "home" if I ever get back to half-way normal health. I have been very disappointed in lacking support from the doctors here. It's not been easy trying to find ways to get this under control on my own.

If they carry the organic, get that..hope it helps..I got better and my ENT appt was good..so afterwards i guess maybe 4 weeks I got off, well the clearing of throat and drainage is back so will probably get back on maybe like a few x a week regime now..I hate taking anything all the time..also be sure to rinse mouth 3x aftr taking. Vinegar not good for the teeth.. but as long as u rinse, you good..have a gr8t day!!

Terrie, 

​        Did you have bad globus, lump in the throat feeling and bad burning in your throat?  How many times a day did you do the apple cider vinegar in water?  Was it before every meal?  Thanks, Catherine

Catherine, o yes I did..at first no pain, just globus and horrible phglm. Clearing my throat constantly. And so my ENT put me on a Ppi. That is when I started really getting the pain and the burning in the horrible feeling all in my throat I even couldn't hardly breathe good it was just horrible. So I got off after a month of ppis and then it got excruciating but only a few times. As I kept up with my apple cider vinegar Regine. So I do that every morning and that was all and I went back to my ENT and he said it was good everything look good and I told him what I was doing expecting him to get upset with me but he didn't. He said that he had no problem with homeopathic help if it helped. So I continue to do that for a few months and then I got off of it because I hadn't had any more problems and so but now just here lately I'm getting the phlegm back in my throat again real bad and sometimes if I eat something spicy I can feel it in the back of my throat again so I'm going to start maybe every other day but yeah I use the organic though

yes I was tested 3 times before starting the Betaine Hcl - please read above. I wish you much luck with your treatment! I had a real hard time trying to get the dosage right und either noticed nothing at all OR I had bad reflux immediately after the meal. My inflamation is now somewhat better, less reflux, thank God, but I need to gain back 15+ Kilos that I've lost due to acid reflux. Most of my ordeal I couldn't eat much, but I didn't get any support from the doctors  here and I worried myself sick.

Good luck to you!

Same here, I lost a total of 65 in 4 years and now I'm slightly under weight. I can use 20 extra pounds right now. ;-)

Jose

God Bless!

I am so very sorry to hear about your weight loss! My God, I wonder how you can function! I am so underweight and with all of the inflamation, it's been very difficult for me to eat at all. What are your symptoms Jose? What are you taking/doing to try to help yourself? Any tips for me?

Good luck to you Jose, and all of us sufferers!

Are you going to continue increasing your dosage? I got up to 4 pills still with no warning sign from stomach - and immediately had terrible reflux right after finishing the meal, which I couldn't get rid of! I tried lowering the dose the following day, but also got burning reflux right away. I finally just gave up on the HCL altogether and still feel miserable - but no worse. Just trying apple cider vinegar before meals and baking soda afterwards. I want to try D-Limonene but am just so completely worn out from this nightmare, that I am afraid to start something else. Who knows what side-effects I'll get from that! Wishing you the best of luck - let us know how you are doing!

 Hi Suzired  I'm new to this forum. I was diagnosed with gastritis and Gerd in November 2017. The doctor put me on PPI's three weeks after I was released from hospital, I guess he thought the problem would resolved if I started eating bland food and staying away from alcohol. Anyways I went back to see him and he put me on a PPI which I've been on them for 3 1/2 weeks.  I think you said in one of your above messages that you took PPIs and they made you sick? In what way? I'm having an awful time with constipation and delayed gastric emptying. Constant nausea too. Just wondering if it is a side effect of the PPI?  I hope you feel better soon   

My experience with reflux came with a sore throat, then constant horrible chest pain (so bad that I had trouble breathing) and burning in my esophagus, throat, lump in throat (making it difficult to swallow), neck, entire mouth (teeth, gums, tongue, back & walls were red, swollen and on fire), my nose was constantly clogged up no matter what medicine I took..sinusitis. My eyes have been burning since the beginning of October and it has caused measurable loss of sight...and new glasses twice. Left ear was also full.  I had an endoscopy which showed that the stomach itself was okay, but the spfincter to the stomach fails to close AND I also have a hiatus hernia. They also told me that I only had MILD reflux! And I thought I was going to die every day from the pain.

Prescribed PPIs turned out to be terrible for me because they are for people with too much stomach acid - I have too little! Drs here never bothered to measure my ph-levels and I only learned about low stomach acid on the internet! Quit the PPIs, felt relief immediately. Tried Betain Hcl, but couldn't get the dosage figured out...had more reflux than before. I am completely exhausted from all of the pain and having lost so much weight. I am going to an alternative health doctor to see if maybe he can help to get me straightened out and half-way healthy again. I have not been able to enjoy one day of my retirement...

GOOD LUCK TO YOU - you might want to have your stomach acid measured to be sure that you don't have LOW!!

 

 Hi Again, I feel as though our stories are very similar. I am trying to come off the PPI's because I think they are making me worse (delayed gastric emptying and constipation) and everything just backs up and makes my reflux symptoms worse. Was that your experience as well? Also did you quit the PPI's cold turkey. How did that go? Did you experience acid rebound? I'm really struggling to keep weight on, as I have no appetite. I hope my lazy stomach isn't permanent from these drugs....your thoughts Suzired?

I skipped a day and took a PPI the next day, then I skipped 2 days. The next day, I quit. Thank God - they were causing all the inflammation from stomach to eyes and literally killing me. My throat inflammation and reflux immediately improved after getting off the PPIs! I then tried Betain Hcl as I have written somewhere in this post, but I couldn't get them regulated properly and had to give up. They must have been enough to boost my own production of stomach acid though...I'm only doing home remedies as necessary. My mouth, throat and sinusitis are still inflamed and the doctors here don't seem to care about my pain at all. I still haven't started gaining any weight back though and am very worried about that! I found a natural health practioner to try to get help - but it is very expensive and takes a long time for the methods to work...still keeping my fingers crossed. Good luck to you!

To resolve acid reflux problem you need to find out do the test with baking soda to see if you have LOW acid. This should be the case for most of the people.

The muscle the Sphincter is not closing because of LOW stomach acid. It is activate by acid to close.

Start using HCL with Pepsin and that should resolve the problem.

Others increased their acid level with APPLE CIDER vinegar or get one in capsuls and have it with your meal.

Haital hernia is overrated and usually means low acid is not closing your SPHINCTER.

take care and report your progress here so others learn.

KNOWLEDGE IS POWER