How do I eat healthy with GERD? Help!

How long have you been on your weight loss journey? I had severe Acid reflux disease with symptoms of GERD also....I was sick all the time and throwing up acid from my stomach. Changing my diet to clean healthy foods, no sugary drinks and nothing fried, has completely reversed my problem. I'm a little over 4 month into my journey and down 61 lbs.

You are a perfect candidate for an elimination diet. Take all those possible triggers you have researched and eliminate them from your diet for a couple of weeks. Assuming you are feeling better, start reintroducing foods, one at a time, with a day or two back in the strict diet in between. It should be clear what your personal triggers are, rather than trying to restrict all possible triggers.

I had to literally drop to one food and then add foods one at a time. It was boring and frustrating, but I have identified my worst triggers. I can still get heartburn for no apparent reason (eating foods that didn't cause it previously).

I hope you are seeing a gastroenterologist. I hope you have been tested for H. Pylori. I hope you have an upper GI scheduled to look for possible hernia, ulcer, etc. I hope you can try different medications and doses to find the one that works best for you.

The basic eliminations (as I remember) are chocolate, peppermint, coffee, caffeine, carbonated beverages, tomato, citrus fruits, saturated fats, peppers, onions, spicy food, fried food. This approach was unsuccessful for me, which is why I eventually went down to one food.

Also recommended is raising the head of your bed (I bought a wedge), not eating for the 3 hours before bedtime, eating small meals, eating at a table and not reclining after meals, losing weight if you are overweight, not wearing tight clothes.

I really did have to change the way I cooked and ate. But, on the plus side, I was lucky that chocolate isn't a trigger for me. Dodged that one!

You can add me as a friend if you want. I truly get your frustration.

I found since I started drinking a 300ml bottle of diet ginger ale with lunch and dinner my reflux disappeared. Totally unexpected and I only started drinking it because I found I liked the taste and was looking for something different to drink. It wasn't till about 2 months after I started drinking it that I realised I hadn't had reflux in ages.
It's probably just me though as my daughter tried but it didn't help her 😔

Edit.. It has to be Schweppes 300ml diet ginger ale.. it's super gassy.

It's been 3 years now..

springlering62 wrote: »

I sincerely believe reflux is weight related. I could tell you almost to the pound when it would flare up, and when I’d get under that threshold, the symptoms would lighten up or go away.

I believe you meant to say "I sincerely believe MY reflux is weight related" rather than generalize for everyone.

Reflux and GERD have many causes, weight being one of them. I was just on the border of normal and overweight BMI when my GERD was diagnosed. Weight loss was never part of my care plan. I have met people who vary from underweight to obese with GERD. My sister, who is obese, was given meds but not given further testing (probably because the doctor assumed it was a weight related issue). 15 years later when being examed for a different issue, they found her stomach was herniated. She could have been saved from 15 years of pain and meds if someone had looked for that initially.

I developed GERD postpartum (not during and never had it before). I was also 40-50lbs overweight. Now that I’m pre-pregnancy weight, it’s virtually gone. That being said I’ve found that up’ing my dairy (especially in combination of acidic foods like tomatoes) and eating more bananas especially (I actually eat 2 per day now) has helped tremendously in the process. I also take a quality probiotic containing specifically rhamnosus (there are studies for and against probiotics being helpful but I’ll take my chances). When the GERD was at its’ worst I went on basically a BRAT diet for a month until things calmed down. Then I slowly started working in new foods to see how I would react, in addition to the dairy and bananas. Yea it sucks, but the pain of eating the wrong foods was way worse to me than eating really plain for a while. Honestly, I was more scared to eat than anything else in the beginning because the pain was that bad.

I do take some preventative measures now, even though I haven’t experienced any symptoms in the past 8 months. When I happen to eat right before bed or eat something that may be a trigger, I prop myself up to sleep on an extra pillow or two so I’m not laying flat. I also never drink alcohol anymore (that was my trigger twice when it was at its worst) or eat really spicy foods. On the other hand, I can still eat pickles or have moderate amounts of vinegar. (Even though at one point vinegar was a huge NO-NO for me). I’ve also stopped drinking coffee and I eat small meals every 3 hours.

This was a purely anecdotal account, GERD is extremely individual. Some don’t have enough acid, some have too much acid. Each trigger is going to be different for each person and it’s worth mentioning I know plenty of “thin” people with GERD (losing weight isn’t a cure in every case). Dairy helped me, but I know some with reflux and GERD who can’t handle any dairy. It’s so so SO important to work with your doctor about this issue. It’s not one to take lightly or trust the advice of strangers on the internet. Please take everything here with a grain of salt. Hope you feel better soon.