Heart Burn

Dr Turner,

I wanted to tell you about a natural cure that I found recently.

I have struggled with acid indigestion/sour stomach for almost 20 years now. Unfortunately, I must have inherited a bad digestion system from both sides of my family. I remember both sets of grandparents living off of Tums and Alka-Seltzer. Since my college years, I have tried to eat bland foods, refrain from eating hours before bedtime, and also kept Tums, Alka-Seltzer, and Rolaids in the house and eventually had Tagemet and then Prilosec.

As I mentioned at my appointment recently, I had started researching this and found that people were taking natural, unpasteurized apple cider vinegar to cure their own stomach problems. At first, I was not only skeptical, but downright doubtful since taking an acid to relieve and acid problem seem contradictory. Luckily, I kept investigating and decided to finally try it. I followed what appears to be a common method by many people for several weeks. That common method seems to be a couple of tablespoons twice a day or a bit less before each meal. The two main sites that gave me the most information about this are below:

A natural way to treat heartburn is with apple cider vinegar; a tablespoon twice a day. it can be mixed with honey and hot water, taken in juice, taken alone, etc. the following article gives good reasons not to take pharmaceuticals chronically for heartburn.

The results are nothing short of amazing for me. I feel like I have what I would consider a normal digestion system now. Of course, I get some acid indigestion once in a while, but nothing like the burning, acid-induce pain on a daily basis. I even eat Mexican without fear! Totally changed this area of my life to the point that I no longer take OTC or prescribed medications. When I do have a little indigestion, I take activated charcoal and that nearly always clears up the discomfort.

I would recommend this to anyone, at least to try it for a while. There are many ways you can ‘doctor’ up the ACV so that it’s much more palatable (honey, on salads, and even in apple juice). I don’t take nearly as much as I did before, but I like to continue taking it because ACV has so many other benefits, as well.