Heartburn, aka acid reflux symptoms vary in severity and from person to person, big time. You may have even had acid reflux before and didn’t realize it.
A bad meal or a stressful day can cause heartburn every once in a while. But, if you suffer from chronic acid reflux, it's the worst and could be a serious health concern! Getting to the root issue is key, rather than covering up the symptoms with over the counter drugs which can do more harm than good (Zantac recall).
Heartburn, indigestion, and acid reflux all refer to the same thing – the burning feeling you get when acid from your stomach comes up into your esophagus. “Up” is the wrong direction for digestive fluids.
But stomach acid is a good thing. Your stomach secretes it on purpose to help you digest your food, but when production is too high or too low that's when things can get uncomfortable.
It seems logical that if you feel burning, there must be way too much acid. Turns out, most acid reflux is not from too much acid in your stomach, but too little.
There’s a bundle of muscles that keeps the contents of your stomach from bubbling back up. These muscles release when there’s no food in your stomach (so, little to no acid), and tighten when you’re producing acid to help keep your food in your stomach where it can digest. When you don’t have enough stomach acid to digest your food, your body gets confused. The muscles release and stomach contents climb up into the esophagus - ouch.
This is when the situation feels desperate and you run for a pill, but how about next time you consider increasing your stomach acid instead - feels counterintuitive, I know but think long term, what if that pill was actually making things worse by not addressing the real problem? Ever!
A shot of apple cider vinegar before meals increases the acidity in your stomach. It also contains prebiotics which help balance your gut microbiome and keeps H. pylori in check.
A soothing digestive for heartburn, upset stomach, nausea, bloating and stomach cramps. Remember, essential oils are bactericidal, a drop or two can prove effective against the bacteria that we don't want in our gut and at the same time, protect the good bacteria. Unlike over the counter remedies, it's impossible to develop resistance to essential oils - the little natural wonders that they are.
Add 1 drop of CW Digest Ease Blend to 2 T organic apple cider vinegar (w/the mother) before a meal to increase stomach acidity and help balance your gut microbiome.
One more thing! You may have heard that probiotics will balance the bacteria in your gut, well they can BUT, most probiotics on the market contain fewer than 24 different strains of good gut bacteria, actually, that's not enough, the gut needs much more diversity to thrive and become resilient to the gut detrimental effects of glyphosate in our food. If you're eating gmo (genetically modified food) you're battling the effects of glyphosate in your gut, guaranteed.
Gut health is your immunity! To keep immunity strong we have to be conscious of what we're eating. While my diet is far from perfect I am aware of the importance of this issue! We're huge advocates for a product called IOM, created by Dr. Zach Bush, a triple board certified physician, to protect our gut lining through the onslaught of modern living. I'd encourage everyone to read his work!
