I like Tums. Is it bad that I am 26 and have heartburn? Probably. Well, thank God for Tums. Yesterday was terrible and I have no idea why (well, yeah I do). Following a weekend filled with beer, junk food, movie theater popcorn, a bucket of soda, and a Pat's Cheesesteak, I had a bagel, coffee, leftover ziti and a few glasses of tea throughout the day. Okay, I know exactly why I had heartburn.And of course, when the burning hit its highest point, there were no Tums to be found. We ran out. Sometimes you truly don't realize how much you like something until it's gone. (Kind of like Parking) I'm used to always having a bottle on hand. Even my girlfriend knows to carry them in her purse when we have a day of beer consumption ahead of us. But yesterday I was left with no relief and even tried to take an Altoid to help. No dice.
Finally, I made it home and threw back about 4 or 5 of those chalky gifts from heaven. Even the fact that my power was out couldn't dampen my euphoria from the relief. If anyone has any suggestions for helping me curb the heartburn, aside from stronger Tums, I'm all ears. The only answer I won't accept is, "Drink less beer."
locke - i've had crippling heartburn since about 19, definitely before then too, but that's when it started to get really bad. everything on your list was a killer for me (and a killer because they are all so good!): beer, anything with tomatoes, greasy foods, tea, coffee, bananas (?), juice, wings, sh!t - even a bottle of water in the morning gave me heartburn. i'd take tums sometimes or just try to tough it out. but even if you take tums there's nothing worse than eating a couple, then drinking a beer. you might as well just drink carbon dioxide.
ReplyDeletefinally sucked it up when I was in my early 20s and went to the doctor. turns out i have GERD which is actually a pretty serious thing if you don't treat it. and treating it means you don't get heartburn anymore, so it's a win win if that makes sense. i take prilosec every morning and have ZERO heartburn. i could drink a bottle of tabasco sauce and be fine. I tried a couple other medicines, this worked the best and it's over the counter which is good if you're like me and forget to refill your prescriptions.
can't give you better advice than to go to your doctor and get it checked out, it'll take 1, possibly 2 visits depending on whether or not they send you for an upper GI, which is just them making you drink some crap and taking xrays of your stomach - not the lower GI - that's the bad one. it completely changed my life. i can eat or drink anything. and as you say - the last thing i was going to accept was "drink less beer"... haha.
btw - altoids are one of the worst things for me, it's one of very few things that still gives me the slightest bit of heartburn, can't really think of anything else off the top of my head besides red bull. if i drank a red bull and then had an altoid, i'd actually pray that someone just shoved a knife in my chest because it would probably hurt less.
anyway, hopefully you take my sage advice (i'm almost 30 now... haha) and don't do what i did with most minor ailments in my early to mid 20s, which was ignore them and don't see the doctor. or have some weird issue with taking a pill every day. it takes about 2 seconds of your time in the morning, certainly worth the upside.
good luck! email me if you want more info! i'm also an expert in migraines and allergies. haha.