About Me:
I am the happily married 40+ year old mom of 3 children. Two high school girls and a boy in middle school, and a cat! We are very busy. I stay home with the kids, dad is a teacher. I was born and raised in the US, and my husband moved here at the age of 6 from the Philippines. I have many interests, one of them is eating! I love food. I also really like exercise. My favorite kind of exercise is hiking, biking, martial arts, and surfing. I am not particularly good at any of them, but I like doing them.
Me and heartburn:
A few years ago, I started to get ear aches, head aches, and sore throats often. I would also sometimes have a hard time breathing. I thought these problems were allergies, or sinus infections. I went to urgent care several times, and the antibiotics didn't help. I finally went to see an internist, and right off the bat, she new exactly what my problems were. My headaches were from a neck problem I had, but all the other problems were related to acid reflux. The ear aches, sore throats, and asthma were all from something called atypical GERD (GastroEsophageal Reflux Disease - heart burn). In other words, it was atypical, because I didn't feel heartburn like everyone else. Instead I would have these other symptoms. It was a relief to know what my real problems were, because before I thought I was imagining it.
She gave me a list of foods that I could not eat. I just looked at the list and laughed. There was no way I was going to follow that list. It said no tomatoes, no spicy food, no citrus, no chocolate, and other things. How can a person live without tomatoes, and spicy food. My favorite food is Indian Food. It is very spicy. My doctor is also from India, so I was hoping for a little sympathy, but she just told me to do it. I didn't even try to follow it. I still had the problems, but I got an inhaler for the asthma, and just lived with the ear aches and sore throats. Then I went back a year later for my check up, and she told me that she was going to do more tests on my heartburn. It was discovered that I had a hiatal hernia. That is when part of your stomach squeezes into the area above the diaphragm, in my case it made it so that the LES (lower esophageal sphincter) doesn't close when it is supposed to, so acid goes into my esophagus often. When it does, it burns it. This can lead to damage to the esophagus, and over time in severe cases, it can lead to esophageal cancer.
Once she told me this, and I did some research, I realized that I had to buckle down and make some real changes in my life. A Path of No Heartburn Return. I am still new on this path, and I am learning a lot. I have been on the path since about January of 2015. I have learned a lot, and I still have a lot to learn. The purpose of this blog is to help keep track of things that have helped me, and record what has worked, and what hasn't. It has also resulted in some great surprises along the way as well. I have also lost some weight, so that may help some people as well.
I hope this blog will be helpful to you. I have no medical or nutritional education. I am just recording what I am learning and trying, so please talk to your doctor before you do anything, and if you like something here, use it, if you don't, skip it. Thanks! Emac
