Coming off Nexium...or at least trying to

[starfire]

I'd love to try that but am afraid it will make the reflux worse which I can't chance right now. It's so hard to know what to do (even when to stop doing something).

I do appreciate this board so very much. You are right, Gabe, it's a huge help and I'm really glad it has helped you.

Love, Shirley

[mzh]

I hear you, Shirley. I'd like to try the niacin but another trial is scary to me. It's a shame most of us have only so-so GI docs.

[starfire]

Not just GI's. I think most of the ones I've had are so-so no matter what the title.

Love, Shirley

[tex]

Marcia,

Is this what you're looking for?

Fifty to sixty percent of patients with symptoms of chronic or recurrent discomfort concentrated at the upper abdomen can be diagnosed with what is termed functional dyspepsia or nonulcer dyspepsia (NUD). Other symptoms include belching, bloating, heartburn, nausea or vomiting. Insufficient stomach acid, a condition known as hy-pochlorhydria, might be responsible for the symptoms of NUD.

Based on these two reports, a non-sustained release preparation of niacin appears to be safe and potentially curative for the treatment of NUD if, in fact, it is associated with hypochlorhydria.

http://orthomolecular.org/library/jom/2 ... 3-p163.pdf

Consider this:

For many years, hypochlorhydria was a condition doctors could only suspect but not diagnose — except with lab tests so difficult to administer, it was easier to rationalize not making the diagnosis and not treating the illness. This test involved shoving a tube down the esophagus and periodically suctioning out the stomach contents after a meal, so the acidity of those contents could be measured.

So, doctors rationalized a point of view that the disorder is not worth treating. Therefore, medical students were taught to ignore symptoms of hypochlorhydria, because the necessary test to make the diagnosis was more difficult for the patient than the disorder itself. Medical students do believe what their med school professors tell them, and this led to a generation of doctors unwilling to further examine the problem of hypochlorhydria.

However, that situation began to change in the late 1960s with the invention of the Heidelberg machine. This elegant (but expensive) device involves swallowing a capsule about the size of a vitamin capsule. This capsule is an acid-measuring radio telemetry device. It measures the acidity of the stomach and radios the results to an antenna which the patient wears like a large belt around the waist during this one- to two-hour test. While the telemetry capsule is in the stomach, we challenge the stomach's ability to make acid by having the subject swallow a teaspoon of water saturated with sodium bicarbonate. If the stomach is normal, we can see the acidity return to the stomach. If the stomach is unable to withstand five of these challenges, we know we are dealing with hypochlorhydria. The ability to diagnose hypochlorhydria is a wonderful advance in medicine, one which too few doctors are taking advantage of due to the party line that hypochlorhydria is not worth treating.

Many people who have too little stomach acid are being treated as if they have too much. The reason for this is that the symptoms are similar. Because ten to fifteen percent of the population is hypochlorhydric, there are many people out there who are being misdiagnosed and mistreated. A full fifty percent of people over age 60 are hypochlorhydric and, of all the patients coming to a doctor, up to fifty percent of these have underlying hypochlorhydria. The image of the overactive stomach is so common, many people are treating themselves with antacids without even bothering to consults their physicians.

Some people with hypochlorhydria report that food seems to sit in the stomach far too long after a meal. Others say they can eat only a small amount of food before feeling full. Still others are constipated while others have diarrhea. Many have no symptoms referable to the digestive tract.

That is not to say that they have no symptoms, however, because the number of non-intestinal disorders which are associated with hypochlorhydria is truly astounding. Because these diseases can be helped by nutritional means, it is reasonable to consider them nutritional in origin. Here is a list of those diseases associated with hypochlorhydria:

Allergies

Chronic fatigue

Autoimmune Diseases

Weak nails

Thyroid disorders

Dry skin

Diabetes mellitus

Poor night vision

Gallbladder disease

Hypoglycemia

Asthma

Weak Adrenals

Vitiligo

Rheumatic arthritis

Acne rosacea

Lupus erythematosis

Chronic hepatitis


Given the commonness of the problem, I believe anyone with any of the symptoms or conditions above should have a Heidelberg test or a test trial on hydrochloric acid supplementation. While the Heidelberg test is rather expensive (at present $175), it more than pays for itself when the proper diagnosis is made.

http://www.medical-library.net/hypochlorhydria.html

Tex

[mzh]

I appreciate your looking for that for me, Tex. I did see that - it was the one I got the niacin info from in an earlier post I made today. I'm looking for formal studies that will sway or persuade a typical doctor into our way of thinking - i.e., that hypochlorhydria exists and that more acid is better for you, not terrible for you.

I would love a Heidelberg but my GI looked at me like I was from another planet when I asked him about doing that. He probably wishes I'd find another GI doc! I'm looking and looking and looking....

[tex]

I'm looking for formal studies that will sway or persuade a typical doctor into our way of thinking - i.e., that hypochlorhydria exists and that more acid is better for you, not terrible for you.

I doubt that you will find that type of documentation, because the drug companies are not likely to fund a double-blind random test of that sort, since Betaine HCL is a remedy, and it's so cheap, and it's available OTC, so there's no way they could develop a drug to compete with it. No one else is likely to spend the money, either, for an issue without a fatal prognosis.

Tex

[mzh]

No wonder I can't find anything. I would sure feel better about using the Bet HCl if I could.

It could conceivably be fatal if one develops full-fledged Barrett's but low acid will never be connected to that. Luckily, most cases of focal Barrett's, which I have, never turn malignant.