I am continually amazed at the number of people that suffer from acid indigestion and don’t know what’s causing their discomfort. I’ll let you in on a secret. Your pain is trying to tell you something. And if you choose to ignore it, it could lead to additional health problems down the road. Most people think their heartburn is just too much acid in their stomach. But that is not always the case.
If your indigestion could talk, here is what it would be telling you.
Suppressing the Symptoms of Acid Indigestion
People who suffer from acid indigestion and are quick to tell you what causes their pain. They claim it’s the tomato sauce from dinner last night or the hot wings and beer they ate while watching the game. Their doctors tell them to stay away from spicy and acidic foods.
The conventional approach to relieving symptoms is to suppress the acid with drugs. But this only provides temporary relief. It doesn’t address the underlying cause of the problem.
The real reason for indigestion is your digestive tract is inflamed. Those spicy foods are only aggravating the tissues involved. Your body needs acid to digest food and kill pathogens to keep your digestive tract healthy.
Those pathogens cause more inflammation, which leads to more severe heartburn. So spicy foods aren’t necessarily the problem. They are only a symptom.
The Underlying Cause of Acid Indigestion
The real cause of your symptoms is the suppression of acid in our digestive tract. Most likely, something is aggravating your gastrointestinal tract. It’s not allowing you to process certain types of food. Something is hindering your healthy digestion. It’s getting in the way of producing the necessary acids and gastric juices needed to digest food.
When I evaluate people, I find there are a few types of food that most times contribute to indigestion issues. They are dairy, gluten, and sugar or simple carbs.
When someone has indigestion, they usually have a bacterial infection in their digestive tract. It can give off gasses that make you feel uncomfortable. That’s why it’s common for people suffering from heartburn to experience burping or bloating.
When you eat foods such as dairy, gluten or sugar, it creates inflammation in your body. This inflammation can cause different symptoms in different people.
For instance, if someone eats food that causes inflammation in their circulatory system, they may develop heart disease. Whereas, if someone eats something that causes inflammation in their neurological system, they may experience headaches, migraines, or back problems.
If you experience indigestion, these may be signals that your inflammation is affecting your digestion. By abstaining from foods that cause your inflammation, it may help ease your discomfort.
Finding The Foods That Cause Your Inflammation
The best way to identify foods that are causing your inflammation is to eliminate them from your diet. Then slowly reintroduce them back into your diet. You will quickly find which foods are the culprit.
For the majority of people, these foods are dairy, gluten, sugar or any simple carb. Start with these foods. Also, try eliminating processed foods from your diet and eat whole foods that are fresh.
The good news? You don’t have to eat this way forever.
But you should follow this strict diet for at least a month so your body can heal. My guess is if your pain is not completely gone, it will have diminished drastically.
Once you are pain-free for a while, you can slowly add those foods back into your diet. You may find they don’t cause you pain like they once did and you can tolerate them occasionally. Let your body be the judge. It will tell you if you have overdone it.
If you don’t change your diet, the inflammation will continue to do more damage to your body. It will only get worse.
You’ve Been Given A Gift
Your body is telling you something. Maybe it’s time you listen.
Maybe it’s time to change the way you eat, or your health issues will continue to decline.
If you are not sure which foods are creating your inflammation, maybe I can help. In the spirit of paying it forward, I love helping people to find what is the culprit. Maybe we can identify what foods are blocking your healing efforts and get you started on your healing journey.
Ready to begin? Learn more about my evaluations.
Peace and be well,
Founder of Maty’s Healthy Products — a line of natural & organic health products made from whole food ingredients
Carolyn Harrington