About a year ago I had an incident with heart burn. Not your usual heart burn, but a pretty weird incident and heartburn was involved.
I passed out. Yep, I passed out. There I was in my office on a very busy afternoon. I stopped in my office to slug a couple gulps of a Pepsi-One (the only Pepsi sweetened with Splenda). Well, have you ever had a hard swallow? You know, you drink something and it feels like you're swallowing a baseball and it just gets stuck in your chest. Well, it was one of those. Except, it was this fizzed up Pepsi-One. Well, it was so intense that I had a vaso-vagal reaction. Apparently my blood pressure went up so high, my body reacted in the opposite direction, lowered my pressure and I passed out.
The strange thing, I was clutching my chest because of the rock-like feeling from gulping down the Pepsi-One and my poor wife was watching all of this thinking I had a heart attack.
Well, I got my physician on the phone after I came too and he asked me if I had been having heart burn recently. I had. It had been happening for about a week. He said to take some antacids to help reduce the heartbrun and Of course being a strong proponent of "natural health and healing" I resisted, but eventually followed his advice.
I searched around on the internet to find any natural cures for heartburn. What really pissed me off was that ever time I though I found some good information, it lead me to a paypal screen to pay the person for access to his or her information. That pissed me off. Why? Because I spend all day, all week helping people. Whether or not they pay me, ask me in the street or at a party, I give them whatever knowledge I can offer...because it's the right thing to do. I don't ask them to drop a $50 into my wife's purse on their way out of the party.
So, I recently came across a simple little method of managing heart burn that is as easy as chewing gum. As a matter of fact, it's exactly chewing gum.
I found the article at http://www.health.com/ and if you want to read the original source, you can go there. Or, to make it easier on you, just read the paragraph below. Oh, besides chewing gum, rather than eating 3 large meals per day, try eating 6 smaller meals and that will help as well. Of course, if you do suffer with heartburn, try these things with your doctors blessing...
From www.Health.com
Gum for heartburn. Heartburn happens when stomach acids splash back into the esophagus and burn it. Treatment often includes antacids that reduce the amount of acid. But British researchers recently confirmed U.S. studies showing that chewing gum after a meal helps fight heartburn. Chewing gum increases saliva, which helps wash the acid back down to the stomach, the researchers say. The type of gum doesn’t matter, but the latest research used sugar-free—and it’s easier on your teeth. If you try it: Chew for at least 30 minutes after eating.
Follow-Up: I almost forgot, what happened in the incident above was an esophageal spasm. But, honestly, if you've never had a heart attack and was wondering what it was like, I think this was pretty damn close. It was a change of not only diet, but how much and when I ate that prevented this again. Smaller, more frequent meals and cut out the crapola foods. If you want to know more, check out my earlier post on my major diet makover. Here's the link
Good luck....
DocT
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Dr. Narson is a 2-term past president of the Florida Chiropractic Association’s Council on Sports Injuries, Physical Fitness & Rehabilitation and was honored as the recipient of the coveted Chiropractic Sports Physician of the Year Award in 1999-2000. He practices in Miami Beach, Florida at the Miami Beach Family & Sports Chiropractic Center; A Facility for Natural Sports Medicine.
