Do you often reach for antacids?
Do you stash bottles of antacids in your car, office and home? Heartburn, like all other health symptoms, is a wise message from your body… and that message is not telling you to take a swig of Milk of Magnesia or pop some pills.
How heartburn works
Both acid blockers and antacids, the common treatments for heartburn, actually perpetuate a vicious cycle of attack on your poor esophageal lining. That’s because heartburn results from too little stomach acid, not too much.
Stress and poor diet reduce gastric juices instead of increasing gastric juice. That is one reason why we see skyrocketing numbers of heartburn sufferers in our stressed and unhealthy world. This low stomach acid not only leads to heartburn but also bloating, hormone problems, peeling nails, thinning hair, gas, constipation and more. Why? Because we cannot access the nutrients in our meals without adequate acid to break down our food.
Heartburn results when we lack stomach acid. It’s the stomach acid that signals the valve at the top of our stomach to close tightly. With low levels of acid, or when we overeat, that valve can leak contents of our into our esophagus.
Acid reducers and acid blockers work by lowering our stomach acid. Over-the-counter options cancel out the acid already in the stomach, while prescription drugs prevent our stomach from producing acid. This reduces the sensation of heartburn by making the stomach contents more alkaline, but it doesn’t prevent the stomach contents from leaking into the esophagus.
When we have adequate stomach acid, the valve at the top of the stomach is signaled to close tightly, preventing the acidic contents from leaking into the esophagus. This heartburn remedy helps signal the stomach to close this valve.
How this heartburn remedy works
This effective and natural heartburn remedy works the opposite way of Tums or Gaviscon or [insert heartburn medication of your choice here]. It makes the stomach more acidic, not less acid. This signals the valve at the top of the stomach to close and the valve at the bottom of the stomach to open – so food goes down, not up.
All Natural Heartburn Relief Recipe
2 tsp. raw apple cider vinegar
1/4 – 1/2 cup water
Mix together and drink at the first sign of heartburn. You can continue to take this every 5-10 minutes until you have relief, but one serving usually takes action within just three minutes. If it tastes too sour for you, add a teaspoon of raw honey or reduce the vinegar to 1 tsp. Otherwise, just gulp it down.
For best results, take this with every meal and between every meal to help prevent heartburn.
Long-term heartburn healing
This remedy is a safe, quick fix for the symptom of heartburn. To address the root cause of heartburn, please see my post 8 Ways to Heal Low Stomach Acid Naturally.
Do you struggle with heartburn? Have you tried this natural heartburn remedy before?
I tried the vinegar, but couldn’t swallow it as I was already close to vomiting from heartburn. I thought another acid should work, so I tried lemon juice in a little water. It worked within minutes, and between that and propping up my head, I was able to sleep!
I’ve been on Nexiam for 18months after treatment to fix my stomach lining. I am traveling and ran out of Nexiam for the last 5 days. I experienced the horrible burning effect last night. I tried antacids, yogurt, some food but it just got worse- so much so that I experienced the shortness of breath, salivating and the feeling to puke as well as the terrible chest pain. Needless to say that I would not have been able to sleep – even sitting up in bed was a torture. I decided to search online for anything that could help. My luck I just bought ACV hours before – I’ve never used it before!!! It really helped almost instantly and I slept very well……..for the long haul……I really do not know yet what I will do, as this really just is “the morning after”. Thank you for this great help
thanks for sharing! ACV rreally works…just had heartburn attack, i googled up and end up in this page…immediately bought ACV and in few minutes after taking them the pain gone!! Thank you again!! Had heart burn for many years…
Nice info on acid reflux. Check out my blog at: https://acidrefluxbreakthrough.wordpress.com/ on how I cured it by removing H pylori
I have pretty bad heartburn. I have tried all these medicines and natural remedies. The truth of the matter is these natural remedies don’t really work. As much as people claim their validity, it doesn’t help GERD sufferers. I myself have tried all these products from PPI to antacids. The only one I’ve found to help me without having the side effects of PPI’s is Episolve GI. I take about four before I go to bed as I have heartburn worst through the night. Episolve GI took the edge off my morning heartburn. I can’t highly recommend Episolve GI enough. Apparently it has a combination of Olive Oil and Calcium Carbonate. It also lasts a couple of hours opposed to TUMS that lasts a short period. http://www.episolvegi.com
You can’t say that a natural cure for heartburn isn’t going to work and I doubt that that you tried everything. Yes there are some natural things you can try to help ease your heartburn but unless you educate yourself your never going to cure yourself of the problem. Heartburn is a warning sign that something is wrong in your system. Masking the symptom might make you feel better temporally but unless you treat the source of the problem the body will continue to be at dis ease and you will become a medication user. pills aren’t meant to cure there is no money in curing.
You’re right. I can’t technically say a natural cure for heartburn isn’t going to work. But I will say it because if it were true, there wouldn’t be any antacids on the market! Anyone can good natural remedies for heartburn, but obviously it’s not working because there are GERD sufferers like myself. It is important to take care of heartburn before it damages your tissue permanently. I was just stating that I had rough nighttime heartburn because of my GERD. What happens is that the stomach acid at night slides near to the esophageal opening seeping out. It’s extremely uncomfortable. No “Home Remedy” is going to stop this from happening. What I was saying is that I took Episolve GI to help with my nighttime heartburn. It lasts for a moderate amount of time. When I wake up in the morning, the pain is not gone, but it is MUCH more bearable. I’m just protecting myself from further damage at night. So I recommend you try it… http://www.episolvegi.com
I love ACV and use it a lot. I had heartburn for over 25 years and finally got diagnosed as Coeliac last year and, hey presto, my heartburn has completely disappeared! All those years suffering with digestive and other problems (I’m 56) and tons of money spent on health practitioners of all types. Cutting out gluten changed my life completely. That said, the use of ACV for heartburn is wonderful and works really fast. I love your blog.
Can you drink it through a straw if you’re concerned about your teeth?
What to do if this actually makes your heartburn worse? I get very occasional heartburn, and I’ve had it twice this week so I just tried this remedy. OH MY GOD- SO MUCH FIRE!!! I would rate the heartburn I was experiencing before as moderate. Now, after drinking the ACV as instructed, it is so severe I want to throw up. It burned going down, and has been burning for the whole 30 minutes since drinking.
Anyone have any remedies for ACV-induced (or perpetuated, I guess) heartburn???
Hello Lauren !
Thank you for your eye-opening site and sharing with the world.
I have been suffering from GERD/Heartburn for last five years. Had an ultra-sound test done which much to my surprise came out normal (at least in the reports). Changed doctors one after another without any successful treatment. But never took an antacid. And to this day I still don’t know whether I have low or high stomach acid.
Recently I had lukewarm lemon (1/2 squeezed) water on completely empty stomach thinking I might have low stomach acid. The result was that I had inflammation in my tummy for about 4-5 hours and I was uneasy.Kindly let me know what this says about my stomach acid since I am in a very puzzled state of mind.
Thanking you ,
Regards, Swati.
Hi,
I have severe acid in my stomach , I am afraid to use apple cider vinegar, because I feel more burning in stomach
should I still use it?
Lilly