I was diagnosed with GERD in 2012. The MD scoped me (that's a blast, lemme tell you) and told me I had serious esophageal erosion starting. So he put me on Dexilant, which is considered the Cadillac of time-release proton pump inhibitors. You need take only one per day.

I hate taking pills. Loathe it. I consider dependence upon medication a sign of weakness, so I sought to eliminate the need for the Rx. That, and Dexilant costs about $4.50/pill, so I looked at every single one I had to take as "I'm about to eat a $5 bill and MD's are now saying PPI's are hard on your kidneys... I could be having a pint of microbrew beer instead with the same side-effects..."

Ever notice how MD's get real prissy when you make an equivalence between the side effects of their pills and potions and things you could be doing for the same cost and side effect, but which are actually more fun? They must have a semester-long course in med school titled "How to get offended when your patients point out that there are more fun things to do in life than take their prescriptions."


Dietary changes I made included:

- reducing/eliminating breads, especially fluffy, processed breads
- reducing the commercial tomato pastes/sauces I eat (many modern tomato cultivars are quite acidic, because they transport and process better)
- reducing sugar of all forms in my diet - eg, I no longer eat any candy of any type.

A few things have acids that set me off - certain types of coffee and grapefruit juice, for example.

It took me 18 months, but I did it. The last Dexilant I've taken was months and months ago, and the one before that was months and months prior. The Rx that the MD gave me three years ago for a month's supply of pills is still in the drawer, 2/3rds unused.

In general, for me, the reflux problem was cured (for the most part) by eliminating carbs from my diet and pushing my diet more and more to meats, raw vegetables, and dairy. I moved away from grain-based carbs, anything with sugar in it and too much fruit (esp. citrus). Sometimes, when I notice a flare-up happening, the best thing I can do is eat something that is full-fat dairy (like just drinking a glass of full-fat milk), or give my stomach "something to chew on" in the form of a nice, big chunk of meat. Steak works really well for this. The other generality I would say I noticed is that "low fat" meals for several meals in a row leave me very susceptible to a flare-up.