yes diet matters in a huge way!! Do a food journal.

Yes drinking water after you eat can make it worse. It brings the food up closer to the esophagus and it takes food way longer to digest when you add too much liquid.

Stay away from spicy food, black pepper, onion garlic coffee red sauces. No acidic fruits and vegetables eat boring and bland for a while to get rid of this issue and take a zantac if it is bad. You have just caught it early dont let it become a regular thing.

Welcome to the GERD club.lol.I also suffer from this "lovely" condition and continue to learn new things every day.Yes,food journal is a very good idea,it will allow you to eliminate your food triggers.Other than that stress aggravates gerd so try to stay calm especially around your meal times if you can.Have you gotten your wedge pillow yet?You may wanna try if it works for you.I stay upright following the meals and try to move around to help my digestion.No eating 3h prior bedtime.Just sips of water.
When my gerd flares up(and it does whenever I give up my gerd diet and indulge myself in coffee and sweets)I have no choice but go back on a strict gerd diet which basically consists of:oatmeal with rice milk,bananas.steamed jasmine rice and potatos along with bolied chicken or chicken vegetable soup.It eases up usually after a week of following this diet.To say the truth I haven't been able to gain any weight for the last year but it doesn't matter as long as gerd leaves me alone.I realize that lots of people who suffer from acid reflux have problem with weight as well as with vitamin deficiency.Its good to monitor your vitamin and mineral levels and stay on top of it by supplementing.I strongly advocate natural healing and have been managing my gerd and gastritis with diet and natural supplements only.Good luck!

I have a small HH and I stop eating about 8 hours before bed. I use a wedge as well but not all night. With a HH you have to stop eating earlier in the night if you want the esophagus to get to an ideally healed place. It makes a huge difference.

it took me a year and a half to get good at this. It takes time. Now I can treat myself and not get any reflux. It takes a ton of discipline. The esophagus needs about 6 months total break from reflux and then it has healed up nicely. That is when you can treat yourself slowly and not get reflux. If reflux keeps coming back easily after treating yourself, it means the esophagus is not completely healed in my experience. it is prone to getting inflamed unless you give it a break from any acid hitting it for a decent amount of time. That is the hard part. I have gained all my weight back but it took a ton of work to get here.

I also did it 97 percent by diet alone but a H2 or a PPI for a short period of time gets you to a good place way more quickly and then that complete break from acid allows the esophagus to heal even more.

I rarely have to take a H2 or a PPI now and I resisted taking them for a long time but as soon as I took something for a short time I got to an even better place. To this place of rarely having heartburn at all now.

So I also believe in doing this naturally but I know bending a bit on that enabled me to get to the place I am at now. For me it was a short term compromise for a much longer term benefit.

This is more challenging with an HH but you can get to a really good place. I still practice stopping eating a lot earlier in the night. To me that is another key component to healing this and staying that way. I just eat a lot of food much earlier in the day and I am good till bed.

That's great Lesleygym!I still have so much work to do in this department.I feel like my gastritis is well handled because I don't have any pain or nausea but when I get reflux I have constant acid in my mouth no matter what I eat and it drives me crazy and it usually takes me over a week to get this under control.I start thinking its hormonal because I noticed other weird symptoms in my body.Anyway its great to be able to confess to people who can relate.

Just keep working at it JoHam! You will b e able to go long periods of time without an issue if you stay disciplined for a good 4 months. That is the hard part for most people but it gets you way further along the road to being reflux free.

There is a lot of hope with reflux and having an HH. Is yours small? If it is a small one, then this is way more easily managed.

I went to a chiro for my HH. I was totally skeptical he could do anything but I am now convinced when he adjusted the thorasic region regularly my HH moved down and has stayed down lower than it was. I did not have any hope that this would help but I am pretty certain it did. He is the typical bone cruncher type.

I havent had gastritis too much but the time I did, I found it way more challenging to eliminate those symptoms. It seems more complex to heal the stomach over the esophagus to me. So it is good you have that under control.

It sounds like you reflux up a lot more. That is an annoying symptom! I more often had typical heartburn and some silent stuff. The HH makes you prone to refluxing up but certain foods are natural refluxers, like coffee and teas and anything bubbly. Try and totally stay away from that type of thing. Chocolate is a really bad refluxer.

It is short term pain(no treats) for long term gain. This is a depressing problem but there is lots of hope. Just do the hard work now and you will find things get way better!

Try and stop eating earlier at night. Make your bigger meal at around 3 pm and then something small at 5 30. If you eat a lot more early in the day you wont be so hungry when you stop eating by 5 30.

This is hard but determination gets you there.

Oh sorry you have this horrible GERD. I've had for a long time. Years. I've only just in the last year have been on Omeprozole. I tried to go without it today and I'm suffering for it now. Eat small meals at least several hrs before bed and avoid fatty and spicy foods. I noticed even on the Omeprozole I cant eat so close to bedtime when I had food come back up my throat in the middle of the night. That is just as horrible and disgusting. For anyone else who has had long term use of Omerprezole, have you noticed hip pain at night?

Oh yeah and a low sugar diet helps. For some reason sugar aggravates mine.

Thank you Lesleygym!Those are all very precious pieces of advice which I have been following.My worst triggers are coffee and sweets which I find hard to eliminate.Well I only have one small treat of something sweet with my coffee but when it becomes an everyday thing my reflux sure flares.I just find it so hard in this cold climate to go w/o coffee and something sweet.I make my own cold brew coffee which is said to be low-acid and it doesn't seem to bother me but when Im out I like to pop in a coffee shop and grab a cup and that's a decent strong coffee.Ugh Im just such a coffee addict:(

That is so common to think you are having heart problems due to heartburn. They see a lot of people in the ER because of this. Do NOT eat anything a minimum of 3 hours before you go to bed. What you eat has a huge impact on Acid Reflux, Barrett's Esophagus, Gastritis, etc... I don't know why but sometimes water can aggravate everything. Try a tea made for this type of problem instead of water, soda, etc...I ended up with Barrett's Esophagus and had to drastically change my eating habits. It was not easy but 2 years later, my Barrett's was gone. I hope you are feeling a lot better. Oh, and A big welcome!! Hugs gB