Heartburn, will try ANYTHING!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

[Angeliz]

I am now 6 and a half months pregnant and, as with dd, i am suffering with terrible heartburn!
I know it'ss trivial in the grand scheme of things but i have actually been in tears of frustration over it last night and this morn as it's just over-riding everything i do!
I take tonnes of Gaviscon as it helps for about 5 minutes but i think it's making me feel sick alot now!

Any tips AT ALL?

Hi...much sympathy. It is the most awful thing, and calling it heartburn is SUCH an understatement. In the end I went and saw a homeopath, but that was for appalling ms too. The thing she recommended for acid was Arsenicum, which you can buy in Boots. I took about 5 tablets a day, and although it didn't cure it, it certainly helped. Incidentally she warned me off Gaviscon etc, although I couldn't keep it down anyway! Let me know if Arsenicum works for you. Good luck

magnesium trisilcate from the GP...it's fab, fab, fab, I'm on my second bottle and it works like magic!

total sympathy Angeliz - at times all I could think of when I thought about giving birth was 'no more heartburn! hooray!!!' (oh, and a baby too...)

anyway, mine was very bad too and I don't think anything I ate made much difference - I actually think I could have eaten deep fried spicy cheese and swigged loads of beer and it wouldn't have been any worse than it was

having said that, I did switch breakfasts from my usual coffee with milk and toast/croissant type things to peppermint tea and muesli and that did help a bit. My mw also told me to avoid drinking too much liquid with meals.

I loathe the taste of gaviscon but did take it - but I found Remegels much more helpful to be honest, did you try them?

and on the hairy baby front, mine was born with a huge bouffant hairdo and hairy shoulders and forehead!

sorry to hear you are having such a grim time with it... I'm 23 weeks pg and just now getting heartburn, though nothing like as bad as you seem to have it. All the suggestions you have had so far are brilliant, but I will just add that keeping an eye on your posture (sounds mad) does also help... as we get more pg and our bellies and boobs expand, we tend to sink into our fronts, leaving even less space in our abdomens for baby + all the rest of it.... try keeping sitting upright, and hooking your arms over the back of your chair after eating.... it might just help it all go down a bit more efficiently. Hope that didn't sound too yoga-head-y, and good luck!

oh, and (bad news), anything alcoholic makes it MUCH worse (for me...)

Hi there, I really sympathise as I was getting it really badly - I gave up all wheat products and limited my sugar. Horrible for cravings (am going through loads of apples) but I've found it really works for me to the extent if I have any wheat products it comes back pretty much immediately. Probably too late now but it might help someone else!!

have you tried reflexology to calm down your digestive system? might be worth a try.

Magnesium trisilicate..you can get it over the counter. Cheap and effective, and much nicer tasting than Gaviscon or similar.

Suck barley sugar sweets.

Eat crackers 5 or 6 before you get out of bed in the morning, and generally nibble on them throughout the day. Tuc, Cheddars, Ritz, cream crackers, water biscuits, oatmeal ones .... all good.

Give up smoking if you smoke.

Forgot to say, lie on your left side at night, it relieves the liver. Prop your head on as many pillows as you can get your hands on!

big big sympathy suffered really badly with both of my pregancies and the only thing that worked was Rennie Duo it is a liquid and much much more palatable than gaviscon imo if your chemist doesnt stock it ask them to get it in for you. I used to go through literally bottles and bottles of the stuff always had a bottle in my handbag, bedside, office desk an kitchen so i never got caught out, hope it helps and that it eases off soon

I suffer heartburn (although not pregnant) - I have tried every single medicine available but the only thing that actually works for me, believe it or not is POLO'S

Best remedy I've found is home made banana milkshakes - 1 banana blended up with some milk and a couple of spoons of thick yogurt or ice cream. I've found that about 1/2 a pint sorts out my heartburn for about 3 - 4 hours as long as I don't eat anything else for a while. Much nicer than yucky gaviscon (don't bother with gaviscon tablets they're rubbish but liquid version works for about an hour or so I find) Milk shake also makes me feel quite full and stops me snacking on chocs and biscuits...

I get the most awful heartburn too. Someone mentioned Papayas. I'm sure they do work. I ate 1/2 of one a day (after dinner in the evening) for about a week and it definately took it away. But I got sick of eating them and have gone back to yucky gaviscon

Oh well only 11 weeks to go, then I can go back to sleeping in a vertical position again!

Definately agree Ranitidine is the thing to get - tablets from GP.

Ranitidine rules!!! Or you can buy it over the counter as Zantac from Boots - but get your GP to prescribe it. I had dreadful heartburn and took it from about 20 weeks - changed my pregnancy from being completely unbearable to tolerable (didn't take away the sickness!!).