While I’m not an expert, from my research it looks like there can be various causes for heartburn in general – both too much and too little stomach acid can cause this.
LOW STOMACH ACID
Low stomach acid seems to be a problem that people aren’t as aware of. IF this were the cause, taking HCL (Hydrochloric acid – that’s stomach acid) with Betaine can be a solution. I’ve tried these before when I was having digestive issues for a time (not on hCG) and I was amazed at how much more energy I felt after my meal and just BETTER. This wasn’t related to heartburn for me, but just sharing my experience with taking this particular supplement.
Usually how it works is, you don’t know how much stomach acid your body is lacking that is making it so that you don’t digest your food well. So they suggest starting with 1 capsule after a meal, and see how you feel, and to gradually increase by 1 capsule after a meal until you feel a “warm” sensation/slightly uncomfortable- once you hit that point, you drop it back down 1 capsule and that’s usually your best dosing. The warming sensation means it’s now too much acid and creating a slight burning feeling.
One thing that I’m thinking if this were tried on hCG is that you would likely need less HCL for digesting P2 meals than for regular eating, since the meals are much smaller.
I have read a wide array as to how many capsules a person ends up needing – I read of some who needed 6 capsules at each meal. For me, I worked up to 3 briefly, but soon I noticed the 3 was too much, dropped back to 2, and then to 1, and then nothing- I think the capsules may have kick-started my own HCL production again! That’s my guess. My digestion has been better since that time too.
Here are a couple HCL products
Thorne Research HCL & Betaine – this is a trusted high quality supplement brand – pricier, but I tend to go this route for my own choices.
Doctor’s Best Betain HCL Pepsin – a low-cost alternative
I should also add, I saw one Amazon review on the Doctor’s Best brand that described her journey and that HCL allowed her to finally lose weight – just throwing that out there! When you can digest your food properly, good things usually happen in various ways.
USE APPLE CIDER VINEGAR
If you don’t want to try the HCL capsules, it is also said that you can utilize a little ACV (Apple Cider Vinegar) and I found an hCG blogger who did this with success for her GERD.
She said she has a glass of 4 oz of warm water with 1 tsp of ACV and drinks a few sips before and after her hCG meals and this eliminated the acid feeling! Remarkable.
FOOD INTOLERANCE?
The 2nd thing I’m wondering about, if you weren’t experiencing heartburn before P2 with your regular diet and now you are, is that perhaps there is a P2 food that is not agreeing with you. Is there any particular food you’ve been having frequently on the diet that perhaps you don’t usually eat or that you don’t usually eat as much of (ie tomatoes for instance) – you might try an experiment of removing any P2 foods you’ve been having frequently and replacing them with something else to see if that improves.
TOO MUCH WATER AT ONCE?
My last suggestion is, is it possible that you are perhaps drinking too much water?
I found some articles here that discuss a connection between water and heartburn.
2nd article on water and heartburn
The basic idea is that swallowing big gulps multiple times can cause this acid reflux situation.
I ask since on the diet we often hear so much about “drink tons of water!” and so many of us ladies then guzzle away. But really, while we definitely need some water, drinking too much actually has adverse effects too – I have a post on water and hCG here.
I hope this gets you started in the right direction for getting to the bottom of this- IF you try any of these measure and they work for you, could you please email us and let us know? We’d love to add real user experience here for other ladies to benefit from!
