[user1029384756]

I guess the difference is that being an antivaxer can potentially harm society whereas trying a high fibre, probiotic rich diet can’t hurt anyone. And I completely understand the skepticism, which is why I couched my comment with “it may not work for everyone”.

> Did she at least tell the doctor "hey no worries my kid fixed it"? What did they say?

The answer is no: I told her not to tell her doctor under any circumstances that she got armchair advice from her “kid” that actually worked because if I was a doctor who went through 10 years of med school + training, I would definitely be rolling my eyes if some senior came in and told me this story.

The point is, I haven’t dropped any probiotic brand names, I’m not hawking anything, I don’t gain anything by posting my little anecdotal experience. I’m just happy that I found a solution to a problem that has been torturing someone I care about for 10-15 years and wanted to share it so that it might help others in the same situation.

Edit: to be clear, there were other things too that helped clear up her symptoms that I omitted because my post was getting too long and because out of everything, probiotics seemed to be the biggest gamechanger. For example: first few months she also took DGL (Deglycyrrhizinated Licorice, to promote mucus secretion) 15 minutes before every meal, followed by a digestive enzyme taken with the meal (she doesn’t actually need these anymore and only takes it as a precaution if the meal is particularly starchy or high protein). Cutting out LES relaxers like caffeine, mint and chocolate helped. Also lifestyle changes were made in terms of physical activity. She still needs to sleep at an incline on a wedge block, but at least she’s not vomiting all over the carpet anymore.

[nwienert]

Be careful, autoimmune conditions can affect the stomach and present symptoms similar to IBS, GERD, including projectile vomiting after eating. I know because I had that for years, but it was cyclical. Every time I thought I had it beat due to (insert 10 things I was trying at the time) it would come back with vengeance. Eventually it just went away but by then I had no illusion that I had done anything.

Turns out it was Familial Mediterranean Fever and it just goes away in your early 20s. I was never diagnosed until many years later and I even thought a lot of my remedies maybe worked until then.

Digestive and autoimmune both are labyrinthine in potential problems and misdiagnoses.

[user1029384756]

> Digestive and autoimmune both are labyrinthine in potential problems and misdiagnoses.

No argument there, and I appreciate the warning. It definitely gives me no pleasure playing doctor and I’m very conscious of the risk of giving misleading medical advice.

The reason why I’m confident enough to post this is that it has already been more than a year now since the major symptoms went away. The effect of the probiotics was/is pretty definitive (she recently stopped taking them for about a week while on vacation and the symptoms started slowly creeping back, and disappeared again shortly after resuming). Also, there is pretty much no real alternative treatment aside from PPIs or physical LES surgery anyway. If there is indeed an underlying autoimmune condition though, I can’t see how this diet could hurt too much. But maybe that’s due to ignorance.

I’m so happy you overcame that hell.

[corobo]

Well as long as you're omitting information for brevity while suggesting it may be helpful to others and at the same time having told n=1 to avoid consulting with someone who is trained in the subject that may be able to catch and correct any errors or problems you've missed I can't see any issue there. I stand corrected.

[user1029384756]

This course of action was only taken after consultations with trained professionals had already failed and as I mentioned, the effect of the omitted supplements paled in comparison with the probiotics. Also this is a thread about gut bacteria so I thought I’d initially only mention the most relevant part of the treatment and follow-up if there was more interest.

It’s pretty clear that this (like 99% of internet advice) is all anecdotal evidence and again, I’ve made it clear it may not work for everyone. I’ve also mentioned elsewhere that I’m not a healthcare professional. But if my comment is able to help even one person escape the nightmare of not being able to hold food down and the sleep deprivation and depression that comes with severe GERD… then that’s worth one snarky linux systems guy yelling at me on HN.

:)