Hi David, I had Gastritis for a year after I was hospitalised from a breathing problem due to a rib injury. The quacks told me it was stomach related and put on medication which caused it. I cured myself with nutrition when the doctors couldn’t. I was in and out of hospital, I couldn’t eat anything. I couldn’t breathe, I couldn’t even drink water and was on a drip. In the meantime, the doctors kept increasing the dose of the medication that caused it (PPIs) I finally gave up and decided to take matters into my own hands. A naturopath put me on the right track but I ditched her because she was far too expensive. I already had a good understanding of nutition and so I used my knowledge as well as the knowledge I gained from her and slowly fixed myself up.
When one suffers from an inflammatory bowel disorder like Crohn’s, Gastritis, Colitis, IBS etc, the inflammation stops absorption of vital nutrients so the person’s condition often deteriorates. Furthermore, the lining of the stomach becomes perforated (leaky gut) and they end up with bacteria, fungus and other no nos in the blood stream further complicating the issue and making them acidic as a whole… they end up with stomach acid in the blood stream as well. The thing they need to do in this case is to heal the gut and to do this they must reduce the inflammation and take plenty of nutrients to help the body heal itself. I went on a 30 day juice fast (something I do routinely every year anyway). I juiced on mainly fruits and veggetables (organic) to get as much nutrients in my body as possible and I supplimented on Zinc, Vitamin E, B12, and all the things I couldn’t get from not having animal proteins. After the juice fast, I was feeling much better and then went onto blending instead of juicing for a couple of weeks and slowly introduced proteins back into my diet. It took a while to fix what conventional medicine caused but I got there. Before I began this, I had turned from a healthy fit and very active person to a frail, weak person of skin and bones. I couldn’t sleep, I couldn’t lie down (as I still had the rib injury that they didn’t diagnose) and I was close to carking it. Nutrition saved my life… I saved my life. Health is not a privillege, it’s our right but if we abuse our body and treat it like a cess pool, we lose that right. We have to feed it what it needs to heal, whether it’s nutrients, the sun, yoga and meditation. (By the way, the best way to get vitamin D is to look at the sun for 5 minutes in the morning through filtered trees).
As for nutralising acids, when your stomach and gut is inflamed, acid irritates it further. It’s important to nutralize the acids quickly after digestion and it’s also important to minimise acidic foods to allow your gut to heal. However, you don’t want to take acid blocking medication because that will make the issue worse over time (that’s what caused my gastritis). If you’re on PPIs and I suspect you might be with your condition, then you’ll probably find that you’re very acidic, despite taking the acid blockers. This is due to gastrin levels rising dramatically.
Anyway, back on track (I’m all over the place because I’m in a hurry), once the stomach lining or your gut is healed, then the person can go back to eating some acidic foods, but not too much as they don’t want the problem to return.
All the best!