None of us reads every comment before posting. And I was thinking the same thing about Great Minds. I had not heard of Betaine Hydrochloride, there 2 of you are recommending it. small world, huh?
I meant to tell you about it before as I had recommended it to my daughter a while ago but I could not remember the word betaine.
Yeh, it sounds like "betadine," which would not be a good thing to take internally. By coincidence, I saw an ear/nose/throat doctor this morning, who told me that even if you have only been on a PPI (specifically Omeprazole) for a short while, you should wean off of it, not just stop. I also found out that the 10mg that's only available via prescription is the pediatric dose. 20mg is the minimum adult dose. They also smirked at my vinegar cure.
I have yet to have a medical professional tell me that they have even heard of taking vinegar. One thing the P.A. mentioned is that American Gaviscon and British Gaviscon are not the same thing. My prior GP recommended Gaviscon to me because it sits on top of your stomach's acid layer and gets pushed up ahead of the acid, thus coating & protecting your esophagus. So I've used it off & on since the 90s. The P.A. told me that American Gaviscon is merely an antacid, and the British Gaviscon does what my old GP said. I got home and verified that the P.A. is right. British Gavison is available from Amazon. (It's seaweed-based.) I have no idea if I misunderstood my GP all those years ago or if American Gaviscon changed along the way.
If your medical professionals have never heard of using vinegar, they just aren't informed. It has been in common usage for years. Big Pharma, however, does not want anything so simple to be an answer for many. Remember ivermectin and hydroxychloroquine for Covid? Both worked and there was a very active campaign to keep physicians from using them as Big Pharm would not make much money from them. All the vaccines for the flu, RSV and Covid are now paid for by the "government" , so you don't even have the insurance companies to defend you from the propaganda. Your taxes and everybody else's goes directly to Big Pharma, mostly Pfizer.
I have a friend who loooovvves to go to the doctor if it is paid by insurance. I tell her how to fix stuff occasionally and she goes and tells the doctor about it when he is writing a script. Sometimes he is impressed by her wisdom when he looks it up on the in office computer.
Docs don't take the time to keep up to date anymore, especially the generalists. Not only is there so much information available, but doctors treat their profession much more like a job than like a calling like they used to do. Also, a lot of the info that is out there is tainted by the fingers of Big Pharma as I have said before. Foreign sites aren't so bad, but much in the U.S. is pretty worthless. There are a few good items out there, but finding them takes time, which many doctors simply don't have. Medidal journals were once good sources, as were the information from government sites but that is all untrustworthy now.
Plus the regulators and insurance companies have it set up such that they need to process a large number of patients every day just to stay afloat. And it's all intentional.
Hence the thread title, "Weaning myself off..." I mentioned taking a large spoonful of yellow mustard for muscle cramps to my previous PCP. She looked at me like I had grown horns, but the next time I saw her she said she told her husband about that remedy and it worked on his leg cramps.
Yeh, but I was surprised that they recommend it after such a short period of use. You gotta chuckle. At least she was honest about it.
I was surprised at that one myself and have used it. A squirt in the night works faster than a magnesium pill.