#414 Strategies for Reflux, Indigestion and Heartburn with Christa Biegler, RD, LN

This week on The Less Stressed Life, I’m sharing practical and root-cause strategies for reflux, indigestion, and heartburn. While acid blockers can provide short-term relief, they often miss the deeper issue — low stomach acid, mineral depletion, and the impact of chronic stress on digestion. We’ll talk about the surprising role frequent burping plays, how to soothe symptoms naturally, and why resolving underlying stress is the key to long-term digestive health.

If you’ve dealt with heartburn, unexplained indigestion, or recurring reflux that keeps coming back no matter what you try, this episode will help you understand what’s really going on and how to fix it for good.

KEY TAKEAWAYS

• Why low stomach acid is often the real culprit in reflux
• How stress depletes minerals needed for digestion
• When soothing herbs can help heal the stomach lining
• The truth about H. pylori and why testing isn’t always accurate
• Why addressing unconscious stress is essential to prevent relapse

❓Question for Christa? Submit it here: https://www.christabiegler.com/questions

WHERE TO FIND CHRISTA:
Website: https://www.christabiegler.com/
Instagram: @anti.inflammatory.nutritionist
Podcast Instagram: @lessstressedlife
YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@lessstressedlife
Leave a review, submit a questions for the podcast or take one of my quizzes here: https://www.christabiegler.com/links

SPONSOR:
Thanks to Jigsaw Health for sponsoring this episode! Looking for a clean, tasty way to stay hydrated this summer? Their Electrolyte Supreme is a go-to for energy, minerals, and daily hydration support. Use code LESSSTRESSED10 at JigsawHealth.com for 10% off—unlimited use!

NUTRITION PHILOSOPHY OF LESS STRESSED LIFE:
🍽️ Over restriction is dead
🥑 Whole food is soul food and fed is best
🔄 Sustainable, synergistic nutrition is in (the opposite of whack-a-mole supplementation & supplement graveyards)
🤝 You don’t have to figure it out alone
❤️ Do your best and leave the rest

Transcript

[00:00:00] Christa Biegler, RD, LN: I'm your host, Christa Biegler, and I'm going to guess we have at least one thing in common that we're both in pursuit of a less stress life. On the show, I'll be interviewing experts and sharing clinical pearls from my years of practice to support high performing health savvy women in pursuit of abundance and a less stressed life.

One of my beliefs is that we always have options for getting the results we want. So let's see what's out there together.

/Today, let's talk about strategies for reflux, heartburn, and indigestion. There's really a lot to cover with this topic. It's a fairly simple and easy topic to me, and I wanted to try to give it a little bit of lip service today to try to help you. I tend to use the words reflux, heartburn, and indigestion interchangeably in the same sentence, even though they might present a bit differently for people.

Mostly because individuals only resonate with certain words. So I wanna make sure that I'm catching the people that this is impacting, even though it may look just a touch different on different people. I also think that profuse, burping, regular daily burping I would say like burping from carbonated beverages makes sense.

Like logically, right? I would excuse that. But profuse, other burping where you're like regularly burping daily throughout the day or after meals is something that I commonly see. Being a prerequisite to reflux, heartburn, and digestion. It's like a thing brewing, like things are not really digesting lots of feelings about that.

I would say like I've massively seen minerals fix that, but it can take some time because it's actually really hard to fix minerals because our stress is what is dumping them, and that's where we'll land a little bit today too. Our conventional strategy with heartburn and reflux is to reduce acid with an acid blocker.

Now, this can create some short-term relief from many people, but I don't really find this to be a long term or long game strategy at all because stomach acid belongs in your stomach. How we're made. It's the substance that helps you break down food, kill pathogens. I call it the gate before the digestive or before the rest of the intestines.

So often we can have imbalances in bacteria and fungus and other organisms in the intestines. And I always use this silly analogy of, imagine pizza sitting out all night at a college kid's house and you come by the next morning, you eat it and you don't get sick. That's, you can think stomach acid for that.

It's killing the pathogens, it's the gait. So that way the bacteria that was maybe growing on that pizza right, isn't necessarily taking up residence and setting up colonies in your intestines. So stomach acid is also one of the first digestive processes to be down regulated by stress. So when stress increases stomach acid decreases because the body when it's in fight or flight is not gonna digest, right?

It's not rest and digesting. So for some. The acid blocker can help. And for others, adding acid like apple CI or vinegar helps or lemon juice in the morning. So why is that? It's maybe because those that have low acidity or low stomach acid in their stomach, which is impacting the. Efficacy of the digestion.

So it's almost like it's back fluxing like you're eating, you're not digesting, and then it's burping up. So they find that this additional asset is actually what the piece is needed to remediate or to improve the indigestion. I hope that made sense. So for some it improves that, which I think this is a free experiment really, or like a pretty simple experiment.

So it's always something people can trial. Let's talk about another issue that can hang out with heartburn, reflux, and acid blockers. And that's. Ulcers, stomach ulcers are generally damage to the stomach lining or to tissue. In my clients, one of the most common reasons for stomach ulcers is stress, but there are other common causes, digestive disorders, irritable bowel, which includes Crohn's and colitis, or having celiac make you more predisposed. Overuse of NSAIDs like ibuprofen and aspirin is an underrated cause of stomach ulcers and other things like alcohol consumption. But generally for my clients, it's gonna be imbalance in gut. Bacteria and stress combined.

So there's a bacterial infection called helicobacter pylori or h pylori that's extremely common, that can trigger ulcers. I'll come back to that topic in a bit because it needs more clarity and context, but my experience with multiple clients with suspected ulcers. That they often feel like this deep stabbing pain in the stomach bends them over.

And I've had clients wait literally a month to get an endoscopy, right? Like a camera down the upper part of their gi and it's then negative for ulcer. But we've been doing things like, I'm not gonna just leave someone in pain, right? So we're gonna do things that really sooth and heal that tissue. And that's been my case, is just that it's not enough of an emergency.

They can't get into the end endoscopy. And this has been my experience in practice is like I'll refer out. It's a disaster. Then I figure out how we can support people. So now I really wouldn't refer out unless someone wanted to. I never, I always say if someone wants to go get a workup, go do it for sure.

Whatever makes you happy, but this might be what it is and why don't we just get busy supporting and healing that tissue. But 'cause what are they gonna do if you have an ulcer, they're gonna generally give you an acid blocker, which they'll give you a before the endoscopy as well. So what happens is if you get an endoscopy and there's no ulcer, or they say there's no ulcer, is you're gonna get a pat on the back, right?

And then probably again, a prescription for an acid blocker. I would say that an ulcer is probably the best use of a short-term acid blocker to reduce the pain. So you aren't pouring what feels like salt on an open wound or like acid on an open wound. But your stomach isn't meant to be low acid, right?

So again, I'd argue that this isn't a long-term solution. So specifically when treating an ulcer, I would give soothing herbs. Those would be the herbs that are find found in like throat coat tea, right? Which are mucilage or demulcent herbs that provide this protective coating. The digestive tract. A lot like the mucus layer that's already supposed to be there.

So that might be things like marshmallow root, slippery elm. And other similar herbs I was just thinking about. There is a contraindication with one of those herbs. If you have high blood pressure, sometimes it'll raise it like 10 or 20 points. Is it marshmallow root that does that? I am like having a brain fart about that.

But anyway, I also give nutrients or other extracts that support faster healing of tissue and then some time, right? So of cetin can be really supportive for healing tissue as well. Then I like to come up with the root cause of the actual reason that there's low stomach acid in the first place if we're having indigestion due to low stomach acid.

I had a colleague reach out to me not too long ago to ask if I could help her titrate a patient off of an acid blocker. Technically, first of all, I can't make any recommendations for medications because I'm not a prescribing provider. I always remind my clients of that. And second, my first question is, did you treat the root cause of why someone is on the acid blocker in the first place?

Otherwise, try not titrate off. It's really just like using steroids for skin issues. When you use steroid for skin issues, it takes the batteries outta the fire alarm and then you try to put the batteries back in and expect different results. Did you treat the root cause of the skin rash? If not, it will just come right back.

And so very similarly with these acid blockers. Okay, so let's talk about that helicobacter pylori a bit more. I hate mentioning this word or this organism without context because I think context is required. It's not just like a really simple one sentence version. So here's what aim want you to know.

In certain parts of the world, rates of h pylori exceed 50%, especially Middle East. Other countries in the US they might be around 25 to 30% of the population This bacteria is. Transmitted shared by sharing cups, utensils, and saliva with other people. Which I feel strongly about, and there are two tricky parts to each Pylori.

One, our testing seems to be woefully inaccurate or inadequate. And two, we don't universally agree on whether it's a friend or a foe. And I think there's probably room to discuss this, but many places would say it's commensal or normal. However, I find results and symptoms improve when we reduce the amounts that we see on testing.

It's also a little bit of a nuanced conversation because I've learned that stomach acid supplements, for example, if you'd use stomach acid supplements like a Batan HCL, they would actually drive this bacterium, this corkscrew shaped bacterium deeper into the tissue. So there is an order of operations on doing this.

Let me give you a story on why testing can be woefully inaccurate. That takes me way back.

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When I worked in conventional care many moons ago, meaning I worked with very chronically ill people, I had this dialysis patient that I specifically remember having severe H pylori symptoms, nausea, indigestion, sometimes even vomiting.

I'm telling you, severe. Okay? He would test positive and then he would test negative, and he'd beat on all these rounds of antibiotics, time after time, cycle after cycle, positive, negative, positive, negative, but the symptoms just prevailed. And this is just one example of why I think we need more holistic, complete approaches to resolving imbalances.

That means you don't just throw antibiotic, you don't just throw a killer at it and call it a day. It's just it's a little bit more finessed than that. It's not complicated. It's just a little bit more fine. We're so surgical and rudimentary a little bit sometimes because we wanted to fit in like a snapshot and it's okay, there's actually a few more steps than that.

And I think we should treat the human, the person and the symptoms more that are in front of us versus just the test results. And so hopefully you hear that come through from me. I really think we should treat symptoms above test. I think test results can be useful. I think they're nice, but I think we need symptoms to resolve.

I will also mention that there is a lot of functional testing that really picks up h pylori at many different thresholds or at much more sensitive thresholds, much more sensitivity. But I also find that many clinicians don't treat it when it's at a lower level. I only see the cases 'cause I like second eye.

I put second eyes on many people's cases where that isn't very fruitful. So that's not what I would do when I see it. I think that it helps to correct that imbalance no matter what, but. I will say it's more than throwing antibiotics or antimicrobials at the situation. So my question is how do we correct the imbalance and then support normal stomach acid?

That is the question to answer, right? In order to support normal stomach acid, we have to have a conversation around stress. I know no one wants to do it, but stress depletes some of the ingredients. It's the easiest way to say it. It's not exactly direct, but there's a lot of indirect things in our body.

All these nutrients help all these processes, minerals make up some of the ingredients for stomach acid's production. Okay, so you need, so when stress is depleting minerals, it's going to impact how well you're gonna make stomach acid. 'cause you don't have the raw materials. So while I used to use stomach acid repletion supplements in practice after correcting other imbalances, I found that like people would come back with the same issues.

And something that bothers me a lot is relapse. And so I spent a lot of time like working through relapse. Why do people relapse? And it makes sense like. You relapsed because you didn't fix the top, which was the stress. 'cause the stress was depleting, the stomach acid was allowing the h pylori and the other bacteria and other issues to overgrow.

And so I can treat the manifestation, the symptoms, and you can get better and then you can create the whole damn problem all over again. 'cause we didn't treat the top right. So we still have this stress and we're still depleting the stomach acid, the minerals. And that allows the whole process, like the whole cascade to happen.

So I think that the conversation, it's, yes, correct, the symptoms, right? 'cause that's what people really want. And then I think the conversation is also how do I improve how I'm processing stress in the body? Because it's not just like a wham bam. Thank you ma'am. It's like it's a pro, it's like an unlayering of an onion and I think how do we support ourselves to becoming more resilient?

For me, that's something I've been turning over in my head for years and the question that's been really nagged my brain for the past few years has been about unconscious stress. Unrealized stress, the stress that we don't really think we have, or I think I'm okay. Yeah. What we don't think is affecting us.

Is the stuff that we're just burying so we can do and do all these high achievers. I'm talking to you. I'm talking to me. And I think that the concept of unrealized and unconscious stress is just something that I want to shine more and more of a light on. And so right now I'm just incubating my solution for that.

It's just a, something I've been perusing the landscape for a long time, working with clients to try to do this in different ways and then trying to pull this together so it's more accessible, like really more accessible to you. To me. To someone who has not a lot of time. But they're willing.

And I think that's what it takes. I think it takes a willingness and that's the tricky part. 'cause sometimes if something is unconscious or unrealized, sometimes it's this physiology. It's like this mineral analysis that kind of is like our wake up call where it's oh damn, I don't have any minerals left.

But I think that the conversation is really willingness and so we all come to willingness in different ways. I've been getting coaching and doing personal development for dang, near a decade, right? And so there's a point where I'm in a different willingness space maybe than my husband.

My husband is probably not ready for some of this stuff I'm incubating or working on around unconscious stress and unrealized stress. And I can, alls I can have is compassion there. And. Guess what? I'm not gonna try to change him because it's really stressful to try to change others. I see so many people trying to change other people, and what a futile endeavor.

We can only change ourselves, right? We have to be inspirational, right? And sometimes people have to get to their own desperation, and that's often why we all change. It's why we all ended up on our own unique paths very often. Got a little bit philosophical there, but when talking strategies for indigestion, reflux, and heartburn, you can soothe with the mucilage herbs you can.

Get a bit of a bandaid, go to the doctor and get a little bandaid with a PPI or an acid reflux blocker. Or you can work on the layers of the root causes, right? So bacterial imbalances, and then ultimately stress and nutrients and minerals, right? 'cause those make everything else happen. So I think some of it is easy.

I think that the results can be come actually pretty quick. The initial results, it's the unraveling of the stress is something we get. We have the opportunity, we are allowed to, we get to work on in our lives, and that unraveling makes our life better and better. And so thank you to our bodies as usual for telling us exactly what we need if we're only willing to listen.

So thank you so much for being here. Have an amazing day.