If you haven’t had a blood allergy test, a scratch test, and completed an allergy elimination diet, you might have allergies or food intolerances that you don’t know about. Food intolerances are particularly tricky because they don’t usually show up on an allergy test that you would get at the doctor’s office.

The Reflux Reboot program is designed as an easy-to-run experiment where you will listen to your body and find your own food sensitivities and long-term reflux triggers. It’s one of the most important parts of the program, so I absolutely don’t recommend skipping it.

All of them. I designed the program to hit all of the causes of acid reflux. If you pick and choose which parts to do or not do, you may actually miss the core cause of your reflux and then you won’t really improve much. Don’t want that!

Many people with GERD, LPR, and other gastro problems are underweight. I was underweight when I started the program. Be sure that you eat a high quantity of food in the first phases or you will feel tired. This goes for people who aren’t underweight as well. Eat until you are full but not overstuffed, and make sure to eat often in Phase 1.

Log in to the Reflux Reboot course to check out the new video lesson about exactly what to eat in Phase 1 that shows you how to eat to get enough calories. Not in the course yet? Join here.

Many people with hiatal hernias do not have reflux symptoms. Unless your hernia is so big that you are currently scheduled for an operation to fix it, it’s likely that there are other things contributing to your reflux and maybe even directly causing your hiatal hernia. We work on all of those in the Reflux Reboot program.

If your hernia wasn’t diagnosed by a doctor, it’s totally possible that you don’t have one at all.

Diaphragmatic breathing is especially important if you have a hiatal hernia. Chiropractic and massage are also good tools for hiatal hernias. More details on this are found in the lifestyle section of the Reflux Reboot program.

Yes. I also recommend that you take vitamin C, which is ascorbic acid. I don’t recommend you take powdered vitamin C for the same reason that the two gummies per day is no big deal. You are trying to avoid massive contact of acids with your esophagus. A tiny bit in the form of a gummy vitamin is not a big deal. They’re not going to coat your esophagus the same way an acidic drink will. The goal is to prevent the pepsin in your esophagus and airways from being re-activated by acids.

If it makes you feel better, you can skip the gummies until phase 2 or 3 (at which point you will be able to eat fruit, which is way more acidic than the gummy vitamins).

If you’re not sure, probably not.

The goal is to change to the next phase when there has been a substantial reduction in symptoms. You are not going to get to zero symptoms even on Phase 1 very quickly if you have been having very severe reflux caused in part by a bacterial overgrowth. For this reason, you should stay on Phase 1 just until you have had a drastic reduction in your symptoms, but not until you have literally zero symptoms. We also have to give the supplements time to do their work.

You’re trying to run an experiment on your body. You essentially want to turn your body into a healthy control so that when you add new foods in, you can actually notice the reaction your body has to them.

If you are already feeling terrible and having consistent reflux symptoms, when you add in foods that your body is sensitive to or trigger foods, you might not even notice the difference. You want to be feeling good and to have a neutral or positive reaction to all of the foods you eat. Then, when you add other things in, you would notice a negative reaction and know that the new food is one to be avoided.

Food reactions can take days to weeks to actually show up. This is one factor I used to organize the foods into the different phases. Notice that you don’t actually add grains back in. That’s because they cause long-term gut distress for most people, but the effects are not usually immediate. Even if you only have low-level gut distress from grains, it can skew the entire process of figuring out any other foods that may be irritating your gut.

It’s important to keep a food journal to track the more subtle symptoms that indicate that you are having a reaction to something you have eaten or drank.

They don’t love you back. Just try going 90 days without them and see how you feel. Grains take a really long time to clear your body entirely, so no cheating on this one.

Tim Ferris has a great article about why grains are terrible for you called “How to keep feces out of your bloodstream.” That article is written for people who aren’t even experiencing digestive problems. If you’re here, you’re probably experiencing a whole host of digestive and acid reflux problems. Grains are a main culprit in acid reflux. They are just not your friend. Period.

Yes, and these are all to be 100% avoided.

It’s really bad for most people with acid reflux. The good news is that if you solve the underlying problem, you might be able to have it again in moderation. The bad news is that you might be grain intolerant…in which case you will feel super fantastically good when you don’t have beer, and really bad when you do…possibly for life.

Gin, vodka, and wine will likely be fine for you in moderation when you have resolved your reflux fully.

Part of healing your body and solving the problems you are having is in how you think about it.

Would you rather have reflux forever or give up ______ for 3 months so your body can heal?
If it turns out that ________ causes your body acute distress, when the 3 months are up do you think you will still want to eat/drink it?

Wouldn’t it be better to learn what your body actually needs to thrive and love yourself enough to treat your body with care and respect so that it can help you live a vibrant, healthy life? Of course it would!

Giving up some things can be hard but when you frame it in your mind as giving your body what it needs instead of depriving it of some things, it’s really much easier to make positive decisions that will make you feel much better in the medium to long-term.

That really depends on your body, but I would take the first few weeks off to give your body a break. A lot of people with acid reflux clench their core without knowing it while they exercise, so it’s important to learn to keep your core relaxed while you activate it. Deep, diaphragmatic breathing through the nose and out the mouth makes a big difference in keeping your body and nervous system calm while you exert yourself heavily.

Gentle exercise like walking is fantastic. I recommend doing lots of walking. Calm, meditative walking is really great. You can still walk quickly. Just be sure to monitor your body, keep your muscles supple, and breathe deeply as if you’re breathing low into the stomach.

I’d advise specifically against weightlifting, American football, and rugby; and would suggest at least a short break from any competitive sport or strenuous activity.

No. Not at all. I was a really, really bad case. I had nearly every symptom possible of reflux, LPR, and GERD.

I had actually tried most of the things in the Reflux Reboot program on their own. It was only when I decided to use an integrated method to work on every cause at once that I found full and lasting success.

I do have an allergy to rice, but even cutting that out of my diet barely improved my reflux. It had such a small effect on its own that I was convinced I could still eat it (note: If you test as allergic to something, you should actually 100% avoid eating it! Sounds like common sense, but hey…we all do dumb stuff sometimes, especially when trying our best to heal ourselves from such a complicated and painful chronic condition that gives _so many_ mixed signals).

I had a bunch of supplements I had tried. I had been to so many different healing practitioners, doctors, and specialists. I tried many different diets. I tried pretty close to everything.

Then, I spent several months doing nothing but researching. I came up with this program from the aggregate of months and months of research (and the previous few years of research and self-experimentation) and decided to do it until it worked or just keep on researching until I found something that did.

I found all of the causes of reflux and figured out the way several different primary problems can cascade into what so many people experience as chronic reflux and all of the crazy symptoms associated with it. I figured out why most people could not find a silver bullet cure to reflux. Not only is reflux a complex problem, it’s often several different complex problems all working together! No wonder I couldn’t find anyone who was successfully treating acid reflux.

To my surprise, it didn’t take 6 months for me to start feeling better. The protocol started working within weeks. It took many months for all of the damage from a lifetime of reflux to heal, but it did heal. I have literally never been so healthy.

Now, I’m happy to report that many others have followed my Reflux Reboot program and have seen similarly amazing results.

In the Reflux Reboot program, we use my integrated method to work on the core causes of H.Pylori in order to completely eliminate it and the symptoms it causes.

The tests have quite a lot of false negatives, and if you do still have H. pylori, there's almost no chance you'll be able to get free of the reflux.

The natural method we use in the program will not harm your body the way triple (antibiotic) therapy will. 

You might be having a Herxheimer reaction, which is basically when toxins enter your body from bacterial die off.

Pay attention to your body. If you suspect a Herx reaction and it is becoming too much, reduce your supplement dosage for a few weeks. Once your symptoms improve, you can try bringing your dosages back up.

That’s fantastic! When you are ready to commit to your full healing, I’d definitely still suggest that you follow the program fully so you can get to a point where you have no symptoms at all.

First of all, congratulations!

Second, it could be that you need more time to heal the damage to your esophagus, stomach, larynx, and airways.

It could also be that you had a nutritional imbalance that you’ve fixed but still needs to build up over time before it’s 100%.

It could be that the bacteria are mostly under control but you are still building up the colonies of good bacteria in your stomach and gut. These things take time.

It could be that you’ve missed a food intolerance you have. Try excluding different foods for few weeks and see if anything changes.

I thought I was 100% better at 2 months but my health kept improving over the course of the next year. My voice got stronger and clearer for the entire year. I stopped being so sensitive to tomatoes, onions, and spicy things over the course of a year. My anxiety kept decreasing despite me falling off the wagon on managing it (it was managing itself now). My nose got clearer and clearer and my breathing quieter.

Check each one for potential interactions with each supplement before you take them. You should also consult with your doctor and pharmacist.

If the reflux is only because you are pregnant, I wouldn’t suggest this program. If it was happening before your pregnancy or has persisted after, it can probably help.

I have not yet had the time to check the safety of each supplement or food for pregnant or nursing women. Please consult your baby book/NIH/your OB.

A modified, diet based reflux relief program for pregnant women would probably be helpful. Pregnancy reflux is more to do with hormones and the actual pressure put on your stomach by the baby than chronic acid reflux, GERD, and LPR.