Stomach acid dilemma

[Guest guest]

I'm stuck in a bit of a catch-22 that I'd really appreciate some help with.

Though I haven't actually gotten myself tested, I'm all but positive my

stomach acid production is severely deficient. For one thing, though I eat

plenty of protein (some kind of beef or other ruminant meat almost every

day, 6+ eggs almost every day, sausage almost every day, some raw

proteinaceous animal foods most or at least many days, etc.) I have various

signs of protein malabsorption and insufficiency. I also have poor

digestion and very, very frequent food poisoning, and the food poisoning

problem has gotten appreciably worse over the last few years (possibly

sparked by a period spent taking Singulair, an asthma medication) as my

symptoms of protein malabsorption have cropped up and worsened. Pancreatin

and probiotic supplementation help somewhat, but they only ameliorate the

problems, they don't eliminate them, and they obviously haven't stopped the

worsening of certain conditions.

The dilemma I have is that while HCl supplementation radically improves

some problems, it creates others, and those others have plagued me every

time I've tried it without fail.

First, the good. I haven't had the runs once during any trial run of HCl

supplementation, and in fact I've had perfectly-formed stools without fail,

something that almost never happens otherwise. I also don't get tired

after a large meal (even a REALLY large meal of 3-4,000 calories -- I'm

6'3 " or 6'4 " and about 215#, so I'm always going to need a lot of food,

particularly if I lose a bit more fat and put on some extra muscle) whereas

I often would otherwise, even a very low-carb meal. Furthermore, I have

more energy and seem to be getting more benefit from the food I eat.

The bad, unfortunately, is very bad. Despite the alternate-medicine view

that acid reflux problems are often or always the result of stomach acid

insufficiency, HCl supplementation seems to cause reflux in me even though

I either never have it otherwise or only have it at undetectable

levels. Worse yet, it's getting into my lungs. On another trial run I was

stuck in an extremely moldy place and didn't realize that the lung symptoms

I was experiencing were largely due to the HCl and not entirely caused by

the mold until I got very, very sick. (I've had asthma all my life,

sometimes very bad, and mold is one of the most powerful triggers for

me.) This time around I've taken less and made sure to only take it after

big meals, but the problem is still developing, just more slowly.

Obviously I can't continue this supplementation indefinitely without doing

something about the reflux, but I also can't very well just give up on the

digestion problem either. I'm stuck between a rock and a rock, and I'd

very much appreciate any advice or suggestions any of you can offer. Are

there other forms of HCl that might be friendlier to my system? Do I need

to get a doctor to peer down my throat to see if there's some kind of

defect with my lower esophageal sphincter? If so, what can even be done

about that? I'd imagine surgery would be quite costly, and most medical

types would just want to put me on acid inhibitors or antacids anyway,

which would be patently disastrous.

I expect some of you will suggest Zypan, the Standard Process pancreatin &

HCl supplement, but I've already tried it, and I can only assume that the

amounts of pancreatin and HCl it contains are in line with the amounts of

vitamins and minerals and whatnot in other SP products -- practically

homeopathic in their near-absence -- because I didn't noticed any kind of

positive reaction to it, and when I substituted Zypan for my normal

pancreatin supplement, I started getting my old pre-pancreatin-supplement

symptoms back after awhile. To be fair, I never took more than 3 tablets

with a meal, so maybe I would've benefited from a much higher dose, but at

that level the cost would start getting absurd and unmanageable, and I'd be

concerned about the amount of honey I'd wind up having with every meal,

since those tablets are very sweet.

After the discussion of pyroluria here on the list, I recently started

supplementing with fairly high levels of zinc and B6 to see what happens,

but I haven't had time for any results to develop. (I don't know that I

have pyroluria, though the symptoms seem like a very good fit, and an even

better fit for some family members) but since zinc and B6 are essential to

the production of HCl and digestive enzymes and I'm pretty clearly severely

deficient in both I thought it would be a worthwhile experiment. But at

best that's a long-term solution when I really need a shorter-term one if

at all possible.

TIA,

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