A diet that helps reduce or minimize stomach acid

[specialmom]

We are trying to decrease my son's stomach acid as it is causing issues during his athletic events. Anyway to counteract this?  Alkaline foods?  I have read that oatmeal can help but there is a lot of information to go through and it becomes contradicting.

[specialmom]

The reason acid comes up is because there is a thought that vomiting during intense exercise is the stomach being flooded with acid to empty it.  Like the body goes into panic mode and wants to shut down digestion to focus on other things and then acid comes into play.  A lot of athletes take things like Tagamet prior to a race.  

[specialmom]

This issue is very specific to athletics.  And nausea and running does happen frequently, throwing up after a run and that type of thing.  My son would love to throw up after a run . ..  it's during the run that is problematic.  I have stomach issues with vitamins and only take them before bed and hence, have only done that with my kids.  

But in general, the recommendation for runners is to try to reduce stomach acid.

[Paxiled]

But, that creates more of the problem.  Tagamet suppresses acid, but then the stomach makes more to compensate.  If those runners are doing it regularly, they are actually reinforcing the problem, not decreasing it.  Look, serious athletes do anything for an advantage.  It's not healthy, but they have a short period of their lives when their bodies can do what they do so they make that sacrifice and pay for it later.  I knew some serious runners, marathoners and others who belonged to the local running club, because the head of the local club was active in a coop I managed.  They ate a lot of carbs up to the point before the race where they stopped eating.  Of course, long distance runners eat while they run.  But a food they all liked for what it did for them was bananas.  But I'm still confused about why acid in the stomach would cause it to vomit to empty it -- that's not my understanding of how the body tries to get rid of acid.  I mean, it causes gas and flatulence and sometimes diarrhea, but not vomiting, as far as I know.  My long-term use of meds and my recent attempt to fix a hip problem with ibuprofen which I had to take Prilosec with to avoid problems has left me with a lot of digestive problems, mostly gas.  So I know acid and what it does, and it isn't vomiting, at least in my experience, it's sitting on the pot.  If you get my, uh, drift.  I hope you find the answer, but I keep going back to this -- it doesn't happen when he trains.  It only happens in competition.  

[Paxiled]

And, if vitamins upset your stomach, that usually wouldn't help to take them at bedtime.  An empty stomach is usually a place for problems with them.  The advice is to take them with meals, because your body can't digest minerals if you don't.  Vitamin C will cause excess acidity if you don't.  The only vitamins or I should say supplements you don't take with food as a category are amino acids.  

[specialmom]

I think it can get very confusing, when to take certain vitamins, when to combine this or that.  My son does say he gets sick during practices but not as bad but they aren't going as fast, I guess.  I'm sure anxiety plays a role and we are hoping to start with a therapist in November. Then I'm sure the issue of to medicate or not will come up.  Sigh.  My son does do the carbs and that is pretty standard.  The nausea and vomiting is not unusual except that most do it upon the end of a race so getting a handle on the vomiting during a race is hard to get info on.  We'll keep trying it.  oh, and runners get vomiting as well as many get the runs (the other kind).  Going really fast puts your digestive tract in distress.  

[Paxiled]

How do you know it's the acid that's causing the problem?  I'm curious how anyone could truly know that.  As far as eating alkaline, that's a long-term solution.  The folks who are the most concerned about this are those who follow the Macrobiotic diet.  You don't have to have any interest in the diet itself to look to it for info on this aspect.  What you want long-term is a healthy balance between alkaline and acid, without having too much on either side of the line as it can through off digestion.  Now, if there truly was a way to know for sure it's acid causing his problem, and it doesn't actually sound like acid if it's still the problem of throwing up, you'd want to look at what he's eating before exercising.  For example, protein requires a high acid environment in the digestive tract so if he's eating, say, protein bars soon before he competes acid production has to go up to digest it.  That's why you usually eat them following training, not before.  Before, you focus on electrolytes and carbs for energy.  Some minerals also require acid to break them down, but others are the opposite.  But acid doesn't usually cause throwing up, it causes heartburn and reflux if it causes anything, and in young people, well, they can usually eat pretty much anything and not be bothered by it because of their quick metabolism.  Because your son is so active I'm assuming he's metabolizing his food and burning it off pretty quickly and very regularly.  You'd notice high acid more if he gets a problem lying on his back soon after eating, or has the pins and needles of heartburn.  But if you know for a fact his digestive system is having a problem with acid, then yes, in the long term eating a more balanced diet can help.  I'm guessing from what you've said so far that it's not an acid problem but what do I know?  Has he by any chance been on antibiotics a lot?  Or recently before this started?  Have you tried supplementing with a probiotic from the refrigerated section of the best health food store in your area that focuses on bifido-bacteria?  Does he eat pre-biotics, such as fermented or cultured foods?  All these can help if his problem is a digestive one.  

[Paxiled]

Also, does he take a multi-vitamin?  Is it a cheap one from the drugstore?  Many people throw up after taking those because they use cheap forms of minerals especially iron that can cause nausea, though it's usually brief in duration.  

[specialmom]

See my other comments.  He occasionally does eat a protein bar but normally he doesn't eat that much prior to running.  He tries to stop the eating and any sugary drinks like gatoraide 3.5 to 4 hours before the race.  It's a tough problem to conquer.