People keep telling me my constant reflu

I'll check the evidence and our cards before writing anything.

Your instinct about the referral was right, and the acid tests can go in the bin. Here is the short version: the lemon juice / baking soda test is not a real measure of your stomach acid, so it cannot tell you low acid from high acid, and the money and worry it costs is better spent on the food diary you already started.

1. What you already tried vs what is worth doing instead

The lemon juice / baking soda test: unreliable. It reacts with whatever liquid you gave it, not with your stomach's real output, so a "pass" or "fail" is not information a doctor can act on. Test results like this tend to send people in the wrong direction — chasing acid *up* when reflux is usually a problem of acid *going where it shouldn't*, or buying supplements on the strength of a kitchen experiment. Stop it. It is not on the path to your GI appointment.

Your food diary — keep it, this is the good one. The clinical tests that actually measure reflux and acid are things only a clinic can do: an esophageal pH test (how often acid backs up and how long it stays), manometry, or an upper endoscopy.

Source: medlineplus https://medlineplus.gov/gerd.html

(That page is MedlinePlus, the U.S. National Library of Medicine's public health site. I checked it on 2026-10-07.)

Better alternatives you can start today, no shopping, under 25 minutes:

• Smaller meals, and finish eating 2–3 hours before lying down. Same source. This is usually the biggest lever and it costs nothing.
• Sleep on your left side, or raise the head of the bed (wedged books under the bed-legs end, not extra pillows — pillows alone just bend your neck). Same source.
• Loose-fitting clothes around the waist, especially in the hours after eating. Same source.
• One trigger-week, not a forever ban. Note in the diary which of spicy food, chocolate, caffeine, and fatty food lines up with your worst days, then pull back on just those for a week. Same source lists these as common triggers.
• Your diary format the clinic will thank you for: date · time · what you ate · how long after eating · symptom and 0–10 · what you were doing (lying down, bending, lifting) · what you took. One line per episode. You already have the raw material — just add the clock times.

2. Constraints and the avoid list

• No acid self-tests, no mystery powders, no buying anything online that claims to "fix" acid. If a product would need a prescription elsewhere, it is not yours to buy here.
• Do not start, stop, or change any medicine on the back of a home test. That includes anything already prescribed for the reflux. If a home experiment makes you want to change something, that is a question for the doctor, not a decision for tonight.
• No doses for the kid, the elder, or the sibling. If anyone in the house wants to try an acid test or a new remedy for their own reflux, the answer is the same clinician route, not the kitchen one.
• Don't let the experiment creep into their meals. No adding lemon or vinegar to family food "to test" — it changes the food for everyone at the table for no gain.

3. Decision tree and red flags

I am not a physician and this is not a diagnosis — only someone who can examine you and order tests can say what your reflux is.

Stop the DIY and get clinical help now — call your local emergency number — if any of these appear:

• Chest pain with shortness of breath, or pain spreading into your jaw or arm. MedlinePlus says get help right away for this: it can be a heart problem, and it should never be treated as ordinary heartburn.
• Severe chest or upper-belly pain right after forceful vomiting, or after food felt stuck.
• Trouble swallowing, or pain when swallowing, that is new.

Book an appointment sooner than your referral, not a home trial, if:

• Weight loss you did not intend, or feeling constantly full and eating less.
• Black, tarry stool, blood in stool, or vomiting blood.
• Reflux that wakes you at night, or hoarseness or a cough that won't settle — these are the features that make a doctor want to look rather than treat blindly.

Otherwise: you are not in a danger zone. You are waiting for a GI referral that is already pending, and the honest work between now and then is the diary plus the four no-cost routines above.

Questions to bring to the doctor (screenshot this)

• "Is what I have reflux, or is it something that looks like reflux?" — ask them to name the other two or three on their list.
• "Given my diary, is an endoscopy or a pH test worth doing before we try anything?"
• "If it is reflux, what should change first — meals and timing, or medicine? And what would count as it not working?"
• "What are my alarm symptoms — what should make me call you instead of waiting for the referral?"
• "Is there anything in what I take that makes reflux worse?"

What success looks like in 24 hours

Not a cure, and not a test result. Success tonight is: the acid experiments are over and the cupboard is not being restocked; three diary lines written with clock times; the last meal pulled in ahead of bedtime; and one question above you now know to ask. If the fire is still burning after those changes, that is information for the referral — not evidence that something is wrong with your acid, and not a reason to try anything new.