Non-medicinal Stomach Soothers

As a life long sufferer of various stomach ailments including peptic ulcers, I have tried nearly every over the counter stomach medication there is. While it is now possible to buy some remedies in pill form that you don't have to drink or chew, when I was younger, this was not the case. Sometimes the chalky, thick medication for the stomach upset was more distressing than the original problem itself and would cause more nausea than it cured. Because of my low tolerance for the awful taste of those various solutions on the market at the time, I experimented with many non-medical remedies to cure my multiple stomach upsets.

Cheese Curls and Lemon Lime Soda - I don't know why this works, I only know that it does. When I had my first wisdom tooth out many years ago, the stress of it combined with the medications brought on a flare up of my ulcers and a round of vomiting. I could not keep anything down, but I needed to stay hydrated. Since water just made me immediately sick, and fizzy drinks had been known to be good for queasiness, I tried lemon lime soda, but it didn't really work until my mother suggested I try something salty. My uncle had once mentioned cheese curls worked for him, so she got me some and that was the end of my stomach upset.

Broccoli - While it does little for a stomach in the short term, if you have had ulcers in the past and believe you may have them again, try broccoli with a few meals and see if the symptoms subside. Most ulcers are caused by H. pylori, which can be killed by a chemical found in broccoli.

Some other commonly suggested remedies that don't work so well are peppermint and ginger. My grandmother swore by peppermint for nausea and heartburn and always kept a supply of the red and white pinwheel candies on hand. While I have found that certain types of mint candy are okay for acid stomach and some chewable peppermint candies do help queasiness (as well as congestion and sore throat pain), in general the cooling sensation hard peppermint candies create in my stomach rather increased my nausea. Other people still say it works for them, so I think it is probably a matter of preference.

My father always suggested ginger was good for vomiting and suggested I put it in tea. There are also herbal "teas" which contain ginger already. None of that ever worked for me, nor did the ginger pills, however, I did find that a half teaspoon of the dry powder, while a bit unpleasant and surprisingly spicy hot, does seem to calm an acid stomach, at least temporarily, but does little for nausea.