I had chronic heartburn for years, got all the usual medical tests, plus all the gall bladder tests, too. I was put on Nexium for a while, but it may me sick. I spent lots of money on doctors and tests, as I do not have medical insurance. The results of all the tests? Negative for reflux, GI issues, colon issues, and gall bladder issues.

Then I went on South Beach Diet, and cut out all white flour, sugar and soy products - and my heartburn disappeared.

My conclusion? White flour/sugar/soy caused the heartburn.

If I eat more than 1 or 2 servings of white flour/sugar or starchy-corn products, I get heartburn every time. I can eat whole wheat, but very little.

If you do not have heartburn while you are on SBD, perhaps you too have a sensitivity to white flour or gluten, or modified food starch (which is corn) sugar and soy, which is in many salad dressings.

Regarding salad dressing, I use a slice of mashed avocado, or I mash in a hardboiled egg. You can try a little bit of mayo mixed with a little bit dijon and some low fat feta cheese.

So many people have minor chronic reflux and then they cut out certain foods and their reflux is gone, like magic. The doctors are mystified, LOL, because they don't understand nutrition very well.

Those acid reducers aren't the best thing in the world because your stomach needs acid to break down the food.

I have heard that ff cottage cheese mixed with the dry ranch dressing mix is good...I'm not sure that the dry dressing is SBD friendly, though? Also, salsa would be good.

Acid also protects you from bacteria that can infect your lungs if you reflux. In fact, everyone has reflux at times. We just don't all have reflux DISEASE/GERD.
Long term problems with reflux can lead to Barrets disease which is precancerous cell changes in the esophagus.
Some people don't have pain with their reflux, but may notice voice changes.
It is ok to "pop" an antacid or the occasional zantac/prilosec...but any repeated needs for these and you should see a doctor.
Weight loss itself can help reflux resolve. SBD has taken away all of my reflux, the only time I need a zantac now is when I have to take high doses of Motrin when my spinal arthritis acts up.

Salad Dressing--as your weight decreases and you are following the SBD WOE, you might try the same dressings again and see if your problems have resolved.

Here's a great recipe for an avocado salad dressing:

http://www.tasteofhome.com/Recipes/A...Salad-Dressing

Another topping I like is hummus
or get LF Cottage cheese and mix it with dried minced onion garlic (powder or minced) Italian seasoning and Parm cheese

I use two tablespoons of hidden valley ranch of my salads. Not only does it make the salads delicious and more palatable*, it never gives me heartburn. A vinegary dressing would be more likely to do that if you have acid problems.

*Not that I think salads are unpalatable, but a bit of ranch just makes it extra special to me. Also peanuts thrown on top.

Yum, I'm going to have to try this!

Belle, same with me. I used to have horrid heartburn every night...did the prilosec bit and it helped at first, then didn't after a while.
But, same as you, when I cut out the processed stuff, bingo, no heartburn. It just "went away".

I use vinegarette dressings a lot, but you may want to try Galeo's dressings which are made from miso. If you can't find it locally, they have a site. the dressings don't seem to be acid based.

Ya, trying to rid of the triggers for my heartburn is like ridding the triggers for my headaches (which was passed onto me), lol.. it seems all junkfood does not like me at all and just punishes me. So ya, ever since eating healthy don't get much headaches nor heartburn. I bet my blood pressure is lower too, cause I was borderline for that..

I'll have to try vinegarette dressings, thanks for the info..

Just a thought...the acids in foods that we eat are not nearly as acidic as stomach acid. This supports the thought that acidic foods may not be at all to blame for heartburn.
Brief Chemistry lesson:
The pH of gastric acid is about 1 and consists mainly of hydrochloric acid which has a pH of 0.
Most vinegars contain 5% acetic acid which has a pH of about 2.4, lemon juice is about 2.2 and tomato juice about 4.1.
Mixing vinegar, lemon juice or tomato juice with other ingredients that are not acidic will raise the pH/lower the acid level. Water has a pH of 7 and is considered neutral.
Just food for thought.

Also...on the headache triggers. Have you tried completely eliminating aspartame from your diet? This would be in diet sodas, mints, chewing gum, yogurts and any other artificially sweetened products. It made a significant decrease in my migraines. Mostly eliminated them when I was younger.

Nutrasweet gives me headaches too!

Nutrasweet is aspartame...I now use Splenda, but I try to use as little as possible. I use yogurt with Splenda. Other than that, I pretty much don't use any sweeteners on a regular basis. When I'm on phase 2, I started using just a bit of agave nectar in my steel cut oats.