Post by @mollypelletier.rd

Most people think reflux damage is happening while the acid is there. Acid comes up, it burns, it goes away, healing starts. Your throat is on a different timeline. The enzyme pepsin rides up with your refluxate and does something acid alone cannot do. It binds into your throat tissue and stays there. In human hypopharynx biopsies, pepsin was taken up directly into the cells (Johnston et al. 2010, Annals of Otology, Rhinology and Laryngology, PMID 20860281). Once it is embedded, it does not need another reflux episode to switch on. Pepsin goes dormant above a pH of about 6.5, stays stable up to pH 8, and reactivates the moment the pH drops, holding on to 79% of its original activity (Johnston et al. 2007, Laryngoscope, PMID 17417109). Coffee. A tomato. A sip of sparkling water. Each one can wake it back up, silently, with no heartburn and nothing you feel in that moment. This is why so many of my clients tell me, "I am on a PPI, I cut every trigger, why is my throat still raw?" Acid suppression raises the pH of what comes up. It does not clear the pepsin already bound in your tissue. Your doctor has been treating the flood. Nobody mentioned the water damage already in the walls. That is what I mean when I say reflux has an invisible signal. The acid is the part you feel. The pepsin is the part that keeps working after the feeling stops. Two things we do about it. The tissue support layer. Slippery elm, zinc carnosine, and DGL to coat and soothe the mucosal lining while that signal is still active. All three are in @Sequoia Soothe Pattern tracking. What you ate, when you ate it, and what your throat did afterward. That is how we figure out what is still reactivating it. Your throat is dealing with a mechanism nobody explained to you. Now you have it. My free Reflux Revolution guide walks through the full framework for calming both the acid and the pepsin. Check the link in bio. Follow for more. 💚 Small hinges swing big doors. 🌿 #LPR #SilentReflux #AcidReflux #Pepsin #GutHealth