# GERD WTF?

**Published by:** [Continuations](https://continuations.com/)
**Published on:** 2026-03-22
**Categories:** health, science, medicine, gerd
**URL:** https://continuations.com/gerd-wtf

## Content

I love food and I love drink. Food and drink provide wonderful delights from delicious flavors and through jolly company. To my great fortune I never had any eating or drinking problems. Well all of that suddenly changed a few months ago. I went from no problems straight to intense chest pain and massive acid reflux. I consulted both AI and my generalist who both concluded that I had Gastroesophageal Reflux Disease aka GERD. I had never even heard of GERD before which is all the more surprising to me now that I know that 1 in 5 US adults suffer from it. But here comes the real nasty surprise: we mostly don’t know where it comes from or what to do about it. Sure we understand some causes, such as if you have a hiatal hernia or an H. pylori infection. As it turns out I appear to have neither based on the gold standard tests. Apparently most GERD cases are idiopathic. That’s a fancy medical word for a condition with an unknown cause. The GI specialist I went to said something along the lines of: “Most of the cases I see just start some day and we don’t know why. We treat them with Nexium and Pepcid and some of the time they go away.” WTF? I was in disbelief but then hit the Internet and quickly found the Reddit GERD forum and the About GERD website of the International Foundation for Gastrointestinal Disorders. And sure enough, confusion reigns supreme. People trying all sorts of things. Tantalizing sightings of apparent cures amidst an ocean of suffering and frustration. How is it possible that this is the state of medicine on an issue of such prevalence? As I have started to dig in, one thing has become clear. Way too many doctors seem to think this is somehow acceptable. I haven’t fully figured out what I want to do about it. My first step is to see if I can get better myself. To that end, I am looking into potential brain and biome connections. My early experiments with diaphragmatic breathing are so far quite promising. I suspect though that I will also want to fund some research and/or invest in startups that are addressing GERD. So if you either have personal experience with improving GERD or are working on / aware of promising research or startups please let me know. To everyone out there with GERD: this sucks. Let’s make it better!

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