A practical 2-week diet trial for acid reflux

Choose smaller meals, finish eating well before lying down, and record what you eat alongside burning, sour taste, regurgitation, cough, or disturbed sleep. Rather than removing every commonly mentioned trigger, reduce foods or drinks that repeatedly coincide with your own symptoms and review the pattern afterward.

Acid reflux occurs when stomach contents travel upward into the oesophagus. Large meals, lying down soon after eating, and individual triggers can make episodes easier to provoke. Possible triggers include fatty meals, spicy foods, chocolate, mint, caffeine, fizzy drinks, citrus, tomato, and alcohol, but reactions vary.

A brief structured trial is meant to reveal patterns, not diagnose the cause. Frequent or ongoing reflux may need assessment for inflammation, medicine effects, a hiatus hernia, or another digestive problem.

Start with regular, modest portions built around foods you tolerate, such as oats, rice, wholegrain bread, vegetables, non-citrus fruit, pulses, eggs, fish, or lean meat. Drink water through the day. Leave a comfortable gap between the last meal and bedtime, and remain upright after eating.

In your diary, note meal time, portion size, ingredients, symptoms, sleep, and any reflux medicine. Change a small number of likely triggers rather than the whole diet at once. At the end, reintroduce a removed food cautiously if symptoms settled; recurrence can help clarify whether it matters to you.

Arrange a GP review if symptoms continue despite the trial, repeatedly disturb sleep, require frequent self-treatment, or include persistent cough, vomiting, or upper abdominal discomfort. Bring the diary and a list of medicines, because some medicines can aggravate reflux.

Seek urgent care for difficulty or pain when swallowing, food sticking, vomiting blood, black stools, unexplained weight loss, persistent vomiting, or severe chest or abdominal pain. Call emergency services for chest pressure or tightness with breathlessness, sweating, faintness, or pain spreading to the arm, jaw, back, or neck.

Ask whether your diary suggests a reproducible trigger, whether a medicine review or treatment trial is appropriate, and how to reintroduce restricted foods. If your diet has become narrow, discuss whether referral to a dietitian would help preserve nutrition.