Just found out soap is alkaline. If you run out of antacids and your acid reflux is really bad, can you eat soap to settle your tummy? This post inspired by eating chalk for acid reflux.
EDIT:
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Maybe. If you want to trade heartburn for intense diarrhea.
I’ll gladly take diarrhea over heartburn.
Each to their own, I suppose.
Acid reflux? I can confirm being fed soap doesn’t even fucking cure potty mouth.
While technically feasible with pure soap in small amounts (which is lye fully reacted with food grade oil/fats), the stuff you find in stores will have stuff like:
- Conditioner
- Perfume
- Coloring
All of which are likely to cause irritation on your intestines and worsen the overall acid flux experience.
If you need to do this experiment for some reason, make sure you know exactly what is in it. Most likely any “safe-ish” soap is more expensive than antacids or food-grade chalk.
Fun fact: Old timey cheap industry soap (plain tallow and lye) used to be popular with rats and mice.
Don’t eat soap.
Just keep extra anti acid on hand. I have bottles in almost every room and in my car.
You may want to look into getting some preventative OTC pills like Omeprazole or Famotadine. If it’s constant reflux, you may want to schedule a visit with a doc, ulcers are a thing and don’t get better without meds.
My doctor got me off omeprazole because there’s a link between long term use (10 years+) and kidney failure. So I do prescription strength famotidine twice a day and just take tums as needed, then in the summer when I’m drinking a lot, I switch to omeprazole for a few months. It’s working pretty good so far, but I go through tums like crazy.
As a quick remedy for acid reflux, I recommend Marie Biscuits or Rich Tea Biscuits. They kind of seem to absorb the acid reflux… I don’t know how it works, but I always used to have a pack of those Biscuits in my bag when I used to have regular acid reflux. They worked very well for me. Of course, changing my diet and lifestyle worked much better and now I haven’t had acid reflux in years.
Just take a tums dude
I wouldn’t eat soap simply because it’s amphiphilic, which is why, well, it makes good soap. The molecules have a hydrophilic and a lipophilic side and this will much rather soap off and severely damage the lining of your digestive route, potentially and probably also resulting in dangerous foaming.
If you take the most simple soap that’s just like potassium ions and negatively charged fatty acid residues, I’m not 100% sure but I doubt that the fatty acids want to accept a proton because they are rather stable when negatively charged, hence they won’t work well to buffer the stomach acid. And again, by the time that the fatty acid thinks about accepting a proton or not it will most likely be soaping up your cells’ membranes.
I think drinking water would be more effective
My dude omeprozol exists and is cheap. One tiny pill a day…
Only works if you take it in advance. There’s not really anything that helps when you wake up at 3 am and think you are dying - other than puking, which makes the problem worse long term.
Oh I know it and I have a bad time if I forget to take it. But once you make a habit of taking the pill it sure is life changing.
Do you take it daily? As in, forever?
Pretty much
I have read it can be counterproductive in the long term… That’s why I stopped (and because I didn’t consult a medic for it) I took it for more than 3 months daily and it didn’t take all my symptoms (feeling so full after meals and dyspnoea).
I think esomeprazole would be a better fit for reflux, but I am unsure.
Tums or Pepto will give you instant relief, while you wait for the proton pump inhibitors to kick in.
Pepcid complete. It’s a life saver
I take two of the quick dissolving ones if I feel the burn.
The better replacement is baking soda. Mix a tablespoon in a glass of water, chug. It’s gross at first, but it will annihilate heartburn.
Be warned! The reaction’s byproducts are H2O and CO2, and the reaction doesn’t end in your stomach. Be prepared to expel gas out one end and water out the other.
I love doing this. It’s like an elementary school science project in my tummy.
You’ll notice the gas, but the water comes from the acid being neutralized and won’t really be detectable. You just drank a glass of water too, that’s way more water than a tablespoon of baking soda can produce.
The H2O comes from the reaction.
NaHCO₃ (baking soda) + HCl (hydrochloric acid) → NaCl (sodium chloride) + H₂O (water) + CO₂ (carbon dioxide)
Water is created. Now pass that through your entire digestive tract full of HCl. Now H20 pops up, uh, where it’s not normally in the pipeline. Does that make sense? You now have water where your guts weren’t prepared to process it?
In any case, I shit straight liquid if I have to do this trick.
Sounds like a treatment for constipation too then
No! A teaspoon max.
DO NOT INGEST A TABLESPOON OF BAKING SODA.
Don’t normally have acid reflux, but last night I hit a tablespoon, three times over the night. Yes, that’s quite a bit.
That’s a lot! What was the effect? Have you taken that much before?
In my own experience if I take more than a teaspoon in maybe a four hour period, I start getting undigested leaves coming out the other end.
The burp let’s you know it’s working, and who couldn’t benefit from extra hydration?
According to my allergist, acid reflux is one of the most common allergy symptoms. Might want to get checked.
Uhh, we’re not exactly doctors here, but I don’t recommend eating soap. But hey, you do you.
Maybe try some Pepto Bismol or something…
A lot of things marketed as soaps these days are really detergents that contain sulfates and can be very harmful if swallowed.
Stick to FDA approved medicines. Medicine like tums use this strategy to decrease the acidity. Other medications block the stomach’s ability to become acidic.
If you have heart burn that won’t go away or chronic acid reflux, see a doctor
Future topic of a chubby emu video in the making.
Tums are like little soap cookies try them
