Does anyone have acid reflux problems with Crystal Light?

Some of the flavors cause my REflux to to haywire. I try to stick with the milder ones. I like the iced Tea, White Grape, Pomagranite Cherry. I have to have them with ice or they are two strong and will def cause heartburn. I take prevacid daily otherwise everything gives me HB!!

Pre-op I was drinking the lipton ice tea to-go packets and ended up with severe reflux.  I cut back and it went away, but during my pre-op testing I found out I had a hiatal hernia.  They checked because I said I had sever heartburn at one point.  I actually had been thinking of the band up till that point, but after they found that that they said I was not a good canditate for the band, that I would need to do the RNY.  (Sure am glad I didn't go with the band at this point).

I started drinking the Lipton to-go again in the last month or so, this time a pink lemonade flavor, and I have noticed that my pouch has a burning sensation more often.  A bottle of sf ice tea irritated me for the rest of the afternoon, I tried a Mikes Hard lemonade/ice tea and had only a few sips before it burned.  I also had regular tea and that irritated me as well, so I am staying away from the tea for now and using lemonade flavor at 1/2 strength, and making sure I am drinking some regular water as well.

I am still taking Prilosec.  I tried to go off it after the 2 months required, but am feeling better still on it.

I am going to talk to my doctor at the end of month about the hernia and if it is still affecting me.

I have trouble with the iced tea flavoured ones, they all give me heartburn post op. green tea and raspberry has been good, so is hawiian punch!!

The flavor I'm drinking now is Green Tea Raspberry.  I had bought like 15 boxes on ebay of 15 different flavors.  There were about 3 that have citric acid as their second ingredient.  I have a bunch of flavors to try to see if I can drink them w/o problem.  Plus I'll try the half strength thing. 

I think drinking carbonated drinks over the years has caused my reflux to be even worse.  If I drink water, tea or anything water based - I get heartburn so bad I cant stand it.  I was the queen of diet pepsi until the last two weeks and I have come off of them to where I am only drinking a few oz's a day and only to slowly bring myself off the caffeine so I dont feel like crap by going cold turkey.  I am drinking about 80 oz of water and crystal light a day now and have discovered that after the initial first week the heartburn has improved a lot to where I dont have it near as often or as bad.  I have tried some of the teas which I didnt care for at all and the orange was ok but right now I am hooked on the wild strawberry and the white grape. 

I get major mega heartburn with CL.  I can't drink it.

I have found that I do well with S/F Hawaiian Punch, Lemon-berry flavor.  Not too sweet like the other flavors and no heartburn.

I drink Vitamin Water.  I can't stand Crystal Light.  It also gives me major heartburn.  Pre-surgery, I didn't stop my diet soda habit, but once I had the surgery, I knew soda was a big no-no and had no trouble stopping.  Same with coffee.  I used to drink about 24-30 ounces of coffee a day.  Now, maybe every other day, I will drink a half cup of coffee.  I never had any withdrawal or anything!

One thing I did pre-op was take a full 14 day course of Prilosec.  That really helped with the acid reflux.  Post-op, I think I'm better for it.  I am taking Pepcid Complete as needed for HB since the surgery.  I was taking it twice a day, but am now down to once a day.

Don't worry too much about your pre-op drinks.  Try to reduce the soda and keep working on finding other drinks you like.  The surgery has a way of quickly changing those soda addictions!

Kim Pekin
Midwife
www.gentlehomebirth.com

I had that problem with crystal light before surgery too. i use the wyler's drink mixes.