Doctor answers: I have sour mouth

Dear Doctor!

My main complaint is sore – but not caustic – mouth taste, usually after I wake up and after eating, that goes away for short periods and returns after. I also cough without any reason. I also have stool problems, sometimes diarrhea, sometimes constipation. According to my doctor, I have reflux, which I do not believe because I have normal weight and watch what I eat.

Dear Madam!

Far Eastern medicine gives great importance to what taste appears in our mouth. Characteristic pathological mouth tastes are sweet, bitter, sticky, sour and metallic. This, for those who understand western medicine, means either increased fire, heat (liver and bile function) or stagnation or failure of digestive system energies. Because these symptoms occur well before the onset of the disease, they are an excellent way for a competent physician to treat problems in time. For example, sour mouth taste means stagnation of food in the digestive tract according to Chinese medicine, and accumulating kapha, impatient psyche in Ayurveda.

Would it be Reflux?

Today’s medicine considers such cases to be mostly reflux disease and treats it the usual way, with stomach acid neutralisers or in worse cases with antibiotics. The known harmful side effects of this is that it disrupts the digestion process, slows or stops the digestion, causing the flora to deteriorate. So, according to Eastern medicine, the poor digestive processes are obvious, and the Western doctor just makes it worse with his medications. It is possible that the complaints in the mouth gets reduced temporarily, but with it, the whole digestive process suffers.

The regulation of digestion is a complex chain of interrelated processes. For example, if a lot of acid is produced in the stomach then it reduces the production of gastrin in the duodenum, which stops the overproduction of stomach acid and at the same time, it increases secretin production, which increases the bicarbonate production of the pancreas, and thus, gastric acid in the small intestine can be rapidly neutralized, thereby allowing the fat, protein and carbohydrate digestive enzymes of the small intestine to produce their digestive effects. If we manipulate this complex chain with drugs, one process stops the other, and as a result, poorly digested food passes through the intestine, and pathogenic bacteria can appear that are feeling well in this poorly digested environment.

Abdominal complaints, abdominal problems

Moreover, you don’t typically have reflux complaints because you don’t feel acid in your throat and mouth, but a sour taste and this must be clearly distinguished from a reflux disease, which is when acid passes into the esophagus and stomach through an inadequately closed gastric entrance. This is another typical mistake of today’s attitude: for the majority of abdominal complaints, they simply say that it’s reflux disease, although the normal functioning of the digestive system can be disturbed in countless ways, we can feel countless tastes in the mouth and cough for thousands of other reasons.

Fasting and other suggestions

I suggest you to fast for a couple of days then leave minimum one breakfast out every week. This helps the excretion of waste materials and the normalization of the flora. Avoid sour foods (sour, according to eastern medicine), like alcohol, raw and cooked apple, vinegary dishes, cheeses but sweets are also to be avoided.

Herbal plants

Bitter herbs, mint, warm and easy to digest neutral vegetable dishes are needed. Mildly spicy seasoning improves the passage and the separation of the digestive juices. Eat more ginger. Fine abdominal massage, early dinner, is beneficial. These are likely to resolve your complaint. If it does not disappear, a more thorough decontamination treatment, pancakma treatment, and acupuncture treatment should be sought with the assistance of a physician.