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| Introduction | |
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| About This Book | |
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| Conventions Used in This Book | |
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| What You're Not to Read | |
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| Foolish Assumptions | |
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| How This Book Is Organized | |
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| Icons Used in This Book | |
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| Where to Go from Here | |
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| Naming Your Pain | |
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| Picturing Heartburn and Reflux | |
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| Meeting Your Heartburn | |
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| Saying hello to your fellow sufferers | |
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| Quantifying your discomfort | |
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| Pinning the Tail on the Heartburn Donkey | |
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| Defining terms and conditions | |
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| Looking for Help in All the Right Places | |
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| Editing the menu | |
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| Looking at your lifestyle | |
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| Remedying the situation | |
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| Managing your meds | |
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| Seeing the surgeon | |
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| Tracking Your Digestive Tract | |
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| Defining Digestion | |
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| Seeing and smelling | |
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| Tasting and chewing | |
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| Swallowing | |
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| Mixing and mashing | |
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| Extracting the good stuff | |
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| Creating compost | |
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| Testing the Protectors | |
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| Examining the LES | |
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| Closing the door: Reviewing the life and times of the LES | |
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| Operating out-of-bounds | |
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| Suffering with a good muscle gone bad | |
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| Cataloging the Symptoms and Hazards of Heartburn, Reflux, and GERD | |
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| Tracking the Symptoms | |
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| Monitoring your mouth | |
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| Exploring your respiratory tract | |
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| Examining the esophagus | |
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| Checking your personal list of symptoms | |
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| Calculating Long-Term Consequences | |
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| Irritating the environment | |
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| Swallowing hard | |
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| Changing cells: Barrett's esophagus risk | |
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| Facing the facts about esophageal cancer | |
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| Rating Your Reflux Risk | |
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| Picturing People with Heartburn | |
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| Defining the terms | |
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| Classifying reflux risk factors | |
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| Factoring in the Family | |
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| Rendering a Gender Bias | |
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| Expecting trouble | |
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| Linking estrogen to heartburn | |
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| Mentioning Medical Risks | |
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| Asthma and other respiratory problems | |
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| Diabetes | |
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| Hiatal hernia | |
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| Scleroderma | |
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| Zollinger-Ellison syndrome | |
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| Weighing Weight's Weight on Reflux | |
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| Counting extra pounds | |
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| Linking weight and reflux | |
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| Consulting contradicting evidence | |
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| Pinpointing Problem Eaters | |
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| Fatalistic foodies | |
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| Fast Eddies | |
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| Big eaters | |
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| Anytime eaters | |
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| Adding Up Your Own Reflux Risk | |
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| Eating Your Way to Relief | |
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| Meeting Your Nutrition Needs | |
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| Measuring Nutrition | |
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| Beginning with the Big Guys | |
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| Pumping protein | |
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| Facing the fat facts | |
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| Counting on carbohydrates | |
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| Investigating Vitamins | |
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| Fat-soluble vitamins | |
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| Water-soluble vitamins | |
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| Mining the Minerals | |
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| Meeting the majors | |
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| Tracking the traces | |
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| Brushing up on the bit players | |
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| Supplementing the Info | |
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| Crunching the numbers | |
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| Setting limits | |
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| Fine-Tuning Your Diet | |
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| Enjoying Food | |
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| Explaining How Food and Drink Can Cause Heartburn | |
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| Weakening the LES | |
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| Making more acid | |
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| Irritating your esophagus | |
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| Naming the Guilty Parties | |
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| Deciphering the rules of the road | |
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| Shaking up the spice rack | |
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| Identifying your personal troublemakers | |
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| Making Meals Safer | |
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| Setting a soothing schedule | |
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| Slowing down the action | |
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| Modifying foods and recipes | |
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| Choosing the Safest Cooking Technique | |
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| Looking at low-fat cooking methods | |
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| Identifying added-fat cooking methods | |
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| Reviewing Home Remedies, Alternative Approaches, and Herbal Healers | |
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| Grading Granny's Goodies | |
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| Neutralizing the burn | |
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| Masticating relief | |
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| Soothing with a mother's touch | |
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| Looking for Alternatives | |
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| Defining conventional medicine | |
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| Taking a holistic approach | |
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| Evaluating Herbal Medicine | |
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| Viewing herbals and the law | |
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| Looking for expert advice | |
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| Classifying stomach-friendly herbals | |
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| Shopping smart | |
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| Linking Other Alternative Approaches to Heartburn/Reflux | |
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| Treating Your Middle | |
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| Finding the Right Doctor | |
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| Deciding When to See the Doctor | |
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| Sorting Through the Heartburn Specialists | |
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| Choosing a Doctor | |
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| Basic credentials | |
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| Professional associations | |
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| State medical societies | |
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| State health departments | |
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| Going to the Doctor with Your History in Hand | |
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| Examining Your Esophagus and Testing Your Tummy | |
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| Picking Potential Patients | |
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| Assessing Your Acidity | |
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| Bernstein test (acid perfusion test) | |
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| Ambulatory 24-hour pH monitoring | |
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| Measuring Your Muscle Strength | |
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| Preparing for this test | |
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| Taking this test | |
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| Evaluating the results | |
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| Studying Your Stomach | |
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| Preparing for this test | |
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| Taking this test | |
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| Evaluating the results | |
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| Evaluating Your Esophagus | |
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| Barium swallow | |
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| Upper GI series | |
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| Upper endoscopy | |
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| Prescribing Relief | |
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| Noting the Cost of Heartburn Help | |
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| Aiming for Neutrality with Antacids | |
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| Describing how antacids help | |
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| Naming the antacid ingredients in antacid products | |
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| Reviewing other ingredients in antacid products | |
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| Blocking the Burn | |
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| Separating prescription and OTC H2 blockers | |
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| Counting drawbacks | |
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| Slowing the Pump | |
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| Defining PPIs | |
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| Comparing PPIs | |
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| Listing potential problems | |
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| Interesting Interacting | |
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| Avoiding Problem Pills | |
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| Pinpointing Potential Problems | |
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| Naming Medicines That Loosen the LES | |
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| Antiasthma drugs | |
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| Anticholinergics | |
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| Antidepressants | |
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| Antihypertensives | |
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| Anti-Parkinson medication | |
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| Female hormones | |
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| Narcotics | |
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| Nitrates | |
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| Sedatives and tranquilizers | |
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| Targeting Traffic Stoppers | |
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| Listing Irritating Drugs and Supplements | |
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| Analgesics | |
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| Antibiotics | |
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| Bone builders | |
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| Other esophagus irritators | |
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| Nutritional supplements | |
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| Naming Medical Conditions That May Make Meds Stick | |
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| Minimizing the Heartburn Effects of Essential Medicines | |
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| Read the label | |
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| Don't chew the pills | |
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| Don't take your pill lying down | |
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| Don't forget the water | |
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| Eat a little | |
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| Exploring Surgical Options | |
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| Nominating Candidates for Heartburn Surgery | |
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| Meeting medication malcontents | |
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| Assessing esophagus damage | |
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| Considering other factors | |
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| Taking the surgery option off the table | |
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| Setting a Surgical Schedule | |
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| Selecting a surgeon | |
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| Prepping for surgery | |
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| Cutting and Pasting: Fundoplication | |
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| Opening moves | |
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| Working the inside track | |
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| Meeting the Morning After | |
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| Returning to the real world | |
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| Eating again | |
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| Reaching Home Base | |
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| Swallowing hard | |
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| Reprising reflux | |
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| Floating on bloat | |
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| Balancing Risks and Benefits | |
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| Peering into the Reflux Crystal Ball | |
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| Creating a Comfortable Lifestyle | |
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| Building a Better Body | |
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| Answering Question Numero Uno: Who's Overweight? | |
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| Calculating your BMI | |
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| Figuring out where your figures fit | |
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| Choosing a Healthful Weight Control Program | |
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| Counting calories | |
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| Carbing down the pounds | |
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| Using protein to fight fat | |
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| Examining all those other weight-loss diets | |
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| Making a sensible weight-control choice | |
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| Working Off Your Reflux | |
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| Eating smart for a comfortable workout | |
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| Adapting your exercise to your heartburn | |
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| Recognizing when exercise may not bother your reflux | |
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| Setting sensible exercise standards | |
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| Healing Heartburn with Healthy Habits | |
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| Snuffing Out Heartburn | |
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| Linking tobacco to heartburn | |
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| Leaving a losing habit | |
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| Writing a word to the willing | |
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| Toasting the Pain-Free Life | |
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| Explaining why alcohol raises your risk of reflux | |
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| Defining a drink | |
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| Getting a Good Night's Sleep | |
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| Picking a comfy position | |
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| Altering your eating habits | |
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| Medicating nocturnal reflux | |
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| Stressing Stress Relief | |
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| Stressing the Importance of Stress | |
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| Activating Your Adrenals | |
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| Considering the cortex | |
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| Looking into the medulla | |
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| Getting ready for "fight or flight" | |
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| Linking Stress to Heartburn | |
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| Hitting your GI tract with hormones | |
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| Bodies behaving badly | |
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| Unlocking Your Stomach from Your Stress | |
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| Examining antireflux anti-stress therapy | |
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| Reading the AHRQ report | |
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| Finding a solution | |
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| Fashioning (and Furnishing) a Comfortable Life | |
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| Burning Your Bra and Loosening Your Belt | |
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| Looking Good, Feeling Fine | |
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| Running down perfume's effects | |
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| Questioning the accuracy of cosmetic label terms | |
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| Finding the facts on ingredients and label terms | |
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| Reducing reactions to cosmetics | |
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| Finding Furniture That Fights Heartburn | |
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| Picking a proper chair | |
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| Making your bed for a good night's sleep | |
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| Meeting the Special Cases | |
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| Handling the Heartburn of Pregnancy | |
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| Are All Pregnant Women at Risk for Reflux? | |
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| Altering your insides | |
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| Raging hormones | |
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| Avoiding Unnecessary Tests | |
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| Determining Safe Remedies | |
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| Reviewing the ABCs of drugs for pregnant women | |
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| Rating reflux drugs | |
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| Filling in the (prescription) blanks | |
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| Becoming a research person | |
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| Examining home remedies | |
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| De-Linking Your Lifestyle from Your Reflux | |
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| Eating in comfort | |
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| Sleeping tight | |
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| Exercising caution | |
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| Fashioning an alternative | |
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| Finding Heartburn in Infants and Children | |
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| Naming What's Making Your Child Cry | |
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| Identifying children at risk | |
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| Looking for signs of infant reflux | |
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| Tracking reflux in toddlers | |
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| Diagnosing Reflux in Children | |
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| Treating Children with Reflux | |
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| Feeding well, feeling better | |
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| Picking a perfect position | |
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| Medicating childhood reflux | |
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| Taking Aim at Senior Heartburn | |
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| Aging into Heartburn | |
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| Rising risks | |
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| Soaring severity | |
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| Identifying the Risk Factors in Older Folk | |
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| Losing muscle power | |
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| Losing gland power | |
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| Multiplying meds | |
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| Lying down | |
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| Diagnosing Heartburn in Older Patients | |
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| Treating Senior Heartburn | |
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| Modifying your lifestyle | |
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| Prescribing relief | |
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| Cutting options | |
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| The Part of Tens | |
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| Ten or So Heartburn and Reflux Myths | |
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| Heartburn Is Common, So It's Nothing to Worry About | |
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| Heartburn and Reflux Inevitably Lead to Cancer | |
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| Only Overweight People, Drinkers, and Chiliheads Get Heartburn and Reflux | |
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| Smoking a Cigarette After Eating Prevents Heartburn | |
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| Heartburn Is an Inevitable Part of Growing Older | |
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| OTC Antacids Aren't Real Medicine | |
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| Taking Prescription Heartburn and Reflux Drugs Makes Digesting Food More Difficult | |
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| Having Nighttime Heartburn Means You Should Sleep Sitting Up | |
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| Love Coffee? Got Heartburn? Switch to Decaf | |
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| To Avoid Heartburn After Eating, Relax | |
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| Having Heartburn during Pregnancy Means Giving Birth to a Hairy Baby | |
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| Heartburn Is Connected to the Heart | |
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| Ten Heartburn Web Sites | |
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| The National Heartburn Alliance | |
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| International Foundation for Functional Gastrointestinal Disorders | |
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| HelpHeartburn.com | |
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| GERD Information Center | |
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| The American Gastroenterological Association | |
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| The American College of Gastroenterology | |
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| American Society for Gastrointestinal Endoscopy (ASGE) | |
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| North American Society for Pediatric Gastroenterology, Hepatology and Nutrition | |
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| American Academy of Family Physicians | |
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| The American Dietetic Association | |
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| The Food and Drug Administration | |
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| Ten Sometimes Painful, Often Annoying, but Almost Never Fatal Digestive Disorders | |
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| Appendicitis | |
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| Bezoar | |
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| Constipation and Diarrhea | |
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| Gas (Flatulence) | |
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| Globus Sensation | |
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| Hemorrhoids | |
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| Hiccups | |
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| Irritable Bowel Syndrome (IBS) | |
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| Inflammatory Bowel Disease (IBD) | |
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| Glossary | |
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| Index | |