Hey guys! Welcome back again to Ken Tamplin Vocal Academy,
where the proof is in the singing! We got a lot of requests for this, and that
is “Ken, I think I have acid reflex, or I know I have acid reflux, what do I do?” Well, the very first thing you do is you go
to a quality, licensed healthcare practitioner that can give you good medical advice. That’s the first thing you do. What you don’t do is you go to some Yahoo
on the Internet who’s cut and pasted a bunch of stuff and claims to be an expert and. You’re going to follow what they say. Don’t do that. Go, again, to a quality, licensed healthcare
practitioner, and get good quality medical advice. That’s the first thing you do. Now, if you’re asking my opinion, I’m
happy to give it to you, with 30 years of experience of doing this, which I’ve had
it myself, and I’ve had a lot of students, and I’ve had a lot of band members with
Gerd, with LPR, with silent reflux, and I’m going to go into all of these different things here
in a minute. But I’ll give you my personal history and
story, in hopes that this may help you in your journey to overcome this. Okay? Now first of all, what is Gerd? Well, Gerd is Gastro Esophaegeal Reflux Disease. Gerd. Gastro Esophaegeal Reflux Disease. It’s where acid builds up in the stomach,
and then it goes into the esophagus, and it burns the esophagus, and you get this heartburn
and it can cause chest pains, it can cause all kinds of grief. Right? That’s what Gerd is. Now Gerd isn’t the only thing that acid
reflux is, title for acid reflux. There’s some other stuff. I’m going to get to that in a minute, but
acid comes up in the stomach, in the esophagus like I said, and the esophagus itself can
handle a certain amount of acid reflux. It was designed to do that. The larynx, or the voice box, wasn’t. So we need to deal with not allowing this
acid to go through the esophagus and get up into the voice box, and we’re going to discuss
this here in a minute. Now, if acid hits the lungs itself, it can
cause all kinds of grief. Everything from bronchitis to pneumonia, so
we don’t want it going into the lung, either, that’s a no-no! And there’s some other conditions it can
cause, too. Where you’re constantly, you know, clearing
your throat, or you’re constantly feeling like there’s mucus in your throat. Like there’s a bunch of gak, always in your
throat. It especially happens when you’re laying
down or sleeping and you feel like there’s this constant, like, I don’t know, ball
of stuff in your throat. So there’s all kinds of things like this
it can cause. But I want to get into acid reflux now. The larynx, the voice box, which I’m going
to get into, LPR… When LPR happens, which is called laryngeal
pharyngeal reflux. So LPR goes from the stomach to the esophagus,
into the voice box. That’s called LPR. And I’m going to discuss this, too, in a
couple of seconds, and some ways we can identify it, and reconcile it. Okay? So that’s really important. Now, the first thing is how does this affect
me, or how does this affect my vocal folds? Now, this isn’t a video on acid reflux for
the masses of how do you deal with this, though this applies to you, too. I’m going to focus predominantly on how
this applies to the voice or specifically for singers, okay? So my goal is to help singers out and guys
with acid reflux or LPR, or silent reflux, the information we’re going to give you
is great, too, and it will help you, but I’m going to zero in on singers. So how does it happen? That’s the most important thing. How does it affect us? And that’s another thing, so how it affects
us is you’ll get hoarseness. You’ll kinda be talking like this and you’ll
kind of wonder what’s going on. Kind of almost simulates like the feeling
of a node, which I have a video out on nodes and polyps, and you can refer to that too. The feeling of like a lump in the throat,
like a lump in the bottom, right around here, you’ll get that sort of sensation. It can affect your sinuses so the Velo nasal
port, and so post nasal drip, constant dripping on the folds themselves, which causes swelling
and inflammation, which loses good cord closure, when you lose good cord closure you start
to force more air, and this vicious cycle happens with that. Another thing is constant throat clearing,
ahem, you know, just constant, like always feeling you have gak in the throat, which
I mentioned when laying down. Excessive throat mucus, or sore throats, laryngitis
or just losing your voice altogether, laryngeal spasms where all of a sudden you’ll be kind
of talking or swallowing or something and you feel like your throat spasms. And then throat pain. And there’s more beyond that too, but I’m
going to focus on the main subjects at hand. How does it happen? So we take in, we ingest food, we eat something
we drink something, whatever it is, and there's two pipes. There’s the windpipe which is the trachea,
and the esophagus. The esophagus is what goes down into the stomach. So food goes down into the esophagus, right? And there’s this muscle, it’s kind of
a funny name, lower esophagus sphincter, yes. It’s called LES or lower esophagus sphincter,
so it’s kind of like a butthole. And what it does, it releases or relaxes,
kind of like you’re going to the bathroom, but for your stomach. It goes okay I’m going to expunge this food
into the stomach. I’m going to allow this food to release
into the stomach. And then it goes oh! Is that so? And it puckers back up and it closes off,
right? We actually want that pucker. We wanted to stay tight enclosed. So we don’t want to compromise this sphincter
of the stomach, so to speak, or the end of the esophagus just before it hits your stomach. So as the food goes down in your esophagus,
this muscle releases and relaxes. Okay I’m going to release this food, food
babies, into the stomach. And then I’m going to close back up and
not allow it to go back up through the esophagus, okay? We don’t want to compromise this lower esophagus
sphincter, because, at the LES, because when that happens is it leaks into the esophagus. Acid starts to come up. Now, if you’ve ever seen someone pour, or
like Alka-Seltzer, for example. You take Alka-Seltzer. You guys know what that is, it was a, I think
we still haven’t around. I haven’t dealt with this in a long time. But it’s like you poured Coca-Cola on Alka-Seltzer
and it bubbles… And it creates all this acid, right? Well, in some cases some of the inflammatory
foods I’m going to talk about actually exacerbate that and create exactly that response in the
stomach that actually forces, again, the sphincter muscle to re-open to allow this to go up into
the esophagus. Well, it’s fine because like I said, the
esophagus can handle certain amount of acid, but the larynx, or the voice box can’t. It wasn’t designed for that. So, we’re going to discuss this here in
a minute. Now, what compromises this valve? Well, I’m glad you asked. Lots of stuff. Overuse of alcohol, tobacco, carmidatives,
such as spearmint, or mint, or peppermint, something like that which releases the valve,
which we don’t want. Spicy foods, fried foods, tomatoes, orange
juice, anything really acidic or anything that’s really high in inflammatory properties. Heavy sugars. Lots of sugar. Even chocolate, unfortunately, can do this. Vegetable oil, or refined flour, eating pizza,
and you know, high fatty foods. Dairy. Artificial sweeteners, or any artificial additives. All of this stuff can actually bring about
this acid reflux. Now, processed meats. I want to talk about different, what that
means. And we think of processed meats life only
eating, maybe, processed meats like sandwich meats. But believe it or not, unfortunately even
a lot of our beef and stuff, because of the GMO’s in a lot of the corn that’s being
fed to the animals also creates kind of a version of processed meats. So, just be careful on that and monitor yourself. Because a lot of people are really sensitive,
not only sensitive to that, but gluten, trans fats, carbonated beverages too. Like you drink a Coke or anything that’s
really carbonated you can also create the same response. But trans fats, I went to get to this even
more so, because gluten, and trans fats, kind of one in the same, when I talk about cows
that he GMO’s and stuff. People are hypersensitive to gluten now, so
they can’t even eat gluten, because this acid causes the same response. But if cows have eaten something that can
cause the same effect, you want to avoid that too. So, try to get to cows, or meat… Not cows, but just meat in general, that are
free range, grass fed, and all that stuff. And I cover this in a nutrition video that
I have out, so if you want to, refer to that, it would be a good resource for you. Now, another thing you can do, or some things
we can do, and let’s talk about some of the positives. I’m going to get into silent reflux and
some other things in a minute, is you can lay down, or don’t lay down, excuse me,
within about two hours after eating, right? 2 to 3 hours, actually, you know, wait a couple
three hours, and then that way the gastrointestinal fluids and the gas itself has had time to
digest and it’s not going to regurgitate and go up back through the esophagus. That’s very important. Something else that’s actually - which releases
this LES pressure, so you’re not regurgitating this stuff. Eat small meals. Don’t eat three giant meals and go “all
right..” What’s that Monty Python thing? “I couldn't eat another bite!” And then you eat something else. No. Eat four or five small meals throughout the
day, and then that will help, again, to keep at bay not having this pressure in the stomach
and this gastrointestinal fluid that’s causing this, you know, Alka-Seltzer sort of response
to building these bubbles that go up the esophagus. This is important. Another thing: Inter-abdominal pressure. What is that? No, “Intra-“ not “inter”. Intra. Intra Abdominal Pressure is a lot of leaning
over or working out with your stomach, doing crunches, or a lot of weightlifting with using
abdominal pressure. But for singers, we have to use abdominal
pressure. It’s what we do. We use our abdomen to sing. Right? Well, so we have to figure out a way,” Well,
Ken, you told me to use my abdomen and now I’ve got this response. You know, I need to figure out a way to, you
know, overcome this. Well, if you do these other things over here,
by the way, I’ve had a lot of acid reflux in my life, I’ve also had a hiatal hernia
in my life, by the way, I’m going to gross you out for a second, I want to show you guys
something. I wasn’t planning on doing this, but I think
it’s important. Right? Here’s my stomach. Take a good look at it. By the way, I have no fat. Like, you’re not going to find fat on me. I’m not a fat guy. But I had my spleen removed, I had staph infection
that came in, peritonitis and staph infection that came in where it almost killed me as
a child at 22, I mean at 14. I made a rocket that shot into my stomach
and I had to remove my spleen. And I’ve had to overcome incredible abdominal
incapacitations. So the reason I bring that up is for all you
out there going “Oh, you know, you just always had this stuff, and you’ve always
been good”no, actually that’s not true. I’ve had to work through, and have a hiatal
hernia at the top, which is another subject for another day, which I’ve been able to
overcome without surgery. We can talk about that another time. But this is really important because, to show
you, you know, I’ve seen this really gnarly stuff on a guy that has a really ugly looking
gut, that had been able to rehabilitate this stuff to a point where I believe it buys me
the right to talk about some of this stuff that I’m talking about. So anyway, sorry to gross you out and show
you that but I think it’s important to look at. (oh, my gosh, T.M.I. too much information!) I don’t blame you, sorry about that. But anyway, so let’s get on to some of this
other stuff. So what we don’t want to do is we don’t
want to compromise the L.E.S. pressure, or the sphincter valve to stave off Gerd or LPR
or any of this stuff. We don’t want to compromise this stuff. Okay? It’s very important. And in addition to that, when we try to eliminate
acid in the stomach, and I’m going to cover this in a second, we actually compromise our
digestive tract to a point where we compromise our immune system. So, we’re going to get into that in a second. Anyway, so I’m going to focus this again
with a view towards singers, so all you other guys want to come along for the ride, that’s
great, but I’m going to focus on this now. When we take over-the-counter medications
for this stuff to neutralize acids in the stomach, oh my gosh, dude! You’ve got to be kidding me. First of all the FDA comes out and clearly
says don’t take this stuff for more than two weeks, because it will compromise the
homeostasis in the stomach that will fight off good bacteria that’s supposed to fight
off the bad bacteria, and you’re going to screw yourself, and you’re going to eat
away at the lining of the walls of your stomach and end up with leaky gut, or a bunch of other
stuff. And it’s not digesting the nutrients in
your stomach. So that’s extremely important, number one. Number two, I want to talk about what isn’t
good, and then what is good. So it isn’t good to take a bunch of antacids,
Prilosec, Mylanta, milk of magnesia, all of these over-the-counter medicines, thinking
okay, this is just going to close off the valve, or keep the valve closed to keep this
stuff down in my stomach. That’s just crazy! Don’t listen to that stuff. If you need it for a minute, if there’s
something going on, take it for a second, two weeks max. But don’t rely on this stuff, don’t go
back to this is your go to. Now let’s talk about diet. Now diet is the key to all of this. It’s not about taking some pill or some
antacid, and I’m going to discuss this even more here in a minute. There’s a wonderful doctor on the East Coast
of the United States named Doctor Jamie Kaufman. And I’ve had students that have gone out
to her. She is kind of the premier Doctor on acid
reflux actually. She’s written a book called Dropping Acid
I think is the name of it. Funny title, but that’s it. In fact here is her information, and I’m
going to post this now. Check this out. So Doctor Kaufman has written a definitive
book on how to overcome acid reflux, and Simon reflux, which is also really important because
silent reflux is like you don’t even know you have it. You’re sleeping at night and it’s gnawing
away at your vocal cords and you don’t even know your regurgitating all of this acid,
and she’s pointed out that not only the acid that we know about that goes to the vocal
box or the larynx, but also that there is regurgitation response or I should say spasm
response that happens again in this muscle, this sphincter muscle, that creates a cascading
effect that goes through the esophagus that also affects the whole mechanism of our speaking
and singing register that isn’t necessarily the acid itself getting into the voice box
but the acid that happens down here that is a cascading response that goes up into the
voice box. This is important information, especially
for you guys that are, like, feeling baffled on, like, trying to figure out what’s going
on with your voice. Great information. There’s another book out there called Eat
To Live by Doctor Joel Fuhrman. And I posted this before, here check it out,
you can see it here. This book is amazing, because it talks about
pretty much all plant-based foods that really help our immune system. It helps with our digestion, it helps with
diabetes, it helps with weight loss, which is kind of its primary focus. For me, actually, just for good health and
immune function, and digestive tract function it’s great. But then there’s also some things that we
can do, ”Ken, I can’t necessarily go on this crazy diets and eat like this, I’m
on the road, I work a lot, I can’t take time to make all these meals.” To whatever extent you can do this is how
good you’ll get at this and the better you’ll feel and the better you’ll accomplish this
success in arena, whatever you want to do. But there are things that we can do, some
silly stuff. Believe it or not, Doctor Fuhrman talks about
chewing your food really thoroughly, so that the enzymes in the saliva digest this before
it even gets into the digestive tract, in order to be able to disseminate this throughout
the body and digest this. Believe it or not too, chewing gum at the
end of the meal… Sounds crazy, but this also activates the
salivary glands to get this ball rolling for the digestive stuff we just discussed. Other things we can do, I think I might have
said this before or I haven’t, I said sleep on your left side, because the valve on the
right side releases pressure. So you can release this into the left side. If you sleep on your left side it will help
overcome acid reflux. Again I want to bring this back to acid reflux. Get a good probiotic. Good probiotics like refrigeratable ones. And if you can’t afford that because they
really are expensive, there’s other things you can do, which are like fermented vegetables. You can do sauerkraut. You can do cabbage. You can do kimchi. All kinds of stuff, but make sure that if
you get it in the store that it’s not loaded with MSG and other bad guys that are going
to countermand or negate the good stuff that’s in it. So, that’s good stuff! Apple cider vinegar, will also help in alkaline. Now, I want to talk about this concept where
eliminating acids in the stomach. That’s just nonsense. Now, this is Ken Tamplin talking. This kind of goes counterculture to what the
medical profession-world tells you, and that’s, you know, get rid of the acids and take Mylanta,
and take Prilosec, and all this stuff. Dude, if we neutralize the acid’s in our
stomach, you are screwed, because acids were meant to digest the food, assimilate it to the
body, and put the nutrients throughout the body. If you’re going to get rid of that acid,
it’s going to create a cauldron of bad guys, of bacteria in the stomach, where you’re
going to get all kinds of stuff that you don’t want to deal with, and the good guys are going
to go bye-bye, and you’re just, like, taking an antibiotic. You are wiping out the acids in the stomach
that were meant to digest and gnaw away at the food itself, to disseminate this throughout
the body, the nutrients throughout the body. So don’t get this in your idea, in your
psyche that I want to get rid of all acid. That’s just plain crazy. So, this again is counterculture to what Western
medicine kind of pumps, “Oh, take Mylanta, take Prilosec, take this stuff! Close off the valve! Keep it at bay! Eat any food you want, you just take this
drug!” That’s just crazy! So, that’s why I was on the subject of apple
cider vinegar because that actually helps produce acid function. But homeostasis, balance of acid production. Something else. Licorice helps. Licorice. You heard me right. You know, this actually helps with the feeling
of indigestion. It doesn’t actually help with the digestive
process but it helps with the bloating feeling in the stomach. Aloe Vera is also really good. Aloe vera helps with digestion. Be a little careful with that, too, because
it can also be a laxative, so if you take too much, you’re going to be rrrrrr! You know, right? Something else that’s good. Slippery elm, which is high in polysaccharides,
which is also great for digestion. And believe it or not, even Himalayan sea
salt, or a good sea salt will help bring up the hydrochloric acid in the stomach to create
a good pH balance in the stomach to digest food properly, to disseminate good nutrients
throughout the body. Okay? Guys, this is a lot of information. Hopefully this was good for you, and we have
more coming your way. Ken Tamplin Vocal Academy, where the proof
is in the singing. Thank you for joining me.
