This is article 1 of 2 explaining how to make a homemade version of Gaviscon Advance at a fraction of the cost. Article 1 explains how to obtain the ingredients and make the normal liquid version. Article 2 explains how to make a "tablet" or dry powder version of the antacid.
Gaviscon Advance is one of the simplest and most effective ways to treat heartburn and GERD. It is often recommended, for example, on r/GERD. However, the most effective formula for Gaviscon Advance is not easily available in the U.S. It is possible to order via Amazon, but very expensive.
It is possible to order ingredients and make your own version Gaviscon Advance very, very easily at a very low cost. Below are various instructions I found online, sources of raw ingredients, and then the two actual (experimental!) formulas I have made myself. No guarantees of course--this is just in the spirit of sharing some things I've been experimenting with.
This recipe was originally posted to r/GERD in 2019. The original thread has some useful comments, questions, and answers.
Other online instructions for homemade Gaviscon Advance:
Two different sets of instructions I found online for making your own Gaviscon Advance:
https://blog.fauquierent.net/2016/11/make-your-own-gaviscon-advance-for.html
https://www.scribd.com/document/371534788/Gaviscon-Advance-Homemade
Finding and ordering the raw ingredients:
Here are the raw ingredients I ordered from Amazon to make my own:
https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B01953G9VG/ref=oh_aui_detailpage_o01_s00?ie=UTF8&psc=1
https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B0064GZPU4/ref=oh_aui_detailpage_o01_s00?ie=UTF8&psc=1
https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B0064GZPPO/ref=oh_aui_detailpage_o01_s00?ie=UTF8&th=1
My recipes:
Gaviscon Advance Liquid Duplicate
Goal of First Try: To make 12 servings (1 serving = 2 teaspoons, giving 1000 mg sodium alginate, 200 mg potassium bicarb, 200 mg calcium carb, similar to Gaviscon Advance)
Recipe - FIRST TRY (less successful)
3.9 t Sodium Alginate
1/2 t Potassium Bicarbonate
1 & 1/3 t Calcium Carbonate
24 t water (1/2 cup)
This came out much, much thicker than Gaviscon--such a thicker consistency that I was concerned that it might be indigestible or the like.
So I added water 1/4 cup at a time. Ended up adding 3/4 cup by the end. This has a consistency similar to Gaviscon. This is probably a decent formulation (same recipe as above but 1 1/4 cups water instead of 1/2 cup--or more generally, start with the formulation above but keep adding water until you get the right consistency.)
Next I tried adding more Pot bicarb & Calc Carb to make similar proportions of potassium & calcium to the numbers to Gaviscon Advance, per serving.
Based on that I revised the recipe and made a second try:
Recipe - SECOND TRY (more successful)
3.9 t Sodium Alginate (12g)
1 & 1/4 t Potassium Bicarbonate (1200mg)
3 t Calcium Carbonate (1200mg)
1 & 1/4 cup water (300ml)
When you mix up the sodium alginate, it will be very lumpy, like lumpy cornstarch or gravy. Just let it sit for a while (even a couple of hours or overnight), then stir again. Final consistency should be similar to Gaviscon Advance.
You can experiment with lower proportions of potassium bicarbonate and/or calcium carbonate. Perhaps as low as 1/4 the amounts given for each will still work OK.
Adding a Thickening Agent? (update January 2020)
Some people who have tried the recipe report that the mixture does not hold together to create a single unified "raft" when dropped into vinegar or other acidic solution.
Another ingredient in Gaviscon Advance, not included in the recipes above, is an emulsifier--a thickening agent. Adding this to your recipe may help the medication gel together better in your stomach.
You could try any ordinary emulsifying agent used in food, such as corn starch, potato starch, arrowroot powder, or others listed here. Per that article, arrowroot powder should work better in an acidic environment. Other possibilities to try are agar agar and xantham gum. For some of those thickening agents (corn startch, potato starch, arrowroot, etc), you may need to add the thickening agent to cold water and heat it/bring it to a boil to activate the thickening agent--same as you do in cooking. Then cool and add other ingredients.
Xanthan gum is easily available and doesn't require heating to activate. It may be a good option for this purpose.
Gaviscon Advance contains Carbomer 974P - so a food-grade carbomer of some type is a possibility, if you can find it. But any food-grade emulsifier than can hold up in an acidic environment should do the same basic job.
Regardless of exact emulsifier used, the goal would be to get a reasonable consistency for the product to pour and consume, and then to hold the raft together in the acidic environment of your stomach. Just experiment with different emulsifiers and quantities added until you are satisfied. Add a little, then a little more, until you achieve the result you desire. You can test the result under "rafting conditions" by dropping a tablespoon into vinegar.
Whether you need an additional emulsifier may depend on particulars of your water supply (particularly calcium content) and other ingredients. Sodium alginate is itself a powerful emulsifier and in my own experiments I didn't find much need for additional emulsifiers.
Discussion
The amount of Sodium alginate per serving seems less than in the Gaviscon Advance recipe (about 400 mg per dosage vs 1000 mg given as Gaviscon Advance dosage). However, the consistency of the final product (dropped into some vinegar for testing) seems about the same. The difference may be down to different properties of different formulations of sodium alginate.
Sodium alginate seems to have a strong affinity for water, so its mass may vary some in humid vs dry environments.
Also, a major part of the difference in consistency may be down to elements like the amount of calcium in the water supply you use. If you have very hard or soft water, you may need to adjust proportions of Calcium Carbonate to compensate.
Regardless, the goal seems to be to get a reasonable consistency of the end product at two stages: 1. Initial product (so that you can pour, spoon, and swallow the product reasonably) and 2. In your stomach when it interacts with stomach acid. #1 is easy to achieve just be adding water bit by bit until desired consistency is achieved. #2 can be observed by dropping a small spoonful of the product into some vinegar and observing shape and consistency.
The Gaviscon Advance liquid product has these properties at those two stages:
#1. The Gaviscon liquid is quite thick but thin enough that it is reasonably possible to pour the product from the jar and into a spoon. It is about as thick as can reasonably by poured.
#2. When dropped into vinegar, Gaviscon liquid puffs up, floats, and turns into a fairly solid rubbery mass. It is strong and solid enough that, if you pick it up and try to pull it apart with your fingers, it does NOT just crumble or fall apart easily. It has a fair bit of resilience and a rubber-like consistency. You can pull the mass apart and dismantle it by hand, but it does require some force and some effort. Since the purpose of the "raft" is to float on top of the stomach contents and act as a physical barrier to movement of stomach acid, this consistency seems quite important. If the final product is too weak and crumbly it will just fall apart and not function as desired (When one version of the recipe above had this problem, I solved it by adding more calcium carbonate). On the other hand, if it is too tough and rubbery it may become indigestible and cause a different sort of problem.
The proportion of calcium carbonate seems to affect this final consistency quite a bit. The hardness of the water may affect the amount of calcium carbonate you need to add to achieve the correct final consistency.
If your aim is complete consistency, you may wish to use distilled water (recommended here for another use of alginate products where consistent texture is quite important).
Again, my definite impression is that it is more important to duplicate this consistency of the initial and final product, far more than duplicating the exact proportions of the various ingredients.
Also, note that the formula of Gaviscon Advance (see below) includes thickener. We haven't included any thickener in this recipe, so that might account for some of the differences between this recipe and Gaviscon Advance.
Dosage is similar to Gaviscon Advance: 1 or 2 teaspoons (5 or 10 ml). Start with 1 t, monitor reaction, increase to 2 t if needed. Some people use more than 2 t of Gaviscon Advance, apparently based on trial and error experimentation.
Servings: Above recipe makes about 30x2 teaspoon servings.
Cost: Bulk ingredients linked below cost about $30, the cost of maybe 1-2 bottles of Gaviscon Advance. I've made two batches so far, each about the size of one bottle of Gaviscon, and haven't even made a noticeable dent in the bulk supplies. The $30 in supplies will probably make easily the equivalent of 5 and maybe 10 or 20 bottles of Gaviscon.
Measurement/rounding: Converting measurements from mass (grams) to volume (teaspoons) involvements a fair bit of estimation. Measurement by teaspoon/tablespoon is not that accurate in general--but that is what most people in the U.S. have available as measuring devices. My experiments with the recipe indicate it is pretty robust and +/-10% or even +/-25% probably doesn't make that much difference. You're adjusting your dosage based on how it affects you anyway, and you can just adjust be taking a little more or less depending on what you need.
However, if high accuracy is important to you: #1. Buy a good kitchen scale and weigh ingredients carefully. #2. Use distilled water.
Storage: It has no preservatives so probably should be refrigerated--but Gaviscon Advance indicates "do not refrigerate". Best might be to make in small quantities and consume relatively quickly. About 1/3 of the "2nd Try" recipe might be a decent amount. "Do not refrigerate" is quite likely because of the consistency of the product--when cold it would be impossible to pour. I have kept the product on the countertop for several weeks with no noticeable problems, except that it tends to separate and need to be re-mixed, and the consistency/thickness seems to change over time. However it makes me quite nervous to store any biological material mixed with water at room temperature for an extended period of time, with no preservatives. It sounds like a potential medium for microbiological growth and depending on the type of microbes that might grow in the medium, you may or may not even notice them. Be careful!
Possible dangers and hazards
The most worrisome ingredient here is probably the potassium bicarbonate. Gaviscon probably includes it (rather than other similar-acting antacids like sodium bicarbonate) in order to reduce the sodium content of the product. I prefer potassium bicarbonate myself for the same reason, but substituting sodium bicarbonate or some other similar antacid is possible if you prefer. 200mg of potassium bicarbonate is less than 10% of the RDA for an adult and probably OK for most people. But if you slip or mis-measure and add say several times the recommended amount that would be quite bad, of course!
Excess calcium intake due to antacids is another potential problem--with this or real Gaviscon or any other calcium-type antacid such as Tums. Like Gaviscon, this has 200mg per serving which is well below the adult RDA. But if you are taking many dosages per day over a period of time that could be bad--just as taking many Tums or similar over a long period would. And of course if you mis-measure and get more than intended that way, that wouldn't be good, either.
Sodium alginate makes a very thick, sticky, rubber gel when mixed with a little bit of water and/or saliva. It is a known choking hazard in certain situations/preparations.
As I mentioned several times above, these recipes include some organic ingredients and water. Storing such a mixture at room temperature certainly has potential for microbial growth or spoilage. Commercial Gaviscon includes preservatives that are NOT included in the recipes above. So you will have to figure out how to preserve/protect your recipe from microbial growth and spoilage.
This article on cooking with alginate mixtures indicates that alginate mixed with water can be safely stored in a refrigerator for several weeks. That is the only information I have been able to find on the safety of storing alginate mixtures--and of course that is a somewhat different context than this recipe.
Additionally, you will want to be careful to keep all of your ingredients, containers, measuring spoons and cups, and your own hands clean and as free from contamination as possible.
Ingredients used/ingredients source/Calculation as to amount active ingredient per teaspoon:
Druids Grove Sodium Alginate ☮ Vegan ⊘ Non-GMO ❤ Gluten-Free ✡ OU Kosher Certified - 8 oz.
https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B01953G9VG/ref=oh_aui_detailpage_o04_s00?ie=UTF8&psc=1
72 t in 225g can means 3.1g/t
Home Brew Ohio Potassium Bicarbonate - 1 lb.
https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B0064GZPU4/ref=oh_aui_detailpage_o04_s00?ie=UTF8&psc=1
4.8g/t
LD Carlson Calcium Carbonate, 1 pound Capacity
https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B0064GZPPO/ref=oh_aui_detailpage_o04_s00?ie=UTF8&psc=1
1.8g/t
Gaviscon Advance active ingredients per label and online info
2 t (10mg) Gaviscon Advance has 1000 mg sodium alginate, 200 mg potassium bicarbonate, 200 mg Calcium Carbonate, plus flavoring, thickener, sodium saccharine, preservatives, a chemical to adjust ph, and filtered water
https://www.medicines.org.uk/emc/product/6715/smpc
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