Misterious Night hunger - can it be low stomach acid

Hope you get some helpful comments here; I do not really know about food and your medical issues but do remember many years ago before Internet my mother telling me about an article/story re children especially having breakfast of cereal and milk were hungry before noon meal and suggesting something with "fat" in... even toast/butter etc... just saw your comment so am going to check on line about this... I am interested in results here, take care.

Hello @renem97, I would like to add my welcome to Connect along with @lacy2 and others. What has helped me with the hungries at night is to make sure I drink plenty of water during the day including a large glass with each meal. The following article gives some suggestions and causes if you haven't already seen them.
--- Why Am I Always Waking Up Hungry and What Can I Do About It?: https://www.healthline.com/health/waking-up-hungry.

Have you talked with or thought about meeting with a dietician to see if they may have some suggestions or a plan that might help with the night time hungries?

Have you been checked for diabetes? As a diabetic sometimes I wake in the middle of the night hungry because my blood sugar actually has dropped and my liver has not yet started making and releasing glucose to counteract this.

You may possibly be dehydrated. This has happened to me occasionally and I up my intake of water. As we age it is easier to become dehydrated. Based on your weight, you can Google how much water to consume daily.

Thank you for your replies everyone.

I drink plenty of water during the day, I get appropriate amount of protein and fats, and I’m sure I don’t have diabetes.

To be honest it’s not really hunger, but that’s the easiest way to describe it. It’s more like irritation that goes away when I eat something. Sometimes it’s enough to just drink water, or ideally something hot like a tea.

So that’s why I think it might be related to stomach acid/gerd. But I don’t have any heartburn, although I do feel stomach content going up sometimes.

Hello Fellow Insomnia-Due-To-Stomach-Issues Person,

Don't know if I can help you, but wanted to at least commiserate.

First let's talk about you: is there any other relevant medical history you want to share? Or at least your age or any leading theories you have (you mentioned being on PPIs before, was this routine or did something happen that led to this Rx?)

My situation, maybe it sparks some ideas: Since late 2019 I have been suffering almost every night with insomnia due to stomach issues. When it started it was similar to how you describe it: "hunger", but actually more of a hollow feeling in my stomach. I was (and still am) quite into "fitness" so I was tracking my calorie intake at the time and there was no way for me to be "hungry" at night. But the confounding issues are that I have Crohn's Disease and have had parts of my intestine removed. Now the leading hypothesis is that I have a bacterial overgrowth in my intestine that causes gas to build up as the bacteria digest food, and that gas gives the same "hollow" feeling you get when you have not eaten. I have had some luck in the past taming the bacteria with antibiotics or whatever, but no solution has been permanent yet. My current "solution" is when I wake up at 4:15am (+/- 30 minutes every night pretty much guaranteed), I just force myself to eat my breakfast, wash the dishes, do one or two small tasks, then straight back to bed for a 1.5 to 3 hour nap. Not ideal but doing this, I've managed to claw back some control of my life. I am fortunate that my current job is flexible and allows me to work an odd schedule, but of course I am still gunning to return to a normal 6am to 10pm lifestyle.

Not sure if anything I just put is relevant to you but I am happy to help you brainstorm. Needless to say, doctors (both GI and sleep), although they have been sympathetic to my plight, have been next to useless as far as solving my problems go. Good luck.

...possible stomach/duodenal ulcer if feeling quelled by food??

Hi @gboi

thanks for your comment.

I know exactly what you mean by hollow feeling! That’s exactly how I feel. It’s sad but I’m so happy to find someone with similar issue. It’s so frustrating that no one understands.

I’m 25, also quite into fitness and there is also no way for me to be hungry at night with my diet.

Regarding the bacteria, that’s actually one of my theories. I can see that if I eat more carbs it gets worse.

The PPIs were first prescribed for me when I started dealing with this. At first I resolved it quite easily with steady regimen, dietitian and a lot of cardio. But it came back and now it’s not so easy to get it under control. It’s been slowly progressing and it’s getting worse, although my diet and tricks keep getting better. So you can imagine how frustrated I am.

Couple of things that help:

- I don’t eat now when I wake up - I drink celery juice, this has a very calming effect and I’m not hungry after that

- very thick soups help - we use a soup maker, it’s usually a mix of some leafy green, chickpea, oats and potato. When I eat this before going to bed it’s much better. These soups are very soothing in general, even during the day

- more protein and fat in the diet help, but I suppose you already know this one.

- betaine HCL has been a miracle, it stops it immediately. Unfortunately it burns my esophagus, so I can’t use that one. The same goes for aloe Vera juice, ACV and ginger tea

- prolonged water fasting helped. I went for 96 hours, after that I was kinda back to my old self, the food satiated me again. But I messed up and it came back

I will be happy to continue this discussion because it seems we are suffering from the same thing, whatever it might be.

Hi and thanks for the thoughtful response.

The combination of things that seem to help you are quite interesting - I do not know what it means necessarily, but good for you for trying new things out.

Let's say you're woken up in the night with the feeling and have some betaine HCl or ACV - how soon after are you able to go back to bed? Again for me it's at least 2-3 hours, during which I'm basically just wasting my life feeling like garbage ...

To confirm, you have not been officially diagnosed with any digestive disease? Have you seen a doctor to look inside your stomach? As someone else posted, it could be something as "normal" as an ulcer, which is presenting symptoms in a weird way. Do you have any theories what triggered it in the first place? Any dramatic life changes that may have led to it? For example, a lot of people with my condition (SIBO) that have not had my surgery have their condition triggered by a bout of severe food poisoning ... without planting too many ideas in your head, can you draw any connections?

Have you been tested for H. Pylori? As you may know, it is a bacteria that lives in your stomach ... to me it seems like your issue may be directly in the stomach (unlike the small intestine for me), since eating/drinking something causes a benefit so quickly.

Again, it seems to me that you may benefit from a visit to specialist doctors, if you haven't already had one.

Best,
G

Hi gboi,

thanks for your response!

Betaine HCL or ACV is always taken with a meal so that’s not a solution when you already wake up. In that case I used to just eat oatmeal but that’s not good to eat in the middle of the night, so I switched to celery juice or tea. In case of oatmeal I could usually fall asleep almost right away, but the sleep wasn’t ideal with my body digesting as you can imagine.

For me it started gradually since I was around 17, when I started going to the gym and eat a lot of carbs, smoking and drinking, partying etc. at first it wasn’t at night, it was just a hunger. I didn’t care as I was just a stupid teenager back then. It was slowly progressing and at college I started waking up just a little bit earlier because of the hunger, and I also could not get satisfied from almost any food. But I still didn’t to anything to manage it. And here we are today. I would just like to go back in time and beat my younger self for being such a stupid person who doesn’t care about their health. 😂

I am visiting GI doctor, the performed colonoscopy, endoscopy and also that thing that they do with pregnant women (don’t remember the name). They told me I had inflamed esophagus but that seems to be from aloe Vera, betaine and ACV. It’s also a separate issue that doesn’t cause the problem we are talking about.

So regarding stomach, colon etc they said everything was okay. All these tests I had also 3 years ago with the same results.

It’s definitely something there, it just can’t be seen on the test.

Regarding SIBO - THANK YOU SO MUCH! I looked into it, and although I almost don’t have any symptoms of that, I do believe it may be part of the problem. The things like rice, pasta, asparagus etc have been always problematic to me. I am more hungry after I eat them than before. and they all seem to be triggers for SIBO, right? For the last week I have been eating very clean - just meat, leafy greens and a small size of potatos. And things are getting better! I found out that pea protein was also causing problems. I use that in my morning oatmeal. I can sleep through the whole night usually. The sleep isn’t ideal and I still feel the hunger, but I doesn’t wake me completely.

I’m sorry about your condition, believe me I understand completely. So many nights I just cried in the middle of the night, hating my body, feeling like total shit the next day because of the lack of sleep.

I hope you get better soon. Maybe the fasting could help, if you didn’t try? I know it sounds drastic but it did help me, I just messed up afterwards 😃.