Gaviscon Liquid Aniseed 300ml

Gaviscon works differently from ordinary antacids. Its sodium alginate reacts with stomach acid to form a gel raft that floats on top of the stomach contents, physically blocking acid from washing back up into the oesophagus, while the antacid component neutralises what does come through. The raft lasts up to four hours and works hardest exactly when reflux is worst: after meals and lying down at night. Because the alginate acts mechanically rather than being absorbed, it is one of the reflux options considered suitable in pregnancy, where heartburn is almost universal in the last trimester. The aniseed 300ml is the original flavour in the standard bottle, the reference presentation of the raft.

Ordinary antacids neutralise acid for twenty minutes and then the reflux returns. If your heartburn is the after-meals, lying-down kind, the problem is acid physically rising, and a floating barrier addresses that mechanism directly. Randomised trials show alginate rafts beat plain antacids for exactly this pattern.