Chapter 10: The iQoro: The Weird Little Device I Used to Help Heal My Acid Reflux

The Weird Reflux Treatment I’d Never Heard Of

{Welcome! This is Part 10 of my ongoing Gut Healing Journey blogpost — a series where I’m documenting the twists, turns, experiments, and breakthroughs that helped me recover from a debilitating season of acid reflux, bloating, burping, and digestive distress that began in 2024. In this chapter, I’m sharing one of the strangest tools I tried, and one that I believe may have played a role in finally getting my reflux under control. I wonder if it may help some of you…}

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By the fall of 2024, I had been dealing with severe acid reflux for 9 months. I’d tried the Low Acid diet from Dr. Kaufman but it hadn’t really moved the needle much. I had tried using Alginates, famotodine acid blockers. I’d been to doctors, undergone tests, and spent countless hours researching what could possibly be causing the relentless reflux, bloating, and burping that had taken over my life. I was still losing weight. I was exhausted – sleeping upright in the LazyBoy every night didn’t make for good sleep.

I was willing to try just about anything to get rid of my acid reflux.

At the time, I was working virtually with a clinician from Dr. Michael Ruscio’s functional medicine practice. I had discovered Dr. Ruscio through his podcast and eventually decided to hire someone from his team to help me look at my symptoms through a functional medicine lens. We met by Zoom every several weeks, and during one of those appointments (in October, 2024), my clinician mentioned something I had never heard of before…

The iQoro Device.

“What in the world is that?” I thought. So, of course, I immediately Googled it.

What popped up on my screen looked almost ridiculously simple: a small plastic device that reminded me of a mouthguard, with a handle sticking out of the front. You put it inside your lips, in front of your teeth. Then you close your lips tightly around it, hold your breath, and pull on the handle for ten seconds while using your lips to resist the pull.

That’s it. I know, it sounds fringe, but hear me out:

iQoro is a neuromuscular training device designed to activate and train the muscles involved in swallowing, from the mouth and throat down through the esophagus and diaphragm. It’s a way of training the body’s natural swallowing system and improving the muscular function involved in keeping stomach contents where they belong. Here’s what mine looks like:

This introduced me to a completely different way of thinking about my reflux. Up until that point, I had spent most of my energy asking: What is happening inside my stomach that’s making all this stuff come UP?

iQoro made me ask another question: What if I could also strengthen the system that’s supposed to keep it DOWN?

Suddenly I had another possible angle of attack. I didn’t know yet that just a couple of months later I would discover the Plant Paradox diet and begin looking much more closely at what was happening during digestion itself. At this point, I was still collecting breadcrumbs. And iQoro was another breadcrumb.

There was only one problem: I couldn’t figure out how to buy one.

The $350 Experiment

When I went online to buy an iQoro, I discovered that I couldn’t just order one and have it shipped to my house in Ohio. It was only being sold in Europe (and had incredible reviews and results to back it up), but I couldn’t find a way to purchase one in the United States.

Hmmmm…. wonder why an innovative device that is helping alleviate reflux around the world can’t be bought here?

And of course, that only made me want one more.

I started searching around online and eventually found someone selling an iQoro on eBay for around $350.

THREE HUNDRED AND FIFTY DOLLARS!? — for what essentially looked like a funny little piece of molded plastic with a handle on it?!

A few years earlier, I probably would have immediately closed the browser tab. But by this point in my health journey, I had made a decision that I was going to become an active participant in figuring out what was wrong with me. I wasn’t going to sit around indefinitely waiting for insurance, doctors, or the traditional medical system to hand me the answer.

In fact, I had given myself a budget.

I decided I was willing to spend up to $5,000 of my own money, trying things that might help me get better. That decision was strangely freeing. It gave me permission to explore some of the things that fell outside the normal insurance-covered medical pathway — like supplements, functional medicine appointments, tests, and yes… weird little devices I discovered along the way.

My reasoning was pretty simple: I had paid my dentist hundreds of dollars for a mouthguard. Why was I unwilling to spend a similar amount on something that might help solve a health problem that was affecting my life every single day?

So I bought it.

When it arrived, I started using it faithfully. My routine was simple: I put the device between my lips and teeth, closed my lips tightly around it, held my breath, and pulled outward on the handle for ten seconds while resisting the pull with my lips. I repeated that 3 times. I did this every morning and every evening, day after day, for probably four or five months. I can’t believe I’m including this picture, but I wanted to show you what it looks like to do the “iQoro tug.”

Did I feel slightly ridiculous standing in my bathroom pulling on this little plastic contraption with my lips?

Absolutely.

But by then, I had adopted a new philosophy in my healing journey: follow the breadcrumbs. I didn’t need to know for certain that something was going to work before I tried it. I just needed enough reason to believe it was worth investigating, and then I needed to pay attention to what happened next.

But How Could Pulling on This Thing Possibly Help Reflux?

I know you’re asking this question, because I was too!

The basic idea behind iQoro is that swallowing isn’t just something that happens in your mouth. It’s actually a coordinated chain of nerves and muscles that begins with your lips and tongue and continues through your throat and esophagus, involving structures around the diaphragm where the esophagus passes into the stomach. The company says that the resistance created by pulling on the device while keeping your lips tightly closed activates the swallowing chain and trains the muscles and nerves involved in that process.

There are physical mechanisms in our bodies that are supposed to help keep stomach contents in the stomach. One important player is the lower esophageal sphincter (LES) — a ring of muscle at the bottom of the esophagus that acts a bit like a gateway between the esophagus and stomach. When that anti-reflux barrier isn’t functioning properly, stomach contents can travel back into the esophagus and create that familiar burning, pressure, regurgitation, or irritation we call reflux.

iQoro was approaching the problem almost like physical therapy. Instead of simply asking, “How do we reduce the acid?” it was asking, “Can we train the neuromuscular system involved in swallowing (and the body’s natural reflux barrier) to function better?”

Here’s a video that shows you how to use the iQoro in case you’re interested…

There are some studies that back up the efficacy of this treatment intervention. There were TONS of reviews of customers who said it made their reflux go away.  The invention even won an award. That’s all I needed to hear to get me to try it.

I began to picture reflux as a problem I might be able to attack from more than one direction. What was happening BELOW the gateway sphincter mattered,  but maybe the gateway itself mattered, too.

Eventually, the Plant Paradox diet would become my primary strategy for changing what was happening inside my digestive system. But at the same time, I was faithfully doing this strange little ten-second exercise every day, trying to strengthen another part of the equation.

I didn’t know which breadcrumb would ultimately lead me out of the woods. So I kept following both.

So… Did It Actually Work?

This is obviously the million-dollar question. Did this strange little device actually make my reflux go away?

The truthful answer is: I don’t know.

And that’s because I made one rather inconvenient mistake if I ever wanted to turn myself into a proper scientific experiment: I changed more than one variable at the same time.

I started using iQoro faithfully in the fall of 2024. Then, in December, I discovered Dr. Steven Gundry and went all-in on the Plant Paradox diet. By the end of February, my reflux had essentially disappeared.

So which one did it?

Was it the months of faithfully training with iQoro? Or was it removing certain foods and dramatically changing the way I was eating? Or was it some combination of the two?

I’ll never really know.

What I can tell you is that the timing was interesting. iQoro isn’t marketed as a quick fix. The company describes it as a training method where results build gradually, with many users noticing improvement over three to six months. That fit pretty well with what was happening in my own life.

But there was another change I noticed that I wasn’t expecting at all.

My Singing Voice Changed

I’m a singer. I sing on the worship team at my church, so I’m pretty familiar with what my voice normally feels and sounds like — my range, my breath support, how easily I can reach certain notes, and how much effort it takes to sustain them.

As my reflux disappeared during those months, my singing voice became clear as a bell. I felt like I had more range. I could reach higher notes more easily. And I noticed what felt like greater breath support and capacity when I sang. It was noticeable enough that I remember thinking, Whoa. Something has changed here.

I still pull out my iQoro and use it roughly once a day as a sort of maintenance exercise.

Do I know that iQoro cured my reflux?

No.

Would I go back and spend the $350 again?

Yes. I would.

Something changed during those months. And while I suspect the Plant Paradox diet played a huge role in finally addressing what was happening inside my digestive system, I like knowing that I was also working on the other side of the equation, training the physical system designed to help keep stomach contents where they belong.

Maybe one mattered more than the other. Maybe they worked together.

I’ll probably never know. But when you’ve been sick long enough, sometimes you don’t need to know which breadcrumb was THE breadcrumb.

You’re just grateful you followed it.

So, Would I Recommend Trying iQoro?

If you’re reading this because you’ve been struggling with reflux yourself, you’re probably wondering: Okay, but should I try this thing?

Obviously, I can’t answer that for you. Reflux can have different causes, and what helped me may not be what helps you. But if you’ve been dealing with stubborn reflux and you’re still looking for answers, I do think iQoro is something worth knowing about and researching for yourself.

The biggest downside, in my experience, is that it requires commitment. This isn’t something you try for three days and decide whether it worked. It’s training. You have to be willing to do the exercise consistently for months and give your body time to respond.

And depending on where you live, cost and availability may also be an issue. When I bought mine in 2024, I had to hunt one down on eBay and pay around $350 for it. There are other oral training devices available, but I personally can’t tell you whether they accomplish the same thing as iQoro, so I wouldn’t assume that any mouthguard-shaped device will produce the same result.

If you’re curious, I’d encourage you to visit the iQoro website, watch their videos, read about the research behind it, and decide whether it’s something you’d like to discuss with your doctor or explore further.

For me, it became one more tool in the toolbox.

Let me be clear: I still believe changing my food through the Plant Paradox approach was the biggest turning point in my healing journey because it addressed so many more symptoms than my reflux. But I’m also really glad my functional medicine clinician mentioned this strange little device I’d never heard of.

Remember: healing isn’t always about finding “the one thing.” It’s about finding several things that help your body move in the right direction, and being willing to follow the breadcrumbs until you get there.

Hang in there, my friend. Keep looking. Don’t give up. Your body knows how to heal itself. You will find your way.

READ MY WHOLE GUT HEALING STORY SO FAR…