Heartburn Doctor in Wilmington, NC

Our practice is Wilmington's home for root-cause heartburn care. We are on Wrightsville Ave., and we help patients across the Wilmington area find out why they have reflux — with advanced lab testing like stool analysis, food sensitivity panels, and H. pylori testing instead of another round of antacids. Start with a free 15-minute discovery call.

Heartburn care in Wilmington that looks past the prescription pad

If you are reading this, you have probably already tried the standard route. You saw a doctor about your heartburn. You got a PPI or an antacid. Maybe it helped for a while. Maybe it stopped working. Maybe you were told it is just stress, or just something you will live with.

We hear that story every week. The problem is not that reflux is mysterious. The problem is that conventional care rarely looks for what is actually driving it. Acid suppression quiets the symptom. It does not answer why the acid is where it should not be, or why your protective systems are failing.

That is the question we answer. In our work with hundreds of patients, the drivers behind stubborn heartburn are usually specific and findable: an H. pylori infection, hidden food sensitivities, low stomach acid, stress hormone dysregulation, small intestinal bacterial overgrowth, or a mechanical issue like a hiatal hernia. Each one shows up on different testing. We run the testing that finds them.

How the 3-step protocol works locally

Step 1: A free discovery call

Fifteen minutes, no cost. You tell us your history — symptoms, medications, what you have already tried. We tell you honestly whether we think we can help and what testing would look like for you.

Step 2: Advanced testing

Most of our patients collect their samples at home and mail them to the lab. If you are nearby, you can pick your kit up at our Wrightsville Ave. office instead. Either way, the testing is the same. Results typically come back within 7 business days.

Step 3: Your personalized plan

We review your results with you in a dedicated visit, then build a plan around what they show: removing your specific triggers, healing the gut lining, restoring digestion, and — when you are ready — a gradual step-down plan for your medication, built together with your prescribing doctor. We never tell anyone to stop medication on their own.

The testing we use

Not every patient needs every test. We choose based on your history. These are the tools we reach for most:

• Comprehensive Stool Analysis — a full gut microbiome analysis covering bacterial overgrowth, H. pylori, parasites, and digestive markers like elastase and inflammation.
• Alletess 184 Food Sensitivity Panel — immune response (IgG and IgE) to 184 common foods, to surface hidden sensitivities driving reflux and inflammation. This is not a standard allergy test.
• Adrenocortex Stress Profile / HU-Map — cortisol rhythms and stress hormones that affect gut motility, acid production, and the lower esophageal sphincter.
• H. pylori testing — stool antigen and functional panels. In our clinical experience, conventional breath tests can miss strains when biofilm is present.

You can read more about the stool testing on our Comprehensive Stool Analysis page, or see how it fits together on the how it works page.

Who you will be working with

HeartburnReliefNC is a service of Wilmington Functional Medicine. Your care team is Dr. Mathew Bradshaw, DC, AFMCP, a functional medicine practitioner trained through the Institute for Functional Medicine, and Dr. Hilary Rutledge, DC, DABCI, a chiropractor with four years of advanced functional medicine training and more than 20 years in practice. Between us, that is hundreds of patients helped and a deep familiarity with what lab testing actually shows.

We are a Wilmington practice, and we like it that way. We know the bridge traffic on 74/76, we know the allergy season here, and we know how much of the local diet runs through seafood and restaurant patios. It makes the food conversation specific, not generic.

Serving Wilmington and the surrounding area

Our patients come from across New Hanover County and beyond — Wrightsville Beach, Carolina Beach, Kure Beach, Ogden, Monkey Junction, and Landfall. If you are across the river in Leland or down in Jacksonville, the same care is open to you through telehealth. Distance is not a barrier: your kit arrives at your door, and your visits happen wherever you are.

Not sure whether your symptoms sound like reflux, an ulcer, or something else? Start with our guide to GERD, or browse the FAQ for the questions we hear most.

What happens after your results

Results without a plan are just paperwork. Your results review is a dedicated visit where we walk through every marker with you — what your microbiome looks like, whether H. pylori is in the picture, which foods your immune system is reacting to, what your cortisol curve is doing. Then we write the plan: triggers to remove, nutrients and habits to heal the gut, and a timeline.

If you are on a PPI, we treat that carefully. Long-term acid suppression has real trade-offs, but stopping suddenly causes rebound that feels worse than the original symptoms. So we build a gradual step-down plan with your prescribing doctor, at a pace your body can handle. You stay in control of the decision at every step.

Wilmington Functional Medicine · 5046 Wrightsville Ave., Suite 200, Wilmington, NC 28403 · (910) 444-9438

HeartburnReliefNC is a service of Wilmington Functional Medicine.