You may know the symptoms: pain and burning in the chest area so bad that you almost want to double over and cry. Food coming back up into your mouth and nose a couple hours after you go to sleep. Horrible taste and texture in your mouth because of acid making its way back up your throat.
You’ve probably got GERD.
Tens of millions of Americans suffer with gastroesophageal reflux disease, or GERD, also called acid reflux. With this condition, your lower esophageal sphincter – a muscular valve of sorts around the bottom part of your esophagus – is supposed to relax and open to allow food and liquid to enter the stomach, and is then supposed to close again. But if this valve relaxes when it shouldn’t or weakens over time, stomach acid can flow back up into the esophagus, causing sometimes-intense heartburn. And the acid backup can worsen when you bend over or lie down.
You can make some changes
It’s hard to change habits in this fast-paced world, but there are some things you can do to control your GERD symptoms. Factors that can make your heartburn worse, some of which you have some control over, include:
• Eating fatty foods, spicy foods, chocolate, caffeine, onions and tomato sauce
• Large meals
• Lying down too soon after eating
• Alcohol
• Cigarette smoking
• Certain prescription medications, including sedatives, antidepressants and calcium channel blockers
If making an adjustment in your lifestyle doesn’t help, or doesn’t help enough – which is often the case if your heartburn has already progressed to that extent – online ordering of a prescription GERD drug may be necessary. There are several over-the-counter drugs for heartburn, but they don’t address the actual cause of the heartburn, only your GERD symptoms.
Acid pumps are the problem
Inside the stomach are countless tiny pumps that produce the acids that digest food. Prescription GERD drugs shut some of those pumps down, reducing the amount of acid produced and making it less likely that acid can be sent back up the esophagus.
Other causes and risk factors
Some medical conditions can cause difficulty with digestion and can increase the risk of heartburn and GERD. They may include:
• Obesity. Excess weight puts extra pressure on the stomach and diaphragm, the large muscle that separates the chest and abdomen. This excess weight can force the lower esophageal sphincter open and allow stomach acids to back up into the esophagus. Eating very large meals, or high-fat meals, can cause similar effects.
• Hiatal hernia. This is a protrusion of part of the stomach into the lower chest. If it is large, it can make heartburn more severe by further weakening the lower esophageal sphincter muscle.
• Pregnancy. Pregnancy creates greater pressure on the stomach, and causes a higher production of the hormone progesterone, which relaxes many of your muscles, including the lower esophageal sphincter.
• Asthma. Doctors don’t completely understand the exact relationship between asthma and heartburn. It’s possible that coughing and difficulty exhaling might lead to pressure changes in the chest and abdomen, triggering backflow of stomach acid into the esophagus. Some asthma medications that widen airways may also relax the lower esophageal sphincter and allow reflux to occur. Or it may also be possible that the acid reflux that causes heartburn may conversely worsen asthma symptoms. For example, a person with asthma may inhale small amounts of the digestive juices from the esophagus, damaging lung airways.
• Diabetes. A complication of diabetes is gastroparesis, a disorder in which the stomach takes too long to empty. If food and drink stay in the stomach too long, stomach contents can back up into the esophagus and cause heartburn.
Get help
Whatever the cause may or may not be of your GERD, prolonged reflux can damage the esophagus and even the teeth. It is highly recommended that a person with GERD make some lifestyle changes when it comes to a diet. You can always order nexium online from a safe and secure online pharmacy such as Accessrx.com.
