Sometimes, you might feel a burning sensation in your chest and throat area after an acidic dinner. Although heart burn itself is not much of a problem but the chronic acid reflux can cause pain in your esophagus and even cause permanent damage. GERD, commonly known as Gastroesophageal reflux disease, is a condition characterized by chronic acid reflux.

Acid reflux usually occurs due to malfunctioning of the lower esophageal sphincter, which we call LES. Ordinarily, a healthy person’s LES is tightly shut and is not accessible to the acidic fluids of the stomach. It does open less when you are eating because it has to let the food in. It also opens again to pass out the excessive air while you burp. However, in some cases, it does not operate as systematically as it’s supposed to and opens up in situations when it should not. Sometimes, it is just not as tightly closed as it should be. When this happens, the acidic fluid from your stomach escapes and comes in contact with the esophagus and resultantly, causes the burning sensation along with the usual heartburn.

If this type of condition happens to you more than twice a week, then perhaps you are suffering from Gastroesophageal reflux. There are many things that make your body more susceptible to developing this condition. These factors include:

• Eating excessively.
• Putting on too much weight/ obesity.
• Lying down immediately after a hearty meal.
• Consumption of specific food items like tomatoes, citrus fruits, peppermint, onion and garlic.
• Drinking a lot of carbonated sodas, alcohol, tea and coffee.
• Smoking regularly.
• Pregnancy.
• Certain medications can also cause the condition.

Even though heart burn is the chief and most obvious symptom of GERD, there are some other signs too. These signs include:

• Frequent nausea
• Asthma
• Hoarseness
• Laryngitis
• Dry cough without a specific cause
• Aching ears
• Halitosis

This condition victimizes not just the adult population, but also children. As we know that children are usually not able to explain their condition very well but if you notice persistent coughing, vomiting along with breathing problems, then the child is most probably suffering from GERD.

As mentioned above, GERD is a chronic disease and there are certain things that you must eliminate from your lifestyle for positive changes. You can take out a few food items from your diet, which should help control the symptoms like nausea and heart burn. Moreover, you should also try to reduce the stress level. There are some over-the-counter drugs and medicines that are known to relieve some of these symptoms.

If the symptoms become too severe, doctors recommend serious measures like surgery. Moreover, there are also prescribed drugs for controlling the chronic acid reflux. However, mostly it has been seen that the drugs do more harm than good. For instance, some of the popular medications for acid reflux disease are known to cause permnanet disabilities like tardive dyskinesia.

Related Posts

• Gastric Reflux Symptoms
• Reflux Disease Causes, Symptoms and Treatments
• Is acid reflux really what this is? What food will not cause problems?
• Common Causes of Reflux
• Acid Reflux and It’s Causes
• How To Distinguish Symptoms Of Gerd
• GERD Symptoms

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