How To Feel Better When You Have Acid Reflux or Heartburn
Whether you're in the center of a deliciously greasy slice of pizza or right around to drift off to sleep, heartburn always seems to hit at the worst moments. And when it arrives, there's no blowing. When you're experiencing heartburn, it honestly feels like there's a fire on your chest, and it may also cause it too embarrassing bloating or gut pains.
The explanation for why this happens is fairly straightforward. "Normally, we chew food, consume it, it goes into our esophagus, and it should go down into the stomach to invest time becoming digested," says Felice Schnoll-Sussman, MD, a gastroenterologist at New York Presbyterian Hospital who's also manager of The Jay Monahan Center for Gastrointestinal Health at Weill Cornell Medicine. However, "in some folks, for a variety of reasons, the food or acid or fluid that's in the gut may not stay in the gut."
In actuality, the awful feeling we understand as heartburn is only one symptom of acid reflux, a common condition in which substances from your gut finds its way upwards, Dr. Schnoll-Sussman says. The good thing is that there are a few practices you can do to get it to happen.
Most commonly, reflux happens because the sphincter at the bottom of your esophagus weakens or relaxes too frequently, Dr. Schnoll-Sussman explains. When that occurs, the sphincter can't keep what is in your stomach where that burning feeling can be caused by it and, possibly, do some damage to the lining.
That sounds gross and scary, but reflux is incredibly common, even among infants and kids. Individuals that are pregnant experience stomach, because the expanding uterus puts a strain on the belly. Weight gain can make reflux more inclined for comparable reasons.
For most people, a little heartburn every once in a while is not anything to worry about. Even though it's unpleasant, over-the-counter medications and (if necessary) changes in diet are sufficient to treat most cases, explains Dr. Schnoll-Sussman.
"However, there are some negative consequences of long-standing reflux," she says. If your reflux becomes persistent, it turns into gastroesophageal reflux disease (GERD), which can lead to inflammation, scarring, or ulcers in the gut. The most worrying possibility, however, is that the development of a condition called Barret's esophagus, which, at a tiny subset of individuals, can go on to become esophageal cancer.
Therefore, if you have reflux which doesn't go away no matter what you can do, or else you notice you are starting to have trouble swallowing, or you have to modify the size of the food you eat to be able to swallow, see your doctor. She can do evaluations, prescribe drugs, and indicate diet changes to help get your esophagus back in working order until you develop complications that are even more serious.
However, again, over-the-counter remedies and tiny changes do the trick for most people.
