Acid reflux - is it just indigestion?

What is acid reflux though?

It is regurgitating the liquid in the stomach into the esophagus (gullet). Much of this fluid is the acid in the stomach is harmful to the walls of the esophagus. Reflux happens for most people, but because we maintain spend much of our time, gravity ensures that silently returns the liquid in the stomach. In addition we swallow the again regurgitated liquid to the stomach and saliva contains bicarbonate that helps often returns to neutralize the acid in the stomach fluid.

It does not, to ignore although repeated instances of painful indigestion as it could be symptomatic of something much more serious. Refluxing permanent damage to the lining of the oesophagus, which can cause if left untreated can cause acid other conditions.

A friend relates her father is always on Rennies, chew a known antacid in the UK, that when she was a child, was. He used to say that a good belch the indigestion would heal. It turned out later that he had a stomach ulcer. Despite that when my friend again began to indigestion, suffer often munching on the Rennies and went about your business.

Finally, you saw that the extent of digestive disorders could be not normal so please consult your doctor is your specialist for an endoscopy.

An endoscopy is a process in the an endoscope, a thin, lighted tube, inserts the throat. The specialist transfers pictures of the esophagus, stomach and duodenum, enable the endoscope to identify problem areas and, if necessary, receive biopsies. That will usually Endoscope, during the patient under sedation thus the mouth totmachen reflex is inserted to avoid.

A hiatus hernia was diagnosed to return to my friend. A hiatus hernia occurs when the upper part of the stomach through the opening in the diaphragm where connects presses the esophagus to the stomach, so that the acid from the stomach to reflux. Fortunately, this was a small hiatus hernia that could easily be treated with a course of drugs.

A few years passed with only minor instances of indigestion, my friend then began occasional bouts of very severe heartburn and disease treated to experience preparations with the usual array of antacid. Suddenly woke one day with a severe pain in your lower abdomen that has responded not the usual remedies and to resemble the normal symptoms of acid reflux.

A visit to the doctor and my friend found for testing revealed that the original small hiatus hernia was greater and bleeding and had to do, that gastritis (inflammation of the stomach lining) and duodenitis (inflammation of the duodenum), both caused by infection with Helicobacter pylori bacteria in hospital. This bacterium is very common, thought to infect 70% of world population, although most people no symptoms of infection appear.

The moral of this story is "non-persistent acid reflux ignore it can much more that just indigestion".

Watch out for my next article on the treatment of acid reflux.