Heartburn – The How and Why Story

Belch. Burp. Yuck. You have a distasteful liquid enter your mouth from the wrong direction. You could be having a bout of acid reflux or heartburn. The food served at the party was simply yummy. Ignoring the commands of your wits and etiquette, you hogged a lot. Here you stand with the after effects.

The food that you pop into your mouth walks over your throat, down the esophagus tube, knocks at a door called the sphincter valve and then into the stomach. The stomach secretes certain acids to digest the food. These acids are so potent, if you dip your fingers in it, you could burn your fingers. But the stomach is protected because it has an acid-proof lining.

Sometimes the acid in the stomach squirts up the sphincter valve, the esophagus, the throat and into the mouth. When this happens you know you have gone through an episode of acid reflux. It leaves a burning sensation in the stomach, the esophagus, the throat and the mouth. Since the esophagus, the throat and the mouth do not have the protective lining that the stomach has they get scalded and scarred with the acids. These are the fallout of long term suffering from acid reflux. Repeated erosion on the lining of the esophagus, throat and mouth, could also result in cancer at a later stage. Sometimes heartburn or acid reflux is accompanied with gas, bloating, nausea, vomiting and breathlessness.

The symptoms feel such that one wonders if one is suffering from a heart attack. That is the reason the problem got the name heartburn. Though there is absolutely no link to the heart. If it were a heart attack, the symptoms would be, pain in the chest radiating to neck and shoulder, pain in swallowing, vomiting of blood, blood stained motions or black coloured stools, breathlessness and giddiness. Similarly, if the heartburn like symptoms is felt before intake of food, it could be ulcer instead. Ulcer is a prefix to meals while heartburn is a suffix to meals.

Ideally the sphincter valve should not allow the food to back out of the valve once it has entered the stomach. The sphincter valve is so designed. Certain conditions render this sphincter valve to fail. When the muscles around the sphincter valve get weak, they loose control. When the subject has overindulged, the pressure exerted by the stomach walls, push some part of the food in the stomach up forcibly through the valve. A pregnant women’s enlarged womb pushes the stomach against the diaphragm thus inadvertently opening the sphincter valve the wrong way up.

Other reasons causing heartburn are intake of acidic foods, partaking alcohol and smoking. These addictions again loosen the sphincter muscles leading to the malfunctioning of the sphincter valve. Also they corrode the lining around the stomach and esophagus causing even more damage.

There are many other names for heartburn or acid reflux depending on the causative reasons and accompanied symptoms. Gastroesophageal reflux, dyspepsia, chronic heartburn or simply acid indigestion, are some of the names.

Take care to consume smaller or medium portions of food howsoever enticing they may look and taste. Do not help yourself to larger portions. Help yourself with smaller portions. It really helps.

Home Remedies for Heartburn

Buckled and doubled over with pain and burning sensation in the chest, bitter feeling in the mouth, driving to the doctor or the pharmacy is the last thing you wish to or could do. You have gone through these episodes of heartburn before. You know by now that one trip to the doctor and the pharmacy is just a precursor to another a few days ahead. Under the circumstances the best bet would be to totter around your house and see if you could fix up any of these below given tricks of home remedies for heartburn.

Heartburn finally boils down to be the after effects of acid production in the stomach. A simple home remedy for heartburn is to stock and take medication to reduce acid production.

A simple case of one-off heartburn case can be treated with a single dose of antacid every six hours. Too many antacids and you will end up in the loo. Beware.

Those of us, who are frequently visited by heartburn, especially at night, could do well, increasing the level of cot at head-side. The gravitational pull will contain the collection of acids in the stomach from rising up. This is a very reliable home remedy for heartburn. This wouldn’t work with a waterbed as the waters will bunch up at the lower end.

An easy to follow home remedy for heartburn is to take meals a good couple of hours before bed time and to avoid snacking just before hopping into bed. The idea is to avoid going to bed on a full stomach but when the food has travelled further from the stomach in its digestion journey. Also never take mint the last thing in the day.

A generalised home remedy for heartburn to be followed is to eat less at a time to keep the bulk low and to chew food well and make it less bulky.

Obesity is another cause for heartburn. The bulk of muscles along the mid-riff are sure to press against the stomach. Hence cutting down on fat could be jotted down as another home remedy for heartburn to be followed rigorously.

Smoking leads to sagging of muscles and weakening of the lining of stomach, which lead to heartburn. Hence smoking should be curtailed. Alcohol produces the same effects as smoking. So alcoholism should also be brought under check. Caffeine is another product close on the heels producing the effects as smoking and alcohol consumption. This should be consumed in measured quantities if not avoided.

Consumption of soda at measured quantities brings relief in heartburn. But the same if taken out of proportions will cause heartburn out of proportion.

The pregnant suffering from heartburn would do well to consult the doctor to provide a remedy to suit their specific conditions.

Sometimes some medicines especially painkillers are known to bring about heartburn like symptoms as a side effect of the painkiller medication. The physician should be consulted and counter medication decided upon.

Simple and easy to follow hints seem to bring so much relief. Overturn your home, your home life, to accommodate home remedies for heartburn. Nudge out heartburn from your home.

Acid reflux – Homeopathic Remedies to Get Rid of Acid Reflux

Homeopathy is one of the most effective ways to cure many ailments today, including heart burn.

While prescribing acid reflux homeopathic remedies, the subject’s family history, personal history, other simultaneously existing medical problems, physiology, likes, dislikes, psychiatric influences are studied. It would appear as though the homeopathy practitioner is querying on irrelevant aspects of the problem. But the fact is they intend to give you a holistic cure and not a cure for the currently petrifying one alone.

The homeopathic medications will initially increase the very same symptoms for which you had initially sought help for. The idea behind homeopathy is that the body shows up symptoms when its own immune system is trying to fight out the problem on its own. Homeopathic medications trigger the immune system further to root out the problem. So the symptoms are bound to show up a severity to begin with. The best part of it is the cure lasts longer if not permanent.

Also in extreme cases of acid reflux where the subject is experiencing excruciating pain and internal bleeding, acid reflux homeopathic remedy is just not the treatment to be sought out. In such cases pain and bleeding has to be contained first with the help of a physician. Thereafter one may seek out acid reflux homeopathic remedy. Sometimes physicians themselves prescribe or recommend acid reflux homeopathic remedies. Such is the popularity and effectiveness of acid reflux homeopathic remedies for some specific conditions of acid reflux.

But if you need to get cured and not merely relieved temporarily then acid reflux homeopathic remedies is the way to go. Not only acid reflux but other medical problems of yours too get taken into account by the acid reflux homeopathic remedy prescribed. Another fact that will cheer you on taking up acid reflux homeopathic remedy is that they do not leave any side effects.

The medicines by themselves are minuscule globules unlike the huge throat jamming allopathic ones. Interestingly, the homeopathic medicines, remedies as they are called, are labelled with the symptoms to which they are applicable. The components of these medicines are sourced from plants, animals, minerals, synthetics, and, plant and animal wastes.

One needs to go to a reputed homeopathy practitioner. Likewise one needs to purchase the medicines prescribed by them from suppliers who have legal sanctions to sell these medicines. Spurious and adulterated medicines for heartburn would otherwise lead to pocket burn.

All roads lead to Rome. You need to find the shortest and most comfortable one for yourself. If acid reflux homeopathic remedy is the one for you, then grab it quick.

Natural Remedies for Acid Reflux

All organic matters, plants, animals and humans are constituted primarily of carbon, hydrogen and oxygen. That is the reason why the intake of plants and animals by humans, and plants and humans by animals do not cause much adverse reaction, in the consumer. Hence natural remedies for acid reflux are much touted for their no side effect privileges.

A handful of almond soaked in water for a couple of hours, when chewed are said to be a natural remedy for acid reflux.

A half teaspoon of baking soda mixed into half a cup of water could be taken, sparingly, as a natural remedy for heartburn.

A half teaspoon of baking soda can also be mixed instead to half a teaspoon of tarter and a cup of water. This works as an acid neutralizing agent. This too should be consumed only sparingly because of the reactive nature of baking soda.

When afflicted with heartburn, it is advisable to consume brown rice which is bland, composed of complex carbohydrates and easy on digestion. It forms a very filling meal yet giving no further trouble.

Gulping down soda infused beverages is another natural remedy for acid reflux. The soda absorbs the acids. Also it is bland and easy on the stomach.

When you see heartburn trying to wage a war against you, take a tablespoon of apple cider vinegar with a tablespoon of honey with a cup of warm water. Heartburn will stop in its tracks. This is another natural remedy for heartburn.

People who maintain a diary, date-wise and time-wise, jotting down daily food intake, episodes of heartburn with details on symptoms, duration, cessation, steps leading to cessation, have found it to be very helpful in zeroing down to certain foods which trigger heartburn. They are able to take corrective action accordingly.

A simple natural remedy for heartburn is to consume less water along with meals which increase the bulk of food. Instead to consume more water in between meals which aid quick digestion. The chance of an acid reflux is only up to the point of the food leaving the stomach, say a couple of hours from food intake. So the earlier it leaves the stomach the more safe-period you get.

Fresh apple taken with the skin chills the burns left by heartburn. This is a fine example of post acid reflux, acid reflux natural remedies. Mashed apple simmered on low heat till it turns brown and thick can be prepared and stored whenever the attacks reappear.

Buttermilk as against milk is effective in containing acid reflux. Buttermilk neutralizes acidity while milk abets acid production.

Cabbage juice is another good natural remedy for heartburn, very effective in ironing out the burning sensation.

Fresh pumpkin squashed or baked is comforting.

Papaya, mango, guava and peer juice are known to be very good body refrigerants with their cooling properties. Pregnant women though should avoid papaya.

Turmeric eases digestion and controls acid formation.

Follow natural remedies for acid reflux complaints. Natural remedies for acid reflux will follow compliance with your body. Be one with nature. Nature will take care of you.