Tuesday, March 17, 2009

Natural Remedies For Acid Reflux - An Amazing Solution

Acid reflux disease is also known as heartburn or GERD (gastro esophageal reflux disease) and it is caused by stomach acid refluxed back to esophagus from the stomach. The common symptoms of this disease include discomfort, burning sensation through esophagus after meal; difficulty is swallowing, throat pain and breathing problems. Natural remedies for acid reflux diseases are the promising solution for long painful discomfort caused by the disease. Actually there are some amazing natural remedies including herbs that are the best solution for eliminating acid reflux disease for rest of the life.

There are many medicines available over the counter as well as many medical professionals prescribe antacids as well as anti histamines for acid reflux, however antacids are basic in nature and reduce the affect of acids and antihistamines reduce acid formation in stomach. Both the medicines can cause severe damage to stomach if taken for a long period and therefore should be avoided for long periods.

There are numerous natural remedies that have been practices since thousands of years and are still being treated as the best proven solutions for eliminating the acid reflux permanently. One of the best habits to keep this disease at bay is to take the proper food. Fatty and spicy foods should be avoided as these can aggravate the problems. Certain citrus fruits are also responsible for enhancing stomach acid production and therefore these should also be removed from your daily diet. Some fruits including papaya, banana and apple can help in reducing the stomach acid formation and therefore should be included in the diet.

Apple cider vinegar is amongst the best natural remedies for its treatment and if diluted apple cider vinegar is taken half an hour before meal, it amazingly help in eliminating the acid reflux or GERD.

Acid Reflux – lifestyle Changes Can Help Cure GERD

It is natural to get heartburn occasionally. It can be somehow unpleasant, but usually it's nothing to worry about. However, if you get it regularly, it might be caused by acid reflux disease.

Acid reflux is known as Gastroesophageal Reflux Disease, or GERD. It is a state of chronic abnormal reflux of stomach acid into the esophagus. It is caused by the dysfunction of the lower esophageal sphincter (LES). This sphincter is located at the opening of the stomach and it is a small ring of muscle. When it is not closed as tight as it should be, acid from the stomach will leak into the esophagus, causing this burning sensation. With time, it can corrode the lining of the esophagus causing ulcer and increasing the likelihood of esophageal cancer.

Watch out for the following symptoms because it means that you might have GERD:

-Persistent and frequent heartburn - This is the most obvious symptom, as well as the most common. Usually acid reflux sufferers experience heartburn several times a month. Oddly enough, some do not have heartburn at all.

-Acid Regurgitation - It is often reported that there is regurgitation of acid into the back of the throat, and sometimes all the way into the mouth for people with GERD. It might be accompanied by food from the stomach but not all the time.

-Persistent cough - Some sufferers develop a dry cough. When certain nerves in the lower esophagus are stimulated by the stomach acid it usually causes dry cough. But it can also be caused by acid irritating the throat.

-Choking sensation - It feels like a piece of food is stuck in the throat while in fact there is none.

-Croakiness or wheezing - When damage is done to the throat or esophagus, it will cause this sensation. It occurs usually in the morning. Besides, GERD can aggravate existing asthma.

Acid Reflux Treatment

You should definitely talk to your doctor if you have some of the symptoms above. If you are diagnosed with GERD, your doctor can prescribe some medications known as proton inhibitors. You can also try herbal remedies that can help in many cases. Surely enough, some lifestyle changes can provide relief without resorting to any medication. These include:

-Stop alcohol and tobacco consumption - They can make the symptoms of acid reflux worse. More acid is actually produced by the stomach when alcohol is consumed and the LES gets relaxed so more acid leaks. Smoking has the same effects; in addition, it causes saliva reduction, which provides a natural defense against refluxed acid.

-Weight loss is a must - Excess weight can make GERD worse because it increases pressure on the abdomen.

-Know what food to avoid - Stay away from fried and fatty foods, citrus fruits, tomatoes, chocolate, and spicy foods. Get into the habit of eating smaller meals to reduce abdominal pressure.

-Raise the head of your bed - When you're laying flat, acid escapes the stomach. That's why you might feel heartburn at night more than any other time. Sleeping slightly inclined can help. Also don't eat and sleep immediately.

It can be painful to have acid reflux but it can be cured with minor lifestyle changes and some medications.

Acid Reflux Treatment - Home Remedies Or Drugs?

Let’s think, what is acid reflux? Which treatments are available? Are there any home remedies for acid treatment?

Acid reflux is basically a kind of digestive disorder. The most common symptom is heartburn or having difficulty in breathing. However, there are various of ways curing it. It is generally agreed that the fastest acid reflux treatment is by using drugs. These kinds of drugs are easily available in the market and like other drugs, it may bring certain risks or side effects to you such as allergies.

For those who would like to try alternative treatment, they may consider some of the more common home remedies which is usually easy to make without much difficulties. This normally involves changing life style such as your daily eating and drinking habit. By changing your lifestyle, it helps relieving your discomfort arose from acid reflux.

Creating home remedies for acid reflux is easy if you have the required ingredients. Things like cabbage, pineapples, papaya and vegetables are usually important elements that are used to make ginger root, apple cider vinegar and things like that. It should be reminded that these home remedies may only fix your problems temporary. If you are still facing acid reflux issues, then you are suggested to seek doctors' advice for long term treatment.

It is always advisable to seek acid reflux treatment as soon as the symptoms are found. The earlier you treat your diseases, the earlier you will recover from this kind of digestive disorder.

Symptoms of Acid Reflux Disease - The Top 7 Things That Could Answer Your Question

If you are currently asking yourself the question - "Do I have acid reflux disease?" then it is time to investigate this painful and rather life changing condition to work out whether or not it is time to visit your doctor.

There are a few symptoms that are commonly associated with digestive diseases and conditions such as GERD and acid reflux disease and if you are noticing one of more of these symptoms, it is perhaps time to visit a medical professional that can better diagnose your symptoms. Home or self diagnosis will not get you the treatment that you will need so the only way to be safe and healthy is to visit your doctor.

Among the main symptoms of acid reflux disease, you may notice the following:

1. Heartburn. This is commonly described as a rather painful burning sensation within the chest area and can go as far down as the stomach and as far up as the neck

2. Pain in the chest, either constant or a nasty stabbing pain

3. Regurgitating food back from the gullet into the mouth

4. Trouble when swallowing both liquids and food

5. Sore throat and hoarseness when trying to talk

6. Erosion of the teeth and gums caused by the acid reaching the mouth

7. Asthma (This is normally due to the acid that is travelling where it should reaching the area around the lungs or throat)

These symptoms can happen all at once or in stages and all of them are very uncomfortable to have to deal with. They have the ability to seriously interfere with ones life and even lead to days taken from work as sick and not being able to leave the house due to the painful nature of the heartburn.

For those that have not suffered from heartburn, this can be one of the most painful things to ever have to go through and also one of the most difficult things to explain.

The symptoms of acid reflux disease can continue for many months and even longer, getting more and more painful as the time goes if it has not been treated in the correct manner.

Acid reflux Treatment can take the shape of many things from medication that your doctor may have prescribed for you to massive lifestyle changes that can make the difference between painful symptoms of acid reflux disease to bearable ones.

Fighting Acid Reflux With Prilosec

Prilosec is the trademark brand name for omeprazole, an antacid drug that suppresses or decreases the amount of gastric acid secreted in the stomach. Prilosec is used for the treatment of gastroesophageal reflux disease (GERD), including duodenal and gastric ulcers.

By blocking an enzyme in the stomach wall that stimulates the secretion of gastric juices, Prilozec reduces the amount of such acid from being pulsed into the esophageal passage in a reflux reaction. It is generally thought that an overabundance of acid in the stomach will contribute to the acid reflux, as will obesity, pregnancy, or the wearing of tight fitting clothes. Therefore, a reduced quantity of acid sent up to the esophagus should cause less damage or irritation.

To fight acid reflux with Prilosec, look out for such symptoms as burning discomfort in the chest, difficulty in swallowing, and chronic chest pain. If you have heartburn more than once per week, you become more susceptible in contracting GERD; and so a course of treatment with Prilosec is advised. However, an occasional heartburn is not an uncommon thing and does not pose any risk of getting GERD.

Prilosec is not a prescription drug and so is readily available over the counter. Still, Prilosec is meant primarily for people who have frequent heartburns, such as getting it 2 to 3 times a week.

For Prilosec, one pill a day is enough to relieve heartburn for up to 24 hours, and this is part of a recommended 14-day course of therapy. This Prilosec treatment may be repeated once every 4 months if necessary, but not more than that. When undergoing a course of treatment, do not stop taking Prilosec even when you start to feel better.

Do not overdose on Prilosec. While it is generally true that high acidity in the stomach can lead to acid reflux, the opposite is ironically true as well. A lack of acid in the stomach can also prevent the stomach's exit valve to the small intestine from opening up. Instead, the contents in the stomach get to roll back up to the esophagus, and what little acid present may still cause irritation.

Your symptoms have improved and that's a good thing, but the condition still exists and so you need to carry through with the full length of treatment before this condition is considered as fully treated. If the heartburn condition does not improve or even worsen, you would need to consult with your doctor. However, this is not the only time you seek out your doctor.

As with all medicines, OTC or not, before taking Prilosec, always let your doctor know if you have any instance of painful swallowing, difficulty in swallowing, vomiting blood, and bloody or black stools.

Furthermore, if you have heartburn that has lasted three months or longer, or experience heartburn combined with wheezing, arm pain, jaw pain, neck pain, shoulder pain, chest pain, dizziness, lightheadedness, or sweating, make sure you let your doctor know before taking Prilosec.

Contact your physician if you experience frequent chest pains, inexplicable weight loss, vomiting, nausea, or stomach pain while taking the medication.

Acid Reflux - Food That You Can Eat

Acid reflux, like any other dietary disease, has no simple and easy cure. Moderation is usually the best remedy for dietary diseases or disorders. Perhaps it would be good to shed some light on occurrence of acid reflux within the body. Acid reflux or heartburn in layman's terms happens when the stomach content in the body is too acidic and is subsequently sent back the reversed way to the esophagus.

The walls of the esophagus are designed to withstand neutral content and will cause pain and inflammation when acidic content is in contact with it. It can be liken to swallowing corrosive acid.

There is no hard and fast rule on what one should eat or not to avoid or cure acid reflux in the body. The occurrence of acid reflux tends to vary from person to person. For example, person A may feel experience acid reflux in the body after consuming read meat while person B may be fine with it. Before we start prescribing a rough remedy for ourselves, it would be best to understand the malady. Therefore, we should try our best to understand our body and what foods which cause it to happen in our bodies.

However, there are a few foods which are generally fine to be eaten to avoid acid reflux based on their content and low acidity levels. Fruits and vegetables are always a good bet for the body but no citrus fruits here as they are acidic.

Some good fruits are such as pineapple, banana and apples because they absorb acids whereas some good vegetables are such as cauliflower, broccoli and cabbage as they are alkaline in nature. These are acid reflux food to eat in order not to worsen your acid level.

Red meat is a big no but a healthy balance of meats, fish and grains is welcomed to improve digestion and avoid reverse flow of food content in the body. As a last example, please stay away from dairy products which triggers the stomach to release acids but low fat yogurt is fine.

Acid Reflux Sore Throat - 10 Simple Tips to Drive Away the Pain and Irritation

Acid reflux sore throat is something that can be easily cured. It is caused when acid from the esophagus leaks and sits on your throat when you are asleep. Acid reflux sore throat irritation can be soothed by following a few simple tips. Here are 5 tips that can help you get rid of the problem in next to no time.

1. You should try and sleep with the upper half of your body at an elevated position. You can use a mattress or a pillow to get it elevated. Make sure that the entire upper half of the body is elevated and not the head portion alone. Sleeping in this position helps in keeping the acid inside the stomach and not enters the esophagus.

2. There are many amongst us who have the habit of sleeping with our mouth open. In such cases, air enters through the mouth and causes throat irritation. You can avoid this problem by installing a good humidifier at home, which can put moisture back into the air. This will not allow your throat to go dry.

3. Drinking lots of water also helps in getting rid of acid reflux sore throat pain and irritation. Although eight glasses will be enough, you can always drink more, if it is all right with you. Apart from helping you with your sore throat, it will also give you lots of other health benefits too.

4. Lozenges and cough drops are also known to give relief from acid reflux sore throat pain. They are to be used only when the pain is really bad and only in consultation with your doctor.

5. Gargling with salt water is a good way to start the day if you want to get rid of acid reflux sore throat pain. Soothing your throat with tea mixed with some honey is also known to give relief from throat irritation.

To be continued in the next post…

Home Remedies For Heartburn - Herbal Acid Reflux Treatment

Evryday many people around the word complain about feeling something burning inside their chests. This is a very painful disorder known as heartburn. The intensity of the symptoms vary from one person to another and that's why some patients only feel a mild discomfort while others feel an unbelievable pain.

Everybody knows all the medical treatments for this condition but let's see how effective home remedies for heartburn are.

The common practice has proven home remedies to be very successful in time and now they've become a viable alternative to the prescribed medicine offering a risk free cure.

It's hard to estimate how many home remedies are available for heartburn but below you can read about a few of them that are considered to be best ones.

Let's start with ginger. Many sufferers said that after eating some ginger with their meal, the stomach upset was considerably reduced. You can use fresh ginger or capsule ginger because both have the same effect.

Also, any healthy diet must contain fiber because this cleans the digestive system keeping the stomach acids from returning to the esophagus.

Third in line are the digestive enzymes. This type of remedy speeds up the digestive process eliminating the heartburn. You can find them available in convenient chewy capsule form and you won't have to combine them with your meal or drink them with a glass of water.

The above mentioned herbal remedies for heartburn were very effective for most acid reflux sufferers but you should know that every single person is different. That's why the result cannot be the same for everybody. That's why you should try a few remedies and see which one offers the best results eliminating the pain from your chest.

Heartburn is a very unpleasant condition but if you're patient, you can forget about the symptoms very fast. I recommend you try these herbal acid reflux remedies but as always, make sure you consult your doctor first before proceeding.