Acid Reflux Disease - Just What Is It?
Thursday, July 9th, 2009If you are someone that suffers from this problem, you may want to think that you already have a good take on the real answer to that question.The pain and discomfort that you will feel so often could even be enough of an answer for you.You may even have even done some research of your own and have come up with a home remedy or two, some of which may or may not be very successful.
When you do research this disease, however, it’s surprising the things that even the patients don’t know about it - and sometimes it’s because doctors fail to fully inform their patients of all these details! A lot of information about what the disease actually is, where in the body it occurs, what causes it, and most importantly the dangers of the disease is typically missing from a patient’s knowledge base.
And if you’re someone with a case of acid reflux, no matter how infrequent or minor it is, you would do well to find out more details about this condition. If you’re not fully informed of what exactly it is and what causes it, you may be treating it incorrectly and possibly even making the condition worse than it is.If ignored or left unchecked, this problem can have the potential to lead to many other conditions that are very dangerous for your health overall, and may even prove to be fatal.
Just What is the Disease
One thing that many people are not clearly told is what exactly this disease is and where it occurs in the body. Many think that because they feel a lot of heartburn and pain and pressure in the chest area that this disease affects the heart or chest.
Some also understand that acid reflux disease is a digestive disorder and that the pain you’re feeling actually happens in the esophagus, the long tube that moves food from your mouth to your stomach.
In plain truth, not one of these is the right answer. Acid reflux disease is a problem in the stomach.While you will feel the pain up in your esophagus, it will not be the esophagus itself that is damaged or working incorrectly.
When you eat and food is sent to your stomach, you produce a form of hydrochloric acid that helps to break down that food so that it can be absorbed in your body and digested. There is a small valve at the top of your stomach pouch, at the end of your esophagus, that opens when the food moves down your esophagus and then closes when the food gets into your stomach. Once the food enters your stomach, this valve is supposed to close in order to keep the contents of your stomach including that acid from backing up into your esophagus.
Unfortunately, that valve can be defective or faulty or sometimes can be overwhelmed with acid so that it washes up past the valve and back into the esophagus even when it’s working properly.
When this happens, you experience the pain and discomfort that we call heartburn.This will happen as your stomach has a special membrane so that the stomach acids won’t affect it, but your esophagus doesn’t have the same lining. When those stomach acids “leak” out of where they belong and come into contact with your esophagus it causes pain and pressure. Imagine if you had acid dripped on your skin - of course it would hurt!
Almost every person will experience the occasional acid reflux; this can be triggered by a spicy meal which sends the stomach into overload and will cause the stomach acids to wash back up into the esophagus, or it can happen from eating a lot of heavy stoggy foods will trigger extra acid production in the stomach. However, when it happens on a regular basis or is caused not by dietary habits but because of a defect in that valve then this is called acid reflux disease.
So while you feel the pain of acid reflux in your esophagus, it’s not really a condition of your esophagus at all.It is because of problems with your stomach or maybe poor dietary choices.
What Your Doctor Isnt Telling You
People who are finally educated about acid reflux disease, its cause, its consequences and subsequent dangers, and the dangers of home remedies that so many people actually use, they can be very shocked.
And one big reason for them being so shocked is that doctors often just don’t educate their patients adequately. Rarely do they warn their patients of over-the-counter remedies and the damage they’re doing to their own systems.They can sometimes give their patients no reason for what is really causing their problem so that the condition can be treated at the root of the source.
Acid reflux is a very serious condition, not just a painful one. And treating it with these home remedies or over-the-counter treatments is not only ineffective, it can just increase the danger of this disease.
There is no reasoning as to why doctors don’t teach their patients the way they do; of course some patients don’t want to know and understand and just want a prescription to get rid of the problem.
But only by really learning about this disease and by understanding its root cause can you really treat it properly. If you realize the cause of the problem, then you can address that cause rather than just trying to fix the symptoms
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