My diet has gone a bit haywire this week, with meals to attend with birthdays and people leaving
It is usually not the amount of acid we produce that is the biggest contributor of GERD although it does have some bearing on the matter. The main problem is keeping the acid in the stomach and for that we have the lower esophageal sphincter (LES) to than. Or in the case of us people having acid reflux disease it is a defective LES which is the main cause.
As we should already know the Les is a ring of muscle between the esophagus and the stomach which acts as a valve. It opens when we swallow to allow food to pass into the stomach, and is then supposed to shut off tightly to stop any contents of the stomach returning to the esophagus and cause heartburn.
There are a number of ways that the LES becomes defective. Transient LES relaxations, hiatus hernias, weak muscular contractions of the LES, defective esophageal contractions, and slow emptying of the stomach all contribute to GERD and you could have any number of these which will contribute to you getting acid reflux. I already have an article about these acid reflux causes so I won’t dwell on if further.
However there are some things which can contribute to these problems that we can do something about, including changes to our diet, exercising, relieving stress, stop smoking, loose weight, do not wear tight clothing, do not lie down after a meal, you can also try herbal remedies. The list goes on.
The thing is you can do a lot for yourself without having to rely on acid reflux medicines to relieve heartburn.
If you have tried everything and none of it works then you could also look at surgery as an option. The success rate acid reflux surgery is pretty high.
