What Medication Is Good for Acid Reflux

Acid reflux symptoms can range in severity from mild discomfort to chronic pain that interferes with daily activities. They can appear at any time of the day or night, but some people tend to experience them only during the day or only at night. As a result, certain symptoms are related to sleep because they occur or worsen due to the fact that you're lying down.

Common Daytime Symptoms of Acid Reflux

Heartburn: This is a burning pain that you feel in your chest behind your breastbone. It typically appears a little while after you eat a large meal or eat something and lie down, and it can create an acidic, bitter taste in your mouth that also burns somewhat. Heartburn happens when your esophageal sphincter allows stomach acid into your esophagus, and that acid travels back up into your throat.

Chest Pain: Acid reflux is the most common cause of chest pain that isn't related to your heart, according to The Cleveland Clinic. Often it's a result of heartburn, but it can also happen if your esophagus muscles start to spasm when the tissues there become irritated and inflamed due to the presence of stomach acid. Chest pain from acid reflux typically affects your upper chest and throat.

Trouble Swallowing: Also called dysphagia, having trouble swallowing means you have to exert more effort to move food or liquid from your mouth into your esophagus. It can feel like food is getting stuck in your throat, or swallowing may become painful. If you have chronic acid reflux, the continual presence of stomach acid in your esophagus can cause scarring in its tissues. As the scars grow, they can make your esophageal opening narrow, which physically makes it harder for things you eat to fit into your esophagus even after chewing them.

Regurgitation: This symptom occurs when partially digested food and stomach acid move all the way back up your throat and into your mouth, causing a sour taste in your mouth and the feeling that liquid is moving up and down in your chest. These sensations can be unpleasant, and they may cause you to feel nauseous — another common symptom of acid reflux.

Common Nighttime Symptoms of Acid Reflux

Disrupted Sleep: When you're lying down sleeping and experience acid reflux, your body is relaxed. This makes it easier for stomach acid and partially digested food to flow back up through your esophagus. Your body's position also results in prolonged contact between stomach acid and your esophagus tissue, which results in pain that makes sleeping difficult.

Chronic Cough: If the acidic liquid rises higher up in your esophagus, which it's likely to do while you're lying flat during sleep or winding down at night, it can cause choking and coughing. This is because it irritates your throat and mouth, which your body tries to clear away with a cough. The need to cough can wake you up and keep you from sleeping well.

Asthma: This condition and acid reflux often occur together, and they can both cause the other to worsen. When stomach acid leaks back into your throat, it can then enter your lungs directly. Aspirating stomach acid this way can irritate your airway, leading to inflammation that causes an asthma attack. The regurgitated stomach acid can also trigger nerves in your esophagus, and your brain may respond to this stimulation by ramping up mucus production in your airway.

Laryngitis: The prolonged exposure to stomach acid that happens when you experience reflux while lying down can also irritate your vocal cords. In some cases, it can create ulcer sores that can take weeks to heal. The swelling of your vocal cords keeps them from opening and closing smoothly like they normally do, and this make give you a sore throat and cause you to lose your voice until the irritation subsides.

What Medication Is Good for Acid Reflux

Source: https://www.symptomfind.com/health/know-symptoms-acid-reflux?utm_content=params%3Ao%3D740013%26ad%3DdirN%26qo%3DserpIndex

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