How to Understand GERD

Peggy Pinky: It’s awful, it's just you can't distract yourself from anything else because it hurts so bad, it's so uncomfortable. Male Speaker: This woman is just one of the 16 million Americans who suffer from heart burn at least once a month. There is many causes and even more remedies. Trying to sort through them can give you a headache as well as a stomach ache. Here are some tips to help you put out of fire before you burn out. Male Speaker: When Peggy Pinky cooks food from the land of Dante she doesn’t have to worry about a digestive inferno. Peggy Pinky: Spaghetti sauce, lots of paste, Italian food, I can eat it all, Mexican food, it never bothers my stomach at all anymore. Male Speaker: That wasn’t the case seven years ago when Peggy woke up almost nightly with heart burn. Peggy Pinky: It's just a horrible indigestion, there is a bad taste in your mouth, burning your stomach, nausea. Male Speaker: This is the junction between the esophagus and the stomach. Male Speaker: Doctors diagnosed Peggy with Gastroesophageal reflux disease or GERD. It's caused when a muscular valve called the lower esophageal sphincter is weak. Rajeev Jain: When that muscle relaxes too long or too frequently, and that allows acid and fluid contents from the stomach to come back into the esophagus. Male Speaker: Coffee, spicy food, late night eating and alcohol can trigger heart burn. Medicines can get rid of it line pharmacy shelves, with so many choices, how do you decide what you need? Rajeev Jain: The first group is called antacids and they simply work by buffering the acid and decreasing the acidity. They are effective quickly but they don’t last very long. Male Speaker: To prevent heart burn, there are H2 blockers, these popular over the counter medicines, we do stomach acid production. Female Speaker: When is the next cheerleading practice? Male Speaker: When does one of the middle heart burn becomes something requiring a doctor’s care. Rajeev Jain: If those symptoms are occurring several times a week or bother someone enough that it changes what they are doing. Male Speaker: Well, like Peggy who has suffered from GERD, doctors often prescribe a Proton Pump Inhibitor or PPI. Rajeev Jain: The proton pump inhibitors work at the last final common mechanism to produce acid of the proton pump and by inhibiting that, they dramatically decrease acid production in the stomach and lead to a more good improvement in our patients with acid reflux. Male Speaker: Most are prescribed by a physician, one is available over the counter, but it should not be used indefinitely without seeing a doctor. Rajeev Jain: If the symptoms are more prolong, they should be evaluated by their physician and the reason or the rationale for that is other things can cause similar symptoms. Male Speaker: Even those who take prescription PPIs don’t always do so properly. A survey found 20% of patients prescribed proton pump inhibitors don’t take their medication as prescribed, more than a quarter, don’t take their medication everyday and some even try to substitute over the counter antacids for PPIs. Peggy takes her proton pump inhibitor everyday even though her symptoms are gone. Peggy Pinky: If I don’t take the medication, it would certainly up or predisposed me to esophageal cancer which esophagus – is a predisposition to esophageal cancer. Male Speaker: As a nurse in the GI lab, Peggy knew all about the pre-cancer risk condition. Peggy Pinky: The short segment merits, it’s gone, my last endoscopies, so that was real impressive to me and a pill can be really improving because of your esophagus in such a short period of time. Male Speaker: Besides that, now she can eat what she wants, when she wants. Peggy Pinky: I really don’t have to avoid anything because it's so well controlled. Male Speaker: For PPIs to be most effective, they should be taken in the morning and one hour prior to eating. Some doctors recommend they’d be taken with dairy products. It goes without saying, to know what’s best for you, consult your doctor.