Understanding Acid Reflux Disease

GERD – Unfamiliar with the term? Keep watching.

GERD or acid reflex disease occurs when there is a backflow of acid from the stomach into the esophagus. GERD is only diagnosed when the reflex of stomach acid causes pain that is severe enough to impact a person’s life on a regular basis and that is injurious to the esophagus. To understand acid reflex disease, it helps to have a basic grasp of how the stomach works and how heart burn occurs.

Food passes down the throat through a long tube – the esophagus – to the stomach. A muscular valve called the lower esophageal sphincter or LES opens to allow food into the stomach and then closes again. At this point, the stomach releases strong acids to help breakdown the food you have eaten. But in patients with GERD, the LES relaxes when it should not or becomes weak allowing stomach acid to reflex or sip upward almost constantly.


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