Gerd Symptoms

It may also start in the upper abdomen.  Since pain is a subjective experience, some people may describe heartburn as a sharp or pressurized pain in the same areas described above.  It is said that the pain can mimic and be confused as heart pain, also known as angina.  Some people, who have it worse, even describe the pain as radiating into their backs.

Acid reflux happens more frequently after meals or night time.  When people are up and active during the day, gravity helps keep food in the stomach. When people lie down, the liquid content of the stomach may backflow which explains why heartburn is more common at night. In the case of post meal heartburns, the lower esophageal sphincter, which is usually close, opens up to accommodate the incoming food. When the lower esophageal sphincter does open up, acid reflux might occur.

Heartburn is unpredictable for people without GERD.  Every so often, someone will eventually feel heartburn.  The period of heartburn fluctuations will occur periodically and last for several weeks or even months and then they stop for a period of several weeks or months.  Increased frequency of suffering heartburns leads many people to seek diagnosis, and GERD is usually the prime suspect when a person feels heartburn.   Even if undiagnosed with GERD heartburn is a serious problem and always returns to burden a person. 

The occurrence of refluxed fluid in the mouth is identified as regurgitation.  Usually for people with GERD, only small quantities of the fluid will reach the esophagus. In most people with GERD the fluid is only limited to the lower esophagus.  Once in a while, some people with GERD will experience their food or large quantities of fluid refluxing to the upper esophagus and sometimes into the mouth.

The upper esophageal sphincter is located at the upper end of the esophagus.  The upper esophageal sphincter is a muscle that is circular and ring-like which is comparable to the lower esophageal sphincter.  They are both parallel in their actions because they both prevent esophageal content from flowing up to the throat.  It is when the content reaches the mouth from the inside, that one will feel a bitter acid taste in the mouth.  If the load is larger, people may find themselves with a mouthful of the food and fluid they just swallowed.  Having this acid flow up to the mouth can lead to deterioration of the teeth and other complications like throat cancer if left untreated.

Dysphagia, or more accurately, esophageal dysphagia is both a symptom and a cause of GERD. Esophageal dysphagia is when you feel like the food is stuck in your esophagus and will not go down. Cause of this in people with GERD may be due to acid reflux that is already in the esophagus, making it difficult for the food to drain into the stomach. It can also be considered as a cause of GERD when the esophagus is not doing its job of transporting the food down to the stomach, this way it is easier for acid reflux to remain in the esophagus leading to prolonged heartburn. As stated above, with heartburn, the prime suspect is GERD.

Nausea, though not as common as the other GERD symptoms, may just be a complication of regurgitation or a symptom on its own. When a person regurgitates, the bad taste left in that person’s mouth may cause nausea. What makes this a symptom is the fact that some people with GERD suffer from this without prior regurgitation. Due to nausea, regurgitation or vomiting may occur which leads to complications.

For complicated GERD, symptoms may be harder to detect. The difficulty in detection is largely because symptoms of complications such as Barrett’s Esophagus may just be a more excruciating heartburn. Also, depending on which uncomplicated symptom is more common, the effects and damages to the upper gastric tract differs. Since GERD is most easily characterized by acid found where it shouldn’t be (the esophagus), damage caused by acid differs on where it is found. If just limited to the esophagus, inflammation is more common. If the acid reaches the mouth, tooth enamel damage may occur.