GERD Symptoms: Nighttime Pain

Have you ever woken up in the middle of the night with a bout of terrible heart burn?  If so, you may have more than just a simple case of heart burn.  These kinds of nighttime symptoms

Most people deal with heart burn at some point in their lives.  This is perfectly normal.  You don't even need to worry about the damage it may do if it only happens to you on seldom occasions.  GERD is different.  The heartburn symptoms caused by this illness are often chronic and much more painful than what you would find with regular heartburn.  Not only that, but GERD isn't caused by eating the wrong food, but by a malfunction in your body. 

In a normal, healthy body, the valve separating your esophagus and stomach will only open when food or drinks need to pass through.  The rest of the time, it will stay closed in order to keep stomach acid away from the esophagus.  People with GERD have a malfunctioning valve that stays open all or most of the time.  The stomach acid then travels up the esophagus, burning it and causing a lot of pain and damage.  This is what causes this illness.

There are ways that you can avoid the pain of GERD.  Although foods do not cause this illness, they can aggravate it.  Because of this, you should avoid certain foods such as chocolate, tomatoes, broccoli, milk, coffee, and carbonated drinks.  By eliminating your diet of these problem foods, you should have less symptoms and a happier pain-free life.  Often, doctors will ask you to change your diet if they diagnose you with GERD because of this.

When you have GERD, you often have terrible sleep at night.  This is because, when you are lying flat on your back, the stomach acid has an easier time making its way into your esophagus.  Once it does, you will often wake up with terrible bouts of heart burn.  There are ways to take care of this, though.  All you need to do is change the posture in which you sleep.  Instead of laying flat, prop up several pillows under your head and the top of your back.  This way, the stomach acid will have a harder time getting into your esophagus.  You will sleep better and not have to endure the terrible pain that can happen at night with most GERD sufferers.  GERD symptoms are painful as it is.  It is better not to have to deal with it while you are trying to get a good night's sleep. 

As you can see, GERD symptoms are a big deal because they can do a lot of harm and give you a lot of pain.  Not only that, but they have bad side effects if you condition goes unchecked.  For instance, you could get ulcers in your esophagus that can give you constant pain.  This happens often for people who just ignore their symptoms and do nothing about it.  If it goes unchecked, you can also develop esophageal cancer in the worst scenarios.  Because of this, you should make sure that you visit a doctor and get help if you happen to exhibit any of the symptoms of this illness.