Heartburn and acid indigestion plague millions of people worldwide. But, for someone who is experiencing it for the first time, it can be difficult to identify the symptoms of heartburn. So, what are some of the acid indigestion symptoms, what causes these symptoms, and how can they be prevented?

Symptoms

Symptoms of acid indigestion can be scary if you don’t know what they are. Chest pain is a main symptom; however it is different than that of a heart attack. Heartburn pain is often described as a burning sensation that radiates from the abdomen up into the chest and neck. A heart attack can feel like a weight on your chest, pain, and pain or numbness in your arm. It’s important to know the difference between these two symptoms and react accordingly.

Other symptoms of acid indigestion include reflux, or acid making it all the way up to your mouth, burping, hiccups and an overall feeling of indigestion.

Causes

These symptoms are a result of either acid overproduction, or acid being allowed into your esophagus, which can have a number of root triggers. They include daily habits, food and food consumption, and stress, among others.

Daily habits often cause acid indigestion. Something as simple as lying down right after eating isn’t good for digestion, and can easily result in heartburn. This is because when you’re in a horizontal position, acid is allowed to move freely through your stomach and esophagus. So, if you’ve just eaten, there may be acid and even food left in your stomach when you lie down. That means it’ll end up in your esophagus and cause acid indigestion if you don’t stay up for a bit longer. To avoid this, try eating no less than two hours before meals.

Food and how much of it you eat are huge triggers of heartburn and acid indigestion. Things like garlic, onions, caffeine, alcohol and citrus are common triggers, but you may have your own unique things that set you off. Keep track of what you eat so that you can easily point to your own acid indigestion culprits. Additionally, eating too much food at any one time can cause heartburn. This is because the body can’t process the sheer volume of food, and goes into overdrive of acid production. That creates a pressure buildup and causes indigestion and discomfort. In order to avoid this, try eating smaller meals more frequently. That will help your stomach more easily digest what you do give it, and keep indigestion at bay.

Stress is also a big indigestion trigger. It’s known to increase acid production, which can result in heartburn and discomfort. So, do things that will help you to relax. Listen to soothing music, take deep breaths, read a book, exercise, practice some yoga, whatever you need to do to help you calm down. It will help you prevent acid indigestion later in the day if you squash stress at its source.

Prevention

Preventing acid indigestion is easier than you may think. Simple things like altering your daily habits and food intake as stated above can majorly help improve your quality of life when it comes to heartburn. However, there are plenty of other things you can try to keep heartburn at bay.

• Papaya tablets can help you to more easily digest your food, and keep acid production down to a healthy level. Papaya contains digestive enzymes that help break down your food and make it more digestible.
• Eating an apple before or after a meal can also help to keep heartburn at bay.

These are just a few of the natural prevention techniques found in The Reflux Remedy Report. The report contains hundreds of holistic methods for keeping your foods down where they belong.

For more information on acid indigestion symptoms and how to prevent them, visit refluxremedy.com today.

The most common causes of gastrointestinal problems are low fiber diet, lack of exercise and taking antacid medications containing calcium carbonate or aluminum.

Naturally there are other factors that feed your gastrointestinal problems as well. Living in a high stress environment, eating dairy products and taking antidepressants, narcotics and even iron pills can keep your gastrointestinal problems aflame.

It never ceases to amaze me how many complications and symptoms, including gastrointestinal problems and disorders, which have common causes.

It seems modern medicine over looks some of the most obvious things just because they assume you need a different drug for every different symptom.

Did you know that by balancing your internal environment that your cells live in can eliminate the risk of almost every disease known?

It’s true. For example the bacteria Helicobacter pylori can’t thrive in healthy tissue . . .

Helicobacter pylori is found in gastritis and ulcerations as well as other gastrointestinal problems, but that’s not the only bacteria that thrives in an unhealthy environment . . . all harmful bacteria, viruses and parasites crave the same environment.

If you suffer from gastrointestinal problems you may want to look at the health of your cells rather than just attacking the bugs.

Imagine if you didn’t need a different drug for each bug.

Truth is you don’t and if your gastrointestinal problem isn’t just a case of poor food mixing or simple overindulgence, then you probably caught a bug.

Whatever gastrointestinal problem is bugging you; if it’s a flu bug or maybe a case of salmonella or even E. coli . . . perhaps it’s a cold virus or a nasty case of Candida albicans (yeast infection). No matter what you call it, it is causing your particular gastrointestinal problem because the cellular health inside your gut has been weakened.

These bugs only attack weakened cells.

A weakened cell is a cell that has lost its vital energy, it’s dropped its shields which invites invaders like bacteria, viruses and parasites to attack.

A natural solution to your gastrointestinal problem is to focus on removing whatever conditions the bad bugs thrive in and replace it with a healthy condition that only good bugs need to grow.

Did you know last week the FDA finally released the very first report revealing the amount of antimicrobial drugs sold and distributed for use in food animals?

The massive total for 2009 is 28.8 million pounds . . . plus more than 7 million pounds of anti-biotics were used on humans in the same time frame.

Those anti-biotics kill both the good bugs and the bad bugs. Sad thing is . . . the bad bugs mutate and build-up resistance to these drugs.

The good bugs are the probiotics and homeostatic soil organisms your gastrointestinal system needs to stay healthy.

It should be no surprise then if I told you millions of people with gastrointestinal problems are suffering from anti-biotic over-kill.

Remove the cause of your gastrointestinal problem before you start experimenting with more drugs. The information is out there, you simply have to want to know the truth and it will reveal itself to you.

You were born to heal,

Todd M. Faass

Health Advocate

P.S. Food for thought: Anti-biotic means anti-life, where as pro-biotic is for life.

There are specific erosive things that can cause you to have inflammation, swelling and irritation of your esophagus (throat).

The most common erosive thing that can cause esophagitis is acid reflux. Acid reflux is the main cause of gastro-esophageal reflux disease (GERD), which is like heart burn on steroids!

The erosive nature of digestive acids does severe damage to your more sensitive throat (esophagus) lining. Esophagitis is one of the first symptoms that can lead to throat cancer.

If the cause of your acid reflux isn’t discovered the damage to your esophagus will eventually cause a mutation in your throat cells.

That’s correct; your throat cells will actually mutate to become more like your stomach cells.

This is an amazing feat of self preservation by your body/mind’s own automatic healing process. Hopefully you find a natural remedy for your erosive esophagitis before it gets that bad.

The trick to healing erosive esophagitis is to remove the cause of the inflammation, which in most cases is from your acid reflux.

Here are 5 things that can also trigger the symptoms of erosive esophagitis such as:

1. Pharmaceuticals

2. Vomiting

3. Herpes

4. Candida

5. Immune imbalance

You should suspect you have erosive esophagitis if you have difficulty swallowing or feel pain in your throat. If something was stuck in your throat you can expect the same symptoms of erosive esophagitis to develop. So if you take a lot of pills make sure you help them go down with some water.

If you have blood in your vomit you need to see a doctor immediately. Even if your stools are dark or tar-like you most likely have blood in your stools from the erosive esophagitis. In either case see a doctor immediately.

Some of the procedures doctors use to find out if you suffer from erosive esophagitis are:

• Endoscopy: Using a camera to directlt view inside your esophagus
• Biopsy: Cutting out a sample of your esophagus tissue.
• Culture: Taking a sample with a swab, without cutting your esophagus
• Barium X-Rays: Using a radioactive dye that enhanced the X-Ray photos.

Depending how bad your erosive esophagitis is determines how doctors will treat your symptoms. It’s not unusual for them to use Proton Pump Inhibitors (PPIs), antibiotics, steroids and pain medication.

Always look into discovering the cause of your erosive esophagitis, don’t just treat the symptoms . . . eliminate the cause and your throat will heal naturally given time.

You were born to heal,

Todd M. Faass

Health Advocate

For too long now doctors have been recommending a bland diet to help prevent or cure gastritis.

In fact a bland diet, more often than not, isn’t good for gastritis or acid reflux.

Gastritis comes mainly from inflammation in the cells found in your stomach lining. Many things can trigger the kind of inflammation that leads to gastritis, even a bland diet.

One of the most common triggers of gastritis symptoms is from bacteria called Helicobacter pylori, the same bacteria involved in the formation of stomach ulcers.

Anything that causes an acidic environment inside your body’s tissues can trigger the inflammation of the stomach lining (gastritis).

Some known causes of an acidic environment which the gastritis-type bacteria thrive in are:

• Digestive bile back-up
• Immune imbalance
• Ibuprophen and other Non-Steroidal Anti-Inflammatory Drugs (NSAIDs).

A diet that produces an alkaline environment in your body tissues will prevent, reverse and cure gastritis, but there is no need to limit your diet to the bland side of life.

You see it is a scientific certainty that gastritis bacteria cannot live inside you when you have an alkaline pH. All that really means is your has a healthy balance of ionic minerals, nutrients and cofactors that help maintain healthy oxygen levels in your tissues.

If you suffer from indigestion, heartburn, stomach aches, hiccups, nausea, vomiting or dark stools you most likely are suffering from an acid pH that can lead to gastritis symptoms. All that means is your body tissues are lacking ionic minerals, nutrients and oxygen.

Bacteria that cause gastritis thrive in a low oxygen acidic environment. The ONLY place you should have acid is within the stomach area and in your body waste. All your cells, including the cells in your stomach lining need an alkaline environment to survive.

That’s why gastritis and the damage it causes to your tissue can be reversed and healed. As soon as normal oxygen and mineral levels are restored the healing process begins to win over the gastritis.

Your diet should be made of a variety of delicious vegetables and fruits. Simply eliminate the gastritis triggering, acid forming diet foods and products. Diet foods that are over cooked, diet foods high in refined sugar, diet foods containing vegetable oils, canola oils or hydrogenated trans-fatty oils will add to acid waste build-up.

Your gastritis diet depends on you eating small portions throughout the day. It is better to have 5 meals that are small than one or two large meals.

A gastritis diet rich with steamed or raw vegetables of a variety of colors will help provide enzymes, minerals and nutrients your body needs to maintain an alkaline environment.

Keep in mind bacteria, virus, fungus, yeast and even cancer cells can NOT live in a balanced alkaline tissue. Your gastritis diet should be anything but bland . . . just know to avoid some spicy or fatty foods, especially while your gut is healing from the gastritis damage and ulcerations.

You were born to heal,

Todd M. Faass

Health Advocate