Hiatal Hernia & bleeding tend to only go together if the hernia is severe, or has gone untreated for far too long. The bleeding occurs as a result of damages done to the esophagus. It?s important to catch a Hiatal Hernia before it reaches this point, and treat it accordingly.

Normal Symptoms

Normal symptoms of a Hiatal Hernia can mimic heartburn pretty closely. However, it would be a sudden onset of frequent heartburn for those who don?t normally suffer from the problem. These symptoms can include acid reflux (or burping up stomach acids), heartburn pain, general indigestion, burping and hiccups.

Additionally chest pain can sometimes accompany a Hiatal Hernia. However, it?s important to distinguish between Hiatal Hernia chest pain and chest pain from a heart attack. Hernia pain can be caused by spasms in the stomach and chest area due to the stomach being displaced. It is not generally accompanied by anything other than heartburn symptoms. Chest pain due to a heart attack will be accompanied by shortness of breath and numbness in one of your arms. If you experience these symptoms, seek medical treatment right away!

It?s important to be aware of the normal symptoms of a Hiatal Hernia if you suspect you might have one, so that you can keep it from escalating to a state of bleeding.

What can you do?

A Hiatal Hernia is rarely life threatening and, when caught in normal stages can be treated with simple lifestyle changes. It?s important to keep in mind when dealing with a Hiatal Hernia that your body just needs time to heal and de-stress. Therefore, making the digestive process easier for your stomach is often the best way to help a hernia, and keep it from coming back.

For example, eat smaller meals more often. That way you prevent the onslaught of food that your stomach has difficulty dealing with. If you eat too much, it causes pressure to build and excess stomach acids to accumulate. This causes irritation and can further aggravate your hernia. Eating smaller meals provides your stomach with a more steady flow of food, keeping it from getting too stressed out.

Additionally, try not to eat right before bed. In fact, you shouldn?t eat about 2 hours before you lie down, even if it?s just for a nap. You see, gravity naturally helps food progress down through your digestive tract, and if you lie down immediately after eating, gravity can?t do its job and food and acids can put pressure on an already upset stomach. So, while it may be tempting to lie down on the couch after that huge holiday feast, don?t do it! Relax by sitting up, and rest your head on a pillow. Stay upright for as long as you can, and your stomach will thank you.

Try doing things like quitting smoking and removing stress from your life. This will prevent the overproduction of stomach acids, which can irritate your sensitive stomach. Plus, smoking slows the body?s natural ability to heal, so quitting will help your body heal that much faster.

With all these techniques in place, you should be able to prevent Hiatal Hernia & bleeding from becoming a problem.

For more tips and tricks for treating a Hiatal Hernia, visit www.refluxremedy.com today!

If you suffer from frequent heartburn, you may want to consider lifestyle changes to prevent heartburn.

Before we get too far into that though, let?s look at heartburn a bit more closely. Heartburn happens when acid in the stomach that?s meant to help break down food escapes into the esophagus, causing irritation and pain. Symptoms of heartburn often include a burning sensation that can surge up into the neck, burping, hiccups, and indigestion. Frequent heartburn can be very damaging to the esophagus, and steps should be taken to alleviate it, and allow the body to heal.

This will change your life

The first thing, and possibly the easiest, lifestyle change you can do to prevent heartburn is to stop eating large meals. Consuming less food more often can help the stomach more easily digest meals, and absorb all the nutrients it needs to heal damaged areas. Large meals can result in a buildup of pressure and acid, which produces heartburn pain.

Next, pay close attention to what you eat. Keep a log of what foods you consume, and particularly what foods cause heartburn. Then, simply avoid those foods. Everyone has their own irritants, but some common triggers for heartburn include garlic, caffeine, onions, citrus fruits and alcohol. Eliminating these foods, or consuming them in extreme moderation, can often help stem the frequency of heartburn.

Then, pay attention to when you eat. Eating too close to bedtime, or right before a nap can bring heartburn on like there?s no tomorrow. This is because gravity is your ally when it comes to keeping stomach acids down. When you lie down, gravity can no longer help you, so acids and food can creep up into the esophagus with little resistance. To avoid this scenario, don?t eat less than 2 hours before you want to lie down. This is especially important after a big holiday meal. It may be tradition for you to take a nap on the couch immediately following an overdose of tryptophan, but you?ll regret not breaking that tradition later.

If you do decide you want to lie down right after a meal, or you just have to have that evening snack right before bed, prop yourself up to help keep your esophagus above your stomach. Just one extra pillow under your head can sometimes be all your body needs to help it keep stomach acids where they belong.

You should also avoid tight clothing and anything that puts pressure on your abdomen. Wearing a belt too tightly can often force acid into the esophagus, which results in heartburn. So, buy clothes that fit you correctly to avoid this problem.

Additionally, if you?re overweight try losing some of it. Along the same lines of wearing clothes that are too tight, added weight on the abdomen places unnecessary pressure on the stomach, making it difficult to digest foods properly and easily allowing acid to be overproduced and escape.

There are a number of lifestyle changes to prevent heartburn you can try ? these are only a few of them. To find out more, visit www.refluxremedy.com and read The Reflux Remedy Report.

Medium Hiatal Hernia refers to the size of your specific hernia. A small Hiatal Hernia often presents with no symptoms, while a large Hiatal Hernia can cause frequent heartburn and chest pains. A medium Hiatal Hernia falls somewhere in between.

Hiatal Hernias

A Hiatal Hernia occurs when a portion of the stomach becomes dislodged and encroaches on other parts of the chest cavity, like the esophagus. There are two types of Hiatal Hernias. The more common type, a sliding Hiatal Hernia, involves the stomach passing up through an opening in the diaphragm and displacing the esophagus from underneath. The more severe type is para-esophageal Hiatal Hernia. This involves the upper portion of the stomach moving up and beside the esophagus and putting pressure on it from that position. This type of hernia can cause food to get caught in the esophagus, and result in the formation of ulcers.

Causes

Some people can be born with the tendency to be susceptible to a Hiatal Hernia simply due to an enlarged hiatus. However, sometimes the hernia can happen as a result of heavy lifting, straining during a bowel movement, excess vomiting, or frequent coughing. Although a cause can?t be found for everyone with a Hiatal Hernia, it is thought that added pressure on your stomach due to these factors can result in the injury.

Symptoms

Symptoms of a Hiatal Hernia aren?t many. In fact, often times a Hiatal Hernia doesn?t present with any symptoms, or they are confused with another disorder. Heartburn is the main symptom, which includes a burning sensation in the chest, burping, and a general feeling of indigestion.

Gastroesophageal reflux disease (or GERD) is sometimes associated with a Hiatal Hernia, but it?s difficult to say whether one causes the other. People with GERD often don?t have Hiatal Hernia, and people with hernias don?t have to have GERD. However, because of the dislocation of the stomach, it?s not uncommon for those with Hiatal Hernias to suffer from GERD. GERD?s symptoms are also very similar to heartburn, including nausea, burping, hiccups, a burning sensation in the chest that sometimes radiates up to the neck, and an unsettled stomach.

Treatment

Rarely is surgery necessary to treat a Hiatal Hernia. Often your body just needs time to heal itself. Help this process along by taking a few simple steps:

? Primrose oil and papaya extracts both contain helpful digestive enzymes that will help ease the stress of meal time on your stomach.

? Less is genuinely more when it comes to letting your Hiatal Hernia heal. All you have to do is eat less food more often and you?ll prevent your stomach from getting stressed out from too much food entering it all at once.

? Avoid foods like onions, garlic, caffeine, citrus juices and fruits, and alcohol that are known to cause heartburn. Heartburn and its associated acids can cause further damage and irritate a Hiatal hernia, so try to avoid it at all costs.

A medium Hiatal Hernia should be able to be resolved with minimally invasive treatments. For more information on medium Hiatal Hernias, visit www.refluxremedy.com.

Signs of acid reflux are the classic burping, acid indigestion, heartburn symptoms. It?s nothing new as some of the antacid manufacturers would have you believe on television commercials.

Acid reflux is as old as over-eating. It?s no secret acid reflux is caused from indulging, and especially from indulging in certain greasy foods, like fried chicken.

Over time occasional indigestion becomes chronic indigestion and that?s when acid reflux starts to rear its head more often.

If you feel tired after you eat, if you eat a lot before bedtime and have trouble sleeping, only to wake up tired and hungry again, you are a candidate for acid reflux. The signs of acid reflux are obviously, fatigue, burping and a feeling of being ?full.?

Actually, I should say a feeling of being very full, you know what I mean, ?Uncomfortably full.?

Many people are surprised to find out manufacturers of antacid products and acid reflux gimmicks have been painting a false image of what acid reflux really is.

More often than not, acid reflux is a result of acid indigestion instigated by a consistent lack of stomach acid.

Yes, that?s correct; a stomach acid deficiency is the most common cause of the signs of acid reflux.

The signs of acid reflux give it away. The reason you feel full, tired and burp a lot, is because there happens to be more undigested food than your digestive system can handle. Naturally this would trigger your stomach to make more digestive acids and digest the extra food. Except for the sad fact that usually because there is undigested food from the previous meals (some more than a day old), the acid producing cells are already bled dry and haven?t any stomach acid left to offer.

This happens because the pancreas is over worked as well as the liver and gall bladder from having to do this time and time again, year after year. That?s why you?re tired and miserable. Acid reflux is a sign that food is slowing down your body instead of giving it energy.

The most obvious sign that acid reflux is from a stomach acid deficiency would be if that stuffy fullness stays feeling full for extended periods of time.

Another sign of acid reflux is a burning sensation that accompanies the burping and acid indigestion. At this point it may not matter what you eat, because nothing is being digested properly.

This is a sign that you need to add enzymes, ocean minerals and probiotics to your diet fast, which are the key building blocks of stomach acid.

Your pancreas usually supplies enzymes to break your food down. The problem is after years of eating cooked and processed foods that no longer have enzymes and important nutrition in them, the pancreas has to make them. This is a catch 22 situation because without enzymes already in your food, your pancreatic cells will lack the minerals and nutrients to manufacture more enzymes.

Therefore acid reflux can be a sign your pancreas and other parts are over taxed and have nothing left to offer you. Once this happens acid reflux is an inevitable sign as the stomach sporadically creates random bursts of bile salts and stomach acid in a desperate attempt to dissolve all the food literally rotting in your gut.

One more sign of acid reflux is bad breath from all the rancid food rotting away inside your intestines. This sign is a sign you may have many signs of acid reflux and ?. . . they are all bad signs, signs you?ve ignored the root cause of acid reflux for far too long.

You were born to heal,

Todd M. Faass?

Health Advocate