If you suffer from gastroesophageal reflux disease (GERD), you might notice that certain foods and beverages aggravate your symptoms. Some heartburn-inducing foods are well-known, while others aren’t as obvious.

Citrus fruits and juices can certainly cause heartburn. In particular, avoid orange, grapefruit and cranberry juices, as well as lemons and lemonade. Tomatoes, tomato-based sauces, garlic and onions will spark symptoms in many GERD sufferers.

Spicy and fatty or fried foods are also common heartburn culprits. Full-fat dairy products (particularly milk shakes, sour cream, ice cream and cottage cheese) and chocolate are lesser-known foods to avoid, along with peppermint and spearmint, according to the University of Maryland Medical Center.

Avoid fatty meats, such as ground beef (chuck), marbled sirloin, chicken nuggets and buffalo wings. Creamy or oil-and-vinegar salad dressings may bring on acid reflux, along with fatty desserts and sweets like brownies, doughnuts, potato or corn chips and butter cookies.

As for beverages, avoid alcohol, caffeinated drinks and carbonated beverages. This includes liquor, wine and beer. Coffee and tea can instigate acid reflux, even if they’re decaffeinated.

Additionally, everyone has their own particular heartburn triggers, so pay attention to what you eat or drink and how it affects your GERD symptoms. Keep a food diary if necessary to document what you’ve consumed, and at the same time add notes to your diary about the severity of your heartburn and other GERD symptoms.

In many cases, however, it’s not what you eat but how much you eat that can trigger heartburn. If you have GERD, eat smaller meals to ease your symptoms. Overeating is a common cause of heartburn, according to the Mayo Clinic.

Also, what you do after you eat can affect your post-meal heartburn. For instance, you should wait at least three hours after a meal before lying down. Because some GERD sufferers experience their most intense symptoms at night when they go to bed, try elevating the head of your bed about 6 inches to help your digestive tract using gravity. Simply raising your head using pillows, however, isn’t very effective, the Mayo Clinic states.

Avoid exercising or bending over right after eating meals as well. These movements will only disrupt your digestion and aggravate your GERD symptoms.

Eager for that after-meal cigarette? Skip it. Smoking reduces the lower esophageal sphincter’s proper functioning, which is the main cause of GERD to begin with. Losing weight if you’re obese or overweight and reducing your stress can also help prevent heartburn.

While you’re studying the potentially GERD-aggravating foods in your diet, also consider the medications you take. Certain drugs can worsen or trigger heartburn. These include tricyclic antidepressants, dopamine, anticholinergics for treating sea sickness, sedatives, some bronchodilators for treating asthma and progestin used as birth control or for treating abnormal menstrual bleeding.

Calcium channel blockers and beta blockers for treating hypertension or heart disease also commonly worsen heartburn. If you have GERD and take any of these types of medications, talk with your doctor about whether you can switch to a different but equally-effective medication that won’t trigger heartburn.

For more information on what to the foods to avoid in order to not suffer from GERD visit Reflux Remedy at refluxremedy.com today!

Natural remedies for heartburn and acid reflux aren’t hard to come by. They’re nearly as numerous as the thousands of people that suffer from heartburn and acid reflux on a daily basis.

Heartburn occurs when there’s an excess of acid produced in the stomach for one reason or another. When this happens, the acid escapes and irritates the esophagus. This causes pain, belching, hiccups, and acid reflux (or acid making it all the way up into your mouth).

Since the two conditions, heartburn and acid reflux, go hand in hand, it’s relatively easy to squelch both problems with one method. However, finding the right method for you can be a bit harder. There are a variety of holistic methods and lifestyle changes you can try to be heartburn free in no time.

Holistic Methods

For some more natural remedies, try a few of these options before, after or during an attack of acid reflux or heartburn.

• Ginger can help to cool a particularly heated bout of heartburn in a flash. Try some candied ginger or ginger tea to put out the fire.
• Drinking a glass of water can help wash acid reflux out of your system. It will also help to dilute any acids left behind, providing you with fast pain relief.
• Additionally, adding a tablespoon of apple cider vinegar to that glass of water can help neutralize acids in your stomach or esophagus quickly.
• Some people have had good luck with apples, and just eating a single apple after each meal to help keep heartburn away.
• Others find relief by eating a handful of almonds between meals. The oils may have some components that help neutralize acids and keep heartburn from flaring up.

Change Your Routines

By making a few simple routine changes in your life you can easily stop heartburn in its tracks.

• Try to avoid foods that consistently set your heartburn or reflux off. Some common foods that start a heartburn fire are garlic, caffeine, alcohol, citrus or any particularly acidic fruits, and onions. However, your body may react differently to other foods. Things like whole milk could give you heartburn, or chili peppers. So, keep track of what you eat, so that during your next episode of acid reflux you and point directly to the culprit.
• Avoid eating right before you go to bed or lie down. Although you may enjoy having a bowl of popcorn and lying on the couch for a movie, eating that close to lying down doesn’t give your body a chance to properly process the food, and allows acids to freely move about your digestive tract, which irritates your esophagus. Wait at least 2 hours after you eat to go to bed or lie down.
• Eat smaller portions of your food over a longer period of time. This will help reduce stress on your stomach and allow it to calmly process the food therein. Too much food all at once sends the stomach into overdrive, and causes an influx of acid in the stomach, creating pressure and irritation.

The Reflux Remedy Report is full of natural remedies for heartburn and acid reflux. Find it at www.refluxremedy.com, and get on your way to being heartburn free today!

To find a heartburn natural cure, you really don’t have to look much further than your own home and pantry. Sometimes the easiest methods are right at your fingertips and are just waiting for you to try.

Reactive Cures

If you already have heartburn, you will want a more reactive solution to help get rid of your pain as soon as possible. Try one, or even a combination, of these techniques to help put out your heartburn fire.

• Try eating an apple after meals. People with frequent heartburn have found some success with this simple course of action.
• Similarly, a handful of almonds after meals can help ease heartburn.
• Fennel or chamomile tea is also good for calming an upset stomach due to heartburn.
• Ginger is excellent for settling stomachs and has been used for ages for just that purpose. You can try it in tea or as candied ginger with much the same effect.
• Often a tall glass of water is all it takes to get rid of unwanted heartburn. The liquid helps to wash acid, and the pain that goes along with it, away.
• Papaya can help to dissolve food in your stomach and keep acid production from getting out of hand. It contains enzymes that help break foods down, making the digestive process go that much more smoothly.

Proactive Cures

If you’re fairly prone to heartburn, you may want to take a more proactive course of action, and prevent heartburn before it has a chance to take hold.

• Stress can be blamed for all kinds of health related ailments, including heartburn. For the most natural cure of all for your heartburn, simply calm down. That can be easier said than done when there’s a deadline looming, bills to be paid, kids to discipline, and other problems waiting in the wings to rear their ugly faces. However, they will always be there, and how you deal with them can help you to live a longer, happier and healthier life. So, relax. Start treating yourself to regular massages. Add exercise to your daily routine. Make a habit of listening to soothing music at work. Do whatever it takes to keep your stress levels down and your heartburn will stay away.
• Food is a major cause of heartburn, so try these simple techniques when consuming food to keep it in check.
• Be careful of what you eat, and avoid foods that you know will upset your heartburn. Don’t have a clue what causes your heartburn? Think it happens randomly? It may not be as random as you think. Start keeping a log of your meals, and the next time you get heartburn you’ll be able to narrow down the cause. This method can help you to easily identify relationships between food and heartburn, so that you can alter your diet accordingly.
• Don’t over eat. Eating one large meal a day can be harmful to your digestive tract as it scrambles to break all that food down. Try eating smaller meals spread out over the course of the day instead of one or two large meals. That way your body won’t overproduce acid and you can eat without fear of impending heartburn doom.
• Don’t eat before bed. If you still have food in your stomach when you lie down, it makes it difficult for the body to keep that food where it is. This means acids and food escape and can irritate your esophagus. To keep that from happening, don’t eat less than two hours before you lie down, even if it’s just for a nap.

These are only a few of the ways you can approach a heartburn natural cure. For more tips and tricks, visit refluxremedy.com today and get on your way to being heartburn free holistically!

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!