What is Acid Reflux Disease?

Answering Some Basic Questions About Heartburn and Acid Reflux.

Sometimes it seems like you hear about acid reflux disease everywhere. You only have to sit down for a few minutes of night time television to see several commercials for various acid reflux and heartburn treatments, cures, and remedies.

Still, people are left with many questions about acid reflux disease. Questions such as...

What is acid reflux?

What is GERD?

Is acid reflux the same as GERD?

How is acid reflux different from heartburn or indigestion?

And most importantly, what are the dangers of acid reflux disease?

The Acid Reflux Help Blog will attempt to answer all of those questions and examine some treatments that are available to acid reflux sufferers. Let's get started with some definitions that should answer many of your questions about acid reflux disease.

Acid Reflux Disease

As defined in this excellent acid reflux article on web MD acid reflux is a condition that occurs when

"the muscle between the stomach and the esophagus gets weak or relaxes at the wrong time. This lets the contents of the stomach, including acid, splash up into the esophagus. The esophagus doesn't have the same kind of protective coating as the stomach, so stomach acids burn it."

GERD

GERD is an abbreviation of the official medical name for acid reflux disease, gastroesophageal reflux disease.

Heartburn

Heartburn is the condition caused by acid reflux, or GERD. This, of course, is the irritating, painful feeling caused by gastric acid (which is actually hydrochloric acid that is about a million times more acidic than pure water) splashing from the stomach up into the esophagus. It should probably be known as "Esophogeal Burn" but since the feeling takes place in the middle of the chest, it got the name "heartburn."

Indigestion

Indigestion occurs in the stomach itself and is different from heartburn. Officially known as dyspepsia it's defined as "a persistent or recurrent pain or discomfort in the upper abdomen." While it can be caused by acid reflux disease, it can also be an indication of ulcers or gall bladder disease, or none of the above.

For our purposes here, we're going to deal with acid reflux disease and heartburn. (To find out more about indigestion, check out the Web MD page that served as the source for this information.)

Now that you know what acid reflux is, it's time to discuss the dangers of acid reflux disease, and we'll do that in our next Acid Reflux Help blog post.


Acid Reflux Resources

Here's a listing of the acid reflux articles that served as the sources of information for this post.

Experts Lay Down the Law on Acid Reflux

Indigestion on WebMD

Ask a Scientist: Stomach Acid