Helpful Advice Against Heartburn
With occasional heartburn, it helps to implement our advice against heartburn and prevent the problem. Try it!
You should only heed our advice against heartburn if symptoms occur occasionally. If you have heartburn often, you should see a doctor, because the frequent belching of stomach acid can cause serious health problems.
Prevention is the best way to treat heartburn!
If you want to do something about heartburn, you should first know how heartburn develops and what promotes it. Heartburn is caused by rising stomach acid, which irritates the lining of your esophagus and triggers the “burning” sensation.
Heartburn can result from overproduction of stomach acid and is also called reflux.
If we are under high tension and chase from one appointment to the next or are under extraordinary psychological stress, then the body releases more stress hormones. Our sensitive gastrointestinal tract can react irritably to this. The result: stomach pain, nausea, diarrhea or heartburn.
If too much acid is produced in the stomach, it can irritate the lining of the stomach. The balance is no longer right and our stomach sounds the alarm. Heartburn can be caused by any of the following:
- Food that is too fatty or too spicy
- stress
- alcohol
- nicotine
- pregnancy
As with many health problems, it makes more sense to change the causes than to do something about heartburn. The following advice will help against heartburn:
Avoid certain foods
If you are prone to developing heartburn, be sure to use your diet to prevent it from causing it. It is quite easy to adjust to this and avoid certain foods:
- Avoid Coffee! When the coffee beans are roasted, acids are formed that can additionally irritate the gastric mucosa.
- Avoid hot spices! Some spices irritate the stomach. This is not the same for all those affected; every stomach reacts differently. Spices that can be irritating are, for example: pepper, chilli, mustard, paprika and horseradish.
- Quit smoking Smoking promotes the production of stomach acid at night. And that’s exactly what rises up in your esophagus and causes heartburn. Smoking only makes the problem worse!
- Refrain from alcohol! Alcohol can lead to an inflammation of the gastric mucosa and thus also favor, aggravate or hinder healing.
- Read the package insert! Some “everyday medicines” such as aspirin irritate the stomach lining or stimulate the production of stomach acid. Please be sure to read the package insert – if stomach problems are mentioned there: stay away from them!
What helps against heartburn?
Many home remedies help against heartburn. Basically, every home remedy for heartburn aims to neutralize or dilute the acid, or part of the stomach acid, so that the belching is less painful and harmful.
You should try the following home remedies for heartburn:
- Drink warm milk
- Eat a piece of dry bread
- Take healing clay
- Eat a serving of oatmeal with milk
- Chew flaxseed
- Eat boiled rice
- Drink warm water
- Drink warm chamomile tea
- Drink rice water
In addition, it also helps to relieve the body so that less stomach acid can rise or the situation is defused by relaxation. The first step is to loosen clothes.
Especially at night, it helps to lie on your back and keep your head elevated. Using relaxation techniques is a basic heartburn strategy.
Heartburn tablets?
Before resorting to heartburn medication , please see your doctor first to find out what is causing your heartburn!
There is no point in treating the symptom and not knowing what is causing it, i.e. what exactly is causing you heartburn! It can simply be due to stress, but in the long term stress is not a permanent condition and can lead to further health problems.
There are two types of heartburn medication:
- Those that reduce the production of stomach acid (proton pump inhibitors) and
- Those that neutralize excess stomach acid (antacids).
Neither one nor the other drugs should be taken permanently!
Important: do not take painkillers! Some medications, especially over-the-counter pain relievers, are poorly tolerated by the stomach. They irritate the lining of the stomach and lead to stomach pain. If dosed incorrectly, they can even lead to gastric bleeding!
So it is fundamentally wrong to take pain pills for heartburn, because they can usually only make the problem worse!
