Click on Home for more heartburn information.
Other message boards can be viewed at: Message Boards
Post new questions on the New Message Board
[ Home | Contents | Search | Next | Previous | Up ] This is a Read Only archive.
From: Steve.
Date: 12/18/00
Time: 07:39:35
As you can see you are not alone in having these symptoms. Do not get discouraged. My mother has this problem and so do I so I guess there may be a hereditary component. GERD is the modern name for this but when I started in nursing/medical career in 1973 it was called hiatal hernia, which implies an abnormal slippage of the stomach upward through the diaphragmatic hiatus into the chest cavity or thorax. Is it any wonder that the symptoms can be both sudden and severe? Incidentally the upper portion of the stomach is referred to as the cardia and this is consistent with the fact that the symptoms can be indistinguishable from a heart attack and or angina. Peppermint relaxes the lower esophageal sphincter and unfortunately is found in mouthwash and toothpaste which people tend to use before going to bed -- making things worse. Recently I've found that frequent val salve manuevers help a lot with my symptoms. In fact I'm drinking OJ now which I could not do before. (see my prior message-below.) Hang in there with this and make use of all the useful info at this site. Steve