1 in 10 people get acid reflux almost every day and if that includes you
I'm gonna give you some great tips that should really help, now let's begin
okay so first let me explain to you acid reflux and heartburn but bear with me
a a couple of seconds because I've thought of a really creative way to explain it to you
so here's my masterpiece obviously it's not to scale but you have
to use your imagination a bit the glass part is your oesophagus the green balloon
is your stomach and the black tape is your lowest sphincter now the lower
sphincter is a muscular valve which lets food in one way so food and liquid come
down into your stomach one way through this now here's the fun bit the lower
sphincter closes and prevents food from the stomach and stomach acid from refluxing
back into the oesophagus but if it opens too far or doesn't close tight
enough then this stomach acid can reflux back up like so, so this is what leads
to acid reflux or Gastro-oesophageal reflux disease otherwise known as GORD
for short which is the more chronic severe version of acid reflux and they
both cause that burning sensation in the chest
which everyone calls heartburn so heartburn is a symptom of acid reflux
and GORD and I hope that helps clear things up and one last thing the other
symptoms of acid reflux include an acid taste in your mouth
wind, belching, bloating and possibly a dry persistent cough now let's move on
to tips so remember the oesophageal sphincter well there are ways to make
this stronger and prevent acid reflux smoking, drinking alcohol and being
overweight all factors that can reduce the sphincter strength so if any of
these apply to you then consider stopping smoking, reducing or stopping
your alcohol intake entirely and getting to a healthy weight these can help
strengthen the oesophageal sphincter and make it close tighter to prevent the
acid reflux and it's symptoms
some medication may also make your symptoms
worse by either irritating the oesophagus or relaxing the lower oesophageal
sphincter now the most common culprits are anti-inflammatory painkillers
like ibuprofen and aspirin and also other medication like diazepam, theophylline
and calcium channel blockers like nifedipine and by the way that
wasn't a complete list because we'll be here forever
instead if you feel like a medication is causing you symptoms or increasing your
symptoms then speak to your pharmacist they'll check for you and advise you
appropriately so let's say your acid reflux symptoms are worse at night when
you're lying down in your bed and that makes sense because the acid is no
longer fighting gravity to make its way up your oesophagus
you're not lying down and it can easily make its way up so the solution to this
is to elevate the entire upper part of the body so that doesn't mean get a big
pillow and put it behind your head because that's just gonna elevate your
head and make no difference so what you want to do is raise one end of the bed
by about 10 to 20 centimeters so either put something under the top two legs of
your bed or under the mattress or even use a wedge, so the chest and the head
are above the waist and the acid isn't gonna travel up like I showed you before
in addition to this going to bed with an empty and dry stomach can also really
help so in the last three hours of going to bed make sure you don't eat
anything and in the last two hours of going to bed make sure you don't drink
anything with foods and drinks the best advice is to eat smaller more frequent
meals peppermint, tomato, chocolate and caffeine are all suspected of making
acid reflux worse now for more information on this i've left a really
useful link in the description below to an acid reflux diet sheet so feel free
to check out also if you like to wear tight clothes around the waist or a belt
it's gonna push up that acid and cause the acid reflux symptoms and nobody
wants that so instead try wear something loose for
treatment of acid reflux I'd always recommend patients to speak to their
pharmacist first they can then ask you specific questions to determine whether
they can give you treatment over-the-counter or to refer you on to
your GP and in terms of treatments there's loads of options that pharmacist
can recommend from antacids, alginates and acid suppression tablets but this
will be determined on an individual patient basis
lastly acid reflux isn't usually serious unless you have red flags and that means
you need to see a GP urgently for treatment and investigation now there's
quite a lot of red flags so I've left them in the description below and I
would strongly advise everyone to read them and that's it you're now an acid
reflux Pro I hope you find my tips useful and if you know anyone who'd
benefit from my video please help spread the knowledge hey guys thanks for
watching this week's video make sure to click that like follow or subscribe
button now to stay up to date with new weekly videos
I should have been an engineer like this is like some real amazing engineering from Abraham the pharmacist
Abraham the engineer no?
and non........ do you know that drug? really good drug
gastro..... (Laughter)
this is how difficult it is to film in a pharmacy see if only you new the pain I have to go through
got Nadia labelling I've got Lewis the loudest dispenser
literally like if there was an award for the loudest dispenser I think he'd win it