How Acid Reflux Can Worsen Your Asthma

Asthma is a chronic lung condition that is characterized by difficulty in breathing, wheezing, and mucus accumulation. People with asthma have extra sensitive or hyper-responsive airways. During an asthma attack, the airways become irritated and react by narrowing and constructing, causing increased resistance to airflow, and obstructing the flow of the air passages to and from the lungs.

Some research indicates that the symptoms of asthma may get worse when you have heartburn or acid reflux. Acid reflux occurs when your undigested stomach content moves back up into your esophagus.

Acid reflux can cause painful heartburn which you can relieve with antacid medicines or natural remedies. Antacids simply neutralize your stomach's acid, which reduces the burning sensation in your esophagus tube. It is best to use natural remedies first because neutralising stomach acid is a temporary method and only serves to suppress the cause of acid reflux.

For acid reflux, it is best to use digestive enzymes. Take a good digestive enzyme with every meal you eat. The next step would be to learn how to eat so you don't get acid reflux or heartburn.

Acid reflux happens mostly in people who are older and overweight. But sometimes it can happen in children and in all types of people.

In some studies, researchers have injected acid into the esophageus of people with asthma, and it had a significant impact on their asthma and increased their asthma symptoms.

These is also evidence to suggest that people who have asthma get acid reflux more often than people without asthma. This is probably because of the big pressure changes in the chest during breathing in people with asthma. These high pressures could force liquid to travel the wrong way up the esophagus.

In these cases, asthma sufferers seem to lose out twice: they suffer from asthma and they may suffer from acid reflux more often than non asthma sufferers.

However, this is not the whole story. If acid reflux really was an important cause of asthma worsening, then treatments against acid reflux should make the asthma better, however, this is generally not the case.

In the meantime, if you have asthma and you also have acid reflux, it could just be that careful treatment of your reflux will make your breathing better.

If your asthma is bad and no-one knows why, some doctors would check whether you have or had acid reflux by conducting tests to measure the acidity in your stomach. If the result showed a tendency for acid reflux, then your doctor should help you eliminate this condition.

Using a doctor who uses natural methods to treat acid reflux is the best way to go. Using drugs to eliminate acid reflux when you are already taking drugs for asthma is asking for addition health problems in the future. Drugs do not cure acid reflux and cause Theis condition to worsen. It is best to use natural remedies and diet to eliminate acid reflux and heartburn.

by Rudy Silva