Treat Acid Reflux

Acid Reflux Can Cause Asthma
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Defined Tag: Acid Reflux.
Asthma is mainly characterized by difficulty in breathing, wheezing and mucus accumulation. If you have asthma, you tend to have extra sensitive or hyper-responsive airways. While you are having an asthma attack, your airways become irritated. You then react with your lungs narrowing and constructing, causing increased resistance to airflow and obstructing the flow of the air passages to and from the lungs.

Acid reflux is a medical condition which occurs when acid from the stomach, moves back into the esophagus. Symptoms of acid reflux are characterized by signs of heartburn, chest pain and difficulty in swallowing. Any person regardless of age or sex can get acid reflux.

The esophageal sphincter is a muscle that surrounds the lower end of the esophagus. It is used to push food into the stomach. This sphincter is usually tightly closed and opens only when food passes from the esophagus into the stomach. If the esophageal sphincter malfunctions, the acid contents from the stomach can come back up into the esophagus. This can cause painful heartburn, burning in the throat and an acidic taste in the mouth. This is the most common cause of acid reflux. There are a number of factors that can cause the esophageal sphincter to open and let stomach acids reflux including consuming large meals, lying down after eating.

Doctors most often look at acid reflux (or GERD) as the cause of asthma when:

1) Asthma begins in adulthood.


2) Asthma symptoms get worse after a meal, after exercise at night or after lying down.


3) Asthma does not respond to the standard asthma treatments.


One possibility as to why acid reflux and asthma may coincide is that the acid flow causes injury to the lining of the throat, airways and lungs, making inhalation difficult and often causing a persistent cough. Secondly in acid reflux patients, when acid enters the esophagus, a nerve reflex is triggered, causing the airways to narrow in order to prevent the acid from entering. This will cause a shortness of breath.

If you have bad asthma, some doctors would check whether you have or had acid reflux by conducting tests to measure the acidity in your stomach. In other words if you do not respond to conventional asthma treatments or if your asthma symptoms appear to be associated with heartburn, then your doctor will go ahead to check for acid reflux.


There is evidence which 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.

Acid Reflux can be very painful but it is definitely treatable. For more information and resources on acid reflux treatment, please visit this site at http://www.treat-acid-reflux.com.