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Acid reflux/GERD is a real pain in the neck. Literally. Well, more often than not it’s a pain in the chest, but in really bad cases like mine that burning sensation it can travel right up to the back of my throat. My wife has an even more severe acid reflux disease than me, sometimes she wakes up in the middle of the night choking on the acids that have backed up his esophagus.

It’s a pretty scary and painful condition at times, but acid reflux/GERD it is not normally life threatening. However, the damage it can cause to your esophagus does increase your chances of esophageal cancer, so it is important to treat it. So what causes it, and what can you do to get rid of it?

Acid reflux and GERD are used interchangeably in describing the same condition. The GERD stands for gastroesophogeal reflux disorder. It sounds complicated, but is quite simply a condition in which the acids from the stomach are irritating or damaging the esophagus. The sphincter muscle that contains stomach acid to the stomach doesn’t always work perfectly. Minor imperfections present at birth, damage due to a hernia or excessive vomiting, or even just the eroding effects of age can all reduce the effectiveness of the muscle to the point where it regularly lets stomach acid escape.

Unfortunately, if you are having heartburn frequently enough to qualify as acid reflux GERD, you can’t do anything to ‘cure’ it completely. You are always going to have to take measures to keep your symptoms under control. The good news is there are a lot of things to treat the symptoms.

Here is some non-medication oriented tips to help you reduce your acid reflux/GERD symptoms. Firstly, don’t overeat, and avoid very greasy foods. Overeating puts excessive pressure on your sphincter muscle, making it more likely to fail. Also, greases are better at getting past the muscle. Even worse than overeating is laying down or sleeping right after eating. This will also put a lot of pressure on your poor abused sphincter. It’s generally agreed that you should wait at least three hours after eating before laying down. This is good advice whether you have acid reflux disease or not, as you can actually develop the condition by sleeping too soon after eating too often.

One final tip in helping to reduce the symptoms of acid reflux/GERD is to raise your bed at least eight inches. This will further reduce the pressure on your sphincter while you are sleeping. It will look like a lot of height when you first do it, but you’ll be surprise how soon you get used to it, and how helpful it is in reducing your symptoms.

Of course, the most important thing you need to do if you think you have acid reflux/GERD is see a doctor. All these tips aside, you’ll probably also need to take some form of medication, many of which are available only by seeing a doctor.