You’ve probably experienced heartburn before, especially after a big meal, and it likely cleared up on its own or with the help of an over-the-counter antacid. But if you’re experiencing frequent, recurrent heartburn, nausea or regurgitation, you may be experiencing chronic acid reflux, also known as gastroesophageal reflux disease (GERD).

Acid reflux can be uncomfortable and even painful, so it’s understandable that you want to find relief as soon as possible. Here, we’ll go over common symptoms, what may be causing you to experience acid reflux, and treatment methods so you can start to feel better.

Common GERD and acid reflux symptoms you may be experiencing

The most common symptom of GERD and acid reflux is persistent heartburn, which can feel like a burning pain in your chest that gets worse when you lay down or bend over, and cause an acidic taste in your mouth.

It’s normal to get heartburn occasionally. But if you’re experiencing heartburn more than twice a week, you may have GERD. Besides heartburn, other common symptoms of GERD you may experience are:

• Bad breath
• Dry cough
• Hoarseness of your voice in the morning
• Indigestion
• Nausea
• Nonburning chest pain
• Stomach acid regurgitation
• Thick feeling in your throat
• Trouble swallowing

Other symptoms that are similar to GERD – but could indicate more serious health problems that you should talk about with your clinician – include:

• Appetite loss
• Blood in your vomit or stool
• Persistent vomiting
• Severe chest pain
• Sudden, unexplained weight loss
• Trouble or pain swallowing

If you’re experiencing pain in your chest along with other symptoms of acid reflux, it’s likely nothing serious. But if you’re only experiencing pain in your chest without other symptoms, it may be an early indication of a heart attack. If you experience symptoms similar to a heart attack, go to the emergency room or contact 911 immediately to get checked out.

What you can do to alleviate symptoms of an acid reflux attack

If you’re currently experiencing an acid reflux attack, there are things you can do to find quick relief. Try:

• Standing up, as gravity can help with reflux
• Taking an over-the-counter antacid
• Drinking small sips of water to help with acid
• Taking off your belt or loosening your pants

When you eat, food travels from your mouth to your stomach via your esophagus. Then, when it reaches your stomach, a band of muscle at the bottom of the esophagus closes up and you digest your food normally.

With acid reflux, the esophagus doesn’t work as it should, and stomach acid can flow back into your esophagus, which can cause heartburn, a dry cough, sore throat and other symptoms.

Heartburn, which feels like a burning sensation caused by stomach acid entering your esophagus, is the most common symptom people experience. The terms heartburn, acid reflux and GERD are often used interchangeably, but they are different:

• Acid reflux is when your stomach acid enters into your esophagus.
• Heartburn is the symptom you experience when stomach acid enters into your esophagus.
• GERD is a more severe, longer lasting form of acid reflux.

While temporary acid reflux and GERD are extremely common – with GERD affecting up to 20% of adults and 10% of kids in the U.S. – they’re also both very treatable. There are a number of things that can cause acid reflux and your risk of developing it, including eating acidic or spicy foods, using certain medications, and certain health conditions, like pregnancy.

Treat and prevent causes of acid reflux effectively with diet and lifestyle changes

As far as treatment of acid reflux and GERD goes, you have options. It can be treated at home, but if it doesn’t clear up on its own, a doctor can help diagnose and treat you.

Change your diet to alleviate your acid reflux symptoms

To treat acid reflux, start by looking at what aspects of your diet you can adjust. It can be tough to change your diet completely. But revising your diet to limit foods that can cause acid reflux and include foods that are high in fiber and water content, and low in acidity can help you get a handle on your heartburn. Foods that are less likely to cause a flare-up include:

• Egg whites only, as the yolk can cause you to experience symptoms
• Fish that’s been grilled, poached or baked, and not deep fried
• Fruit with a high water content like melons, and low acid content like bananas, pears and apples
• Lean meats, such as chicken and turkey, or even beef with a low fat content
• Root vegetables, like carrots and sweet potatoes (but skip the onions – those can cause acid reflux)
• Vegetables low in acid, including broccoli, celery and cauliflower
• Whole grains, such as oatmeal, whole grain bread and brown rice

Foods that can make acid reflux symptoms worse

Certain foods, like those that are high in fat or salt, or foods that are heavily spiced, can cause acid reflux. That includes:

• Acidic foods and drinks like coffee, tomato sauce and citrus fruits
• Carbonated drinks
• Chocolate
• Dairy, particularly cheese
• Fatty meats, like bacon and sausage
• Fried and fast food
• Peppermint
• Processed foods, including potato chips and other packaged snacks
• Pizza
• Spices, like chili powder and black pepper

Adjust how and when you eat to avoid acid reflux

In addition to changing up the foods you’re eating, it helps to be mindful of when and how you eat. This information can be helpful to share with your doctor too, as they’ll want to be able to pinpoint what may be causing symptoms, and how and when you eat may be the reason. Some ways you can change your approach include:

• Eat smaller meals, slowly – When you eat a large meal, it takes your body some time to digest the food. Try eating smaller, lighter meals, especially if you eat later in the day. And while eating, take small bites, eat slowly and stop when you’re full.
• Avoid late-night eating – For your best chance at avoiding heartburn, try not to eat within one hour of bedtime, and ideally eat about three hours before you go to bed. To avoid reflux, it’s best to give your body as much time as possible to digest food before laying down.

Other lifestyle changes to help you find relief from symptoms

There are other lifestyle changes that can help you avoid symptoms of acid reflux. These include:

• Staying at a weight that’s healthy for you – Excess belly fat can press against the stomach and force stomach acid back into the esophagus, causing GERD symptoms. Weight loss can help lessen that pressure and relieve symptoms.
• Quitting smoking or chewing tobacco – Nicotine can reduce the effectiveness of muscles, in particular the esophageal muscle that keeps acid in your stomach and out of your esophagus. This can allow stomach acid to flow back into your esophagus, causing you to experience symptoms. When you quit or reduce your tobacco usage, it can help your acid reflux.
• Adjusting your sleeping position – Simply propping your head up with an extra pillow doesn’t help reflux. But if you can raise the head of your bed by about six inches to sleep on an incline, it may ease symptoms. And sleeping on your left side while on an incline can relieve pressure on your stomach, lessening the chance of acid entering your esophagus.

Medications are available for temporary relief

If you have temporary heartburn or acid reflux, it can help to take an over-the-counter antacid; a 14-day course of esomeprazole, lansoprazole or omeprazole; or an acid reducer that can neutralize acid and help with symptoms.

If you’re not seeing relief from your symptoms with over-the-counter medications, reach out to your doctor. They may be able to prescribe a higher-strength medication that can help.

At-home acid reflux treatments that aren’t recommended

If you’re not quite ready to reach for over-the-counter medication, you may be tempted to try some at-home remedies. Keep in mind that these methods aren’t guaranteed to work, and while they might help some people, they can cause further issues in others:

• Ginger – Ginger is a natural remedy commonly used to help with nausea and other gastrointestinal issues, but research hasn’t shown that it has long-term positive effects on acid reflux. And sometimes, if it’s used too frequently or ingested in high quantities, it can make heartburn worse for people who experience more frequent reflux.
• Licorice and licorice supplements – While it can help temporarily relieve symptoms, sometimes even better than over-the-counter medications, ingesting too much licorice can cause water retention, higher blood pressure, loss of potassium (leading to higher blood pressure) and weight gain.
• Apple cider vinegar – The health benefits of apple cider vinegar are well known. It can help boost your immune system, regulate your blood sugar and more. But there isn’t any evidence that strongly supports it can help with acid reflux. In fact, because it’s highly acidic, it may make your symptoms worse, and it could even interfere with other medications you may be taking. Speak with your doctor to see if the benefits of apple cider vinegar are right for you.
• Baking soda – Baking soda shares a common ingredient with over-the-counter antacids: sodium bicarbonate. However, antacids are safe to use short-term because they come in small doses. If you ingest sodium bicarbonate in large quantities over prolonged periods of time, it can upset your pH levels, which can make symptoms worse.

Getting a GERD diagnosis

To diagnose GERD, testing isn’t usually needed. Your doctor may ask about your symptoms, like whether you often have heartburn or regurgitation. If you don’t experience symptoms frequently, they may begin by recommending lifestyle changes or over-the-counter acid reducers. If those methods don’t help, they may prescribe a higher-strength medication.

More than likely, these methods should help relieve your reflux so no testing or further treatment would be needed. But if you’re still experiencing symptoms, your doctor may recommend other testing and methods that can help diagnose the issue.

Tests that can help diagnose GERD

There are a few tests your doctor can order to see if you’re experiencing GERD. These include:

• Upper gastrointestinal endoscopy – An endoscopy allows your doctor to look at the inside of your esophagus, stomach and small intestine. It’s used to diagnose GERD by looking for signs that acid is backing up into your esophagus.
• pH monitoring – This checks the acid content of your esophagus. If your pH levels are low for long periods of time, that can indicate that you’re experiencing reflux.
• Esophageal manometry – This test measures the strength and pattern of muscle contractions in your esophagus. It can help determine if you have a weak lower esophageal sphincter, weak muscle contractions when you swallow, or if you’re having strong spasms that can cause chest pain or make you feel like food is stuck in your throat after you swallow.

If other acid relief options don’t work, your doctor may recommend surgery

Surgery and other procedures are the last step your doctor will take if other methods haven’t worked for you. These work by strengthening the valve between the esophagus and the stomach, keeping acid from backing up into your esophagus. Some examples include:

• Fundoplication – With this procedure, the stomach is wrapped around the esophagus to strengthen the valve. It’s usually performed using surgery, but sometimes can be done using endoscopy.
• Magnetic sphincter augmentation (MSA) – To strengthen the valve between the esophagus and stomach, a string of magnetic beads is wrapped around the esophageal sphincter.
• Stretta procedure – This is a nonsurgical treatment that uses radio waves to tighten the valve.

Because some of these procedures can cause problems with burping, swallowing and extra gas, they may require other procedures to help alleviate the side effects. Your primary care provider and a surgeon experienced in this area will work with you to review your options and determine what’s best for your situation.

Health risks if acid reflux goes untreated

GERD can turn into more serious health problems if your symptoms aren’t addressed. Without treatment, GERD can cause:

• Damage to your esophagus – This includes esophagitis (where the esophagus is inflamed and irritated from constant contact with stomach acid), ulcers in the esophagus, and esophageal stricture, which is scarring in the esophagus. It can also cause Barrett’s esophagus, which can change the cells in the esophagus and is a precancerous condition.
• Increased risk of cancer – It’s rare, but untreated GERD can lead to esophageal cancer, especially if you’re diagnosed with Barrett’s esophagus.
• Tooth decay – Stomach acid that backs up can wear down your tooth enamel, which can lead to cavities and tooth decay.

If you have acid reflux, it’s important to treat it

While the occasional bout of heartburn isn’t anything to be concerned about, if you’re experiencing frequent acid reflux that can’t be helped by at-home or over-the-counter methods, speak to your doctor. They can help you with further treatment and even refer you to a GI specialist that can help you with long-term relief.