If You’re Suffering From This 5 Symptoms, Your Heartburn Might Actually Be GERD

Feel like you just can’t keep that nasty stuff in your belly from bubbling up into your throat? What you’re experiencing might not be run-of-the-mill heartburn. It could be a case of gastroesophageal reflux disease—GERD, for short—a condition that causes the acid and food in your stomach to rise into your esophagus, and sometimes even enter your mouth or lungs. GERD is far from rare: In fact, it occurs in 20 percent of the U.S. population, according to the medical journal Gastroenterology. But there are also several factors that make some people an easier target for the disease.

“Everyone has a small, normal amount of gastroesophageal reflux, but an abnormal amount of acid reflux occurs when the one-way valve between the esophagus and the stomach, called the lower esophageal sphincter, becomes too loose,” says Ketan Shah, M.D., gastroenterologist at Saddleback Memorial Medical Center in Laguna Hills, California. “This can occur for multiple reasons that cause intra-abdominal pressure to be abnormally elevated, including being overweight or obese, frequent overeating, lying down too soon after eating, chronic straining or coughing, or chronic heavy lifting. These are typically the people who are more susceptible to GERD.”

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Surprisingly, as common as GERD is, diagnosing it isn’t always a piece of (regurgitated) cake. Different people can experience different warning signs—some of which you wouldn’t typically think are pointing to gastroesophageal reflux. Leaving the disease undiagnosed and untreated could set you up for not only major chronic discomfort in the short term, but also for bigger issues down the road: “It can predispose the esophagus to changes that can eventually lead to cancer,” says Jennifer Katz, M.D., attending gastroenterology physician and assistant professor of medicine at Montefiore Medical Center. So if you’ve picked up on any of these seven signals from your body lately, then GERD might be the word—and you should get to a doctor pronto.