If you suffer from acid reflux, there’s new evidence you can avoid the damage this can cause by changing the way you sleep.
Acid reflux disease is a common cause of heartburn. And many times the acid can travel back up into the food pipe at night.
Now there’s an easy way to prevent that, by changing your sleeping position.

If you suffer from acid reflux, there’s new evidence you can avoid the damage it can cause by changing the way you sleep.

Acid reflux disease is a common cause of heartburn – the sensation caused by the acids from the stomach traveling back up into the food pipe at night. Now you can prevent that by changing your sleeping position.

“I can’t lay down flat at all, or it will come back up into my chest. So I have to sit up and elevate myself in order for it not to come back up into my chest.” Ida Dennison has the classic complaints of acid reflux disease. At night, it is worse when laying flat, and made better when sleeping with the torso elevated.

Dr. Jennifer Christie, a gastroenterologist at Mt. Sinai Medical Center in New York, says, “We think that esophageal reflux is caused, number one, by the prolonged esophageal acid exposure and what can make exposure even longer is if a patient is in a recumbent position, or a flat position. Therefore the esophagus is not allowed to clear as rapidly of acid and food.”

New research presented at the American College of Chest Physician’s Annual Meeting shows sleeping on the right side can markedly increase the frequency of acid reflux events at night. There was much greater acid reflux when laying on the right side compared to when patients were laying on the left side.

Dr. Magen El Zein, the study’s author at the University of Texas, says, “Most people don’t feel this during their sleep. They feel it when they go to sleep and have the awareness, but during sleep they lose the feeling of burning, so they don’t know that they’re having reflux. It’s like a silent killer that stays at night.” That’s because over time, the acid and bile from the stomach can cause changes in the lining of the esophagus which can lead to pre-cancer and cancer. “They can decrease it by sleeping on the left side rather than the right side because this decreases the chances of having reflux,” states Dr. El Zein.

It is believed that people with acid reflux wake up more frequently during the night, this leading to sleep disturbance and daytime sleepiness. However, in many cases, sleep overcomes the symptoms of heartburn.

If you can, try to sleep on your left side and with the torso above the waist elevated. If you can, put a wedge in that will prevent you from rolling over onto your right side. Again, this isn’t necessary to control symptoms, but rather to prevent the long term damage done by acid reflux disease.

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