Yes, you can live a long life with GERD, but it requires effective management through lifestyle changes, medications, and sometimes surgery to prevent serious complications like Barrett's esophagus or cancer, ensuring a good quality of life rather than just survival. While mild GERD might be manageable, chronic, untreated reflux can lead to damage, but with proper treatment, symptoms can often disappear and the risk of long-term issues significantly reduced, making it a chronic condition to manage, not necessarily a life-limiting one.
Although it is possible to lead a normal life with GERD, people with this condition often feel that their acid reflux symptoms interfere with their quality of life. 1 This is why it is important to see a healthcare provider rather than trying to self-treat your symptoms.
Surgery for GERD
The goal of surgery for reflux disease is to strengthen the anti-reflux barrier. During a procedure known as a Nissen fundoplication, your surgeon wraps the upper part of your stomach around the lower esophagus. This enhances the anti-reflux barrier and can provide permanent relief from reflux.
Acid reflux occurs when stomach acid backs up into the esophagus. When acid or other digestive enzymes irritate the throat, they often cause changes in sensation or irritation that can stimulate a cough. Even extremely small amounts of acid can irritate the voice box and throat, triggering a cough.
Studies have shown proton pump inhibitor therapy can provide complete endoscopic mucosal healing of esophagitis at 6 to 8 weeks in 75% to 100% of cases. Although healing of the esophagus may occur in 6 to 8 weeks, it should not be misunderstood that gastroesophageal reflux can be cured in that amount of time.
GERD is caused by frequent acid reflux or reflux of nonacidic content from the stomach. When you swallow, a circular band of muscle around the bottom of the esophagus, called the lower esophageal sphincter, relaxes to allow food and liquid to flow into the stomach.
However you spell it, GERD is chronic acid reflux in your esophagus. Acid reflux is considered chronic when you've had it at least twice a week for several weeks. Temporary conditions can cause temporary acid reflux. But GERD is a constant, mechanical problem.
Symptoms of stage 3 GERD may include:
Sore throat. Hoarse voice. Chronic cough.
Treating acid reflux in kids involves lifestyle changes like upright feeding, smaller meals, and avoiding trigger foods (spicy, fatty, caffeine) for infants, with medications like H2 blockers or Proton Pump Inhibitors (PPIs) prescribed if needed, though surgery is rare; always consult a doctor for diagnosis and treatment, as many children outgrow it.
Having acid reflux doesn't necessarily mean you have a medical condition. GERD, on the other hand, is a chronic medical condition. This means it is an ongoing disease with acid reflux causing symptoms two or more times a week.
You may want to visit an internist (a doctor who specializes in internal medicine) or a gastroenterologist (a doctor who treats diseases of the stomach and intestines). Depending on how severe your GERD is, treatment may involve one or more of the following lifestyle changes and medications or surgery.
To date, a few studies describing GERD have shown that psychological factors, particularly anxiety and depression, play an important role in patients with GERD; however, the results of those studies have been inconsistent.
Advanced acid reflux or GERD is treated and cured with surgery. Nissen fundoplication and hiatal hernia repair is a minimally invasive procedure with almost 100% effectiveness in stopping acid reflux.
Although GERD isn't life-threatening in itself, its symptoms, left untreated, can injure the lining of the throat, airways, and lungs, making breathing difficult and causing a persistent cough. Plus, chronic inflammation of the esophagus can lead to more serious problems.
There is no simple answer as to whether people can reverse the damage GERD causes. It depends on many things, including the severity and duration of symptoms, what other parts of the body are harmed, and the person's overall health.
Proton pump inhibitors are accepted as the most effective initial and maintenance treatment for GERD. Oral pantoprazole is a safe, well tolerated and effective initial and maintenance treatment for patients with nonerosive GERD or erosive esophagitis.
Babies with GER have normal weight gain and generally don't have trouble with feedings. They also seem unaffected by the reflux. Infant reflux usually begins at 2 to 3 weeks and peaks at 4 to 5 months. It should fully go away at 9 to 12 months.
For example, patients with GERD should avoid overly-processed, high-fat snacks like french fries, onion rings, and potato chips. If you want a snack and have GERD, consider healthy, high-protein, and lean snacks like bananas, egg whites, carrots, and whole grains.
Some research suggests that inflammation in the esophagitis from GERD can take 8 weeks or longer to heal with lifestyle changes and medications. However, these measures will not fully cure GERD. Treatments can include a combination of lifestyle changes and medications.
It's a hacking cough that does not produce mucus (a dry cough). It's also a chronic cough, meaning it has not shown improvement in eight weeks. It's generally worse at night. Sometimes, this may be mistaken for coughs caused by other problems such as allergies or postnasal drip.
Described as a squeezing pressure behind the breast bone, GERD-related chest pain can last for hours. And like a heart attack, it can also radiate down your arm to your back.
The upper esophageal sphincter keeps stomach acid out of the pharynx and larynx. When it doesn't work properly, you can develop symptoms such as hoarseness, loss of voice, chronic cough, phlegm in the back of the throat, and a feeling that something is stuck in the throat.
certain food and drink – such as coffee, tomatoes, alcohol, chocolate and fatty or spicy foods. being overweight. smoking. pregnancy - find out more about indigestion and heartburn in pregnancy.
Fundoplication. The surgeon wraps the top of the stomach around the lower esophageal sphincter, to tighten the muscle and prevent reflux. Fundoplication is usually done with a minimally invasive, called laparoscopic, procedure.