Living Healthy Podcast #17: Heartburn

Heartburn is a general term to describe an irritation of the stomach or esophagus. It is often relieved by eating or taking antacids. Sometimes it wakes people up at night.  Heartburn has nothing to do with your heart. Heart pain tends to be felt in the same location (the front bottom of the chest) but it is often worse with exertion and should not be helped by eating.  Heart pain is more often a squeezing pain, while heartburn is more often a burning feeling. 

A simple way to help see if your heartburn is due to ulcers is to:

• Stop taking any pain pills other than Tylenol
• Take Prilosec OTC  (available without prescription) for 14 days. 

How to prevent heartburn:

• Stop all smoking forever. If you don’t the heartburn is certain to return.
• Stop using pills which can irritate the stomach. Essentially this means all pain pills with the exception of Tylenol (acetaminophen). Tylenol does not cause ulcers. If you find that you have to stay on stomach pills long term, consider asking your doctor about trying antibiotics to help.

What You Can Do to Heal Your Ulcer? (familydoctor.org)
Peptic Ulcer Disease (Centers for Disease Control and Prevention)

Download MP3 file

This podcast first aired on February 17, 2006.

Comments

[Joyce Mutert]

If I have heartburn (sour stomach) but it's not real uncomfortable, is it better not to take anything (ranitidine tablets) or to stay on top of it by taking acid reducers?

Steve, do you know Joe Mays who will be pitching for the Royals this year? He was a pitcher for the Minnesota Twins. He is Gary's brother-in-law's nephew.

[Henry Domke M.D.]

If the heartburn is not very annoying, probably better to leave it alone. In general I tend to err on the side of using less medicine rather than more.