Heartburn symptoms are alarmingly common all over the world. Millions of men and women in America suffer from acid reflux induced heartburn during their lifetime. Sometimes, it may become difficult for us to distinguish its symptoms from those caused by other conditions, such as angina pectoris or heart attack. What most of us lack is a clear understanding of all the symptoms of heartburn and this could prove to be potentially dangerous. It is critical to distinguish between heartburn symptoms and actual cardiac arrest signs in order to start the correct treatment and take the necessary action.

Acid reflux induced heartburn is caused when acidic stomach contents flow back into the esophagus, causing irritation and a burning sensation beneath the breastbone and the throat in the patient. Depending on the severity of the attack, a hot, sour acidic fluid may regurgitate back in the throat, causing us to retch. Children are seldom able to control the retching and most often, start vomiting under such circumstances. Gastroesophageal Reflux Disorder (GERD) or acid reflux heartburn may also bring about varying degrees of pain and difficulty in swallowing. Some might even feel a sensation of foodstuff remaining ’stuck’ in the middle of the chest or the throat. Some persistent and acute cases may even lead to chronic cough, hoarseness and soreness of the throat for many days.

A cardiac arrest or heart attack, however, is accomapnied by none of these symptoms. Although angina pectoris may trigger some amount of heartburn in patients, it is rarely severe and is usually short-lived and well within tolerable limits.

Below are a few of the significant symptoms associated with angina pectoris as opposed to GERD:

• Pain related to heart attacks, unlike GERD-related pain, often radiates to the shoulders, neck, jaw and arms.

• Sudden intense chest pain or pressure on the chest is one of the most common symptoms of cardiac arrest but is absent in GERD.

• Cardiac attack triggers a feeling of tightness in the center of the chest, which is not restricted to the back of the breastbone only, as in the case of acid reflux.

• Heart attack may cause a shortness of breath which is rare with GERD heartburn.

• Heart attack pain responds to nitroglycerin; GERD heartburn responds to antacids.

• Cold sweat accompanies a heart attack; this is absent in GERD heartburn patients.

Contrary to the symptoms of heart attack, acid reflux heartburn symptoms are more generic in nature and are readily felt by the patient.

A few of the common heartburn symptoms are as given below.

Heart attack and GERD, both may cause very severe pain; however, unlie the former, GERD induced pain does not spread to the shoulder, jaw, neck and arms of the sufferer.

• The burning sensation caused by GERD is limited to the underneath of the breastbone or the ribs.

• GERD induced pain occurs most frequently after meals, after lying down on the back and most often, during nighttime.

• Heartburn does not cause the patient to break into a cold sweat.

Medical studies conducted with patients with frequent complaints of GERD have shown that most GERD related symptoms become more pronounced at night. This often leads to difficulty in falling asleep and many GERD patients tend to stay awake at night. GERD patients may also experience the pain and discomfort getting more intense during nighttime than during the day.

Understanding the various symptoms of GERD induced heartburn can help one in initiating a symptomatic treatment of the condition. However, that’s hardly sufficient to control acid reflux effective. For a complete curative treatment, one needs to address the disease itself, not just its symptoms. Unless the roots of the disease are eradicated, there is always a possibility of the condition relapsing even if the symptoms disappear temprarily due to medication. The real answer lies in adopting holistic remedies that treat the body as a whole and go to the root causes of GERD to fix the problem from deep within.