My family history has an issue with health. Most of my uncles (Father’s side) have heart troubles of one sort or another. Every time I go to a new doctor, I fill out the requisite questionnaire which always asks if I have a family history of heart attacks, diabetes, hangnail, athlete’s foot, etc. Consequently, this little fact keeps hovering in the back of my mind.
More often than I care to admit, I deal with heartburn and I wonder (and hope) that heartburn is all it really is. For a period of time last year, I took an OTC heartburn medication daily… well, in two week periods. Then I would go off meds for a couple of weeks and it would return. As did the medication.
Where does heartburn come from?
Obviously, it has nothing to do with the physical heart. It just happens to produce pain in that same general area, which in turn causes anxiety and stress which may actually feed the heartburn. That’s not a fun cycle.
I read an article by Dennis Thompson of HealthDay entitled “” He says that, generally, heartburn and acid reflux strike many people as an annoying and painful but ultimately harmless problem — a result of overindulgence and gluttony that must be endured. Frequent bouts of heartburn and reflux constitute a real medical condition known as gastroesophageal reflux disease, or GERD, which is on the rise worldwide.
