When Do You Need an Antacid? : Part 2

by Food and Drug Administration (FDA)

(Page 2 of 3)

A Quick Look Inside

Your entire digestive system is called the alimentary canal, or GI tract. About 30 feet from beginning to end, it includes your mouth (where digestion actually begins), esophagus, stomach, small intestine, and colon (also called the large intestine). Antacids do most of their work in the stomach.

The stomach serves as a kind of "holding tank" for food before it moves on to the intestines, where the major part of digestion takes place. But the stomach does more than just hold food. It helps with digestion, too. It secretes pepsin and hydrochloric acid, which work together to break down proteins into simpler compounds.

Under normal conditions, the digestive process rolls along quietly and efficiently, unnoticed. But every once in a while something happens down there that catches your attention: a burning sensation, a cramped or bloated feeling, or other unpleasant phenomena that tell you something is not quite right.

The pH Factor

Antacids make you feel better by increasing the pH balance in your stomach. The pH system is a scale for measuring the acidity or alkalinity of a given environment (in this case, your stomach). The scale goes from zero to 14.

Seven is neutral. Below seven is acid. Above seven is alkaline.

Normally, the acid level in your stomach is about 2 or 3. Trouble may start when your pH drops below those numbers.

To make you feel better, an antacid need not bring the pH level all the way up to 7 (neutral), which would be a highly unnatural state for your stomach anyway. In order to work, all the antacid has to do is get you to 3 or 4. It does this by neutralizing some of the excess acid. (See accompanying story, "What's in an Antacid?")

So What's Wrong with Me Anyway?

The world of gastrointestinal disorders is a complex and sometimes baffling one. If you're feeling pain or discomfort in your GI tract, it could be something as unworrisome as simple indigestion, or maybe a stress ulcer.

Or it could be cancer.

In between these extremes are a billion other possibilities (a slight exaggeration, but you get the idea).

For example, your doctor may say you're suffering from non-ulcer dyspepsia. According to the Handbook of Nonprescription Drugs (ninth edition), non-ulcer dyspepsia "refers to intermittent [on and off] upper abdominal discomfort, the cause of which is not clearly defined."

In other words, when you get right down to it, non-ulcer dyspepsia is a catch-all term used for all sorts of stomach upset problems. Some symptoms include upper abdominal pain, nausea, vomiting, bloating, and indigestion.

Indigestion is another fuzzy word. Some people like to call it sour stomach, or acid indigestion, or upset stomach, or acid stomach.

It could mean that you have a touch of gastritis (when your stomach lining becomes inflamed by too much acid secretion). Or it could mean you've simply eaten too much at once, and all that food is sitting heavy in your stomach, like a bowling ball, trying to get digested (as in the case of the massive overindulgence described at the beginning of this article).

Then there's heartburn, which is another matter.

Heartburn happens when the stomach's contents, along with all its corrosive digestive juices, goes into reverse and shoots back up into the esophagus (the tube that extends from the pharynx, or throat, into the stomach). Normally, the pressure in your stomach is lower than the pressure in your esophagus, which helps prevent food from reentering the esophagus. But once in a while the delicate pressure system can break down.

This unsettling event, called gastroesophageal reflux (heartburn), may sometimes announce itself with an embarrassing belch.

But whether you make a noise or not, you feel the burning. The lining of your stomach is fairly accustomed to an acid environment, but your esophagus definitely isn't, so even a little acid in there will sometimes be enough to get your attention.

If gastroesophageal reflux is happening to you all the time, then you may have something called gastroesophageal reflux disease. It could be that your esophageal sphincter (the "door" between your esophagus and your stomach) is weak, chronically allowing the stomach's contents to push back out into the esophagus, burning it.

If the burning sensation is a little lower, and stays around for more than a few days, you could have another problem altogether: a peptic ulcer. An ulcer is simply a sore in your stomach that keeps getting irritated by all the acid swirling around down there.

Antacids can be used to treat all these GI problems. But most people who experience occasional discomfort somewhere along the GI tract, are likely not dealing with an ulcer, or stomach cancer, or anything else major.

Chances are it's run-of-the-mill heartburn or indigestion.

You don't need to see a doctor for occasional heartburn or indigestion. The hurting will disappear on its own. If you want some relief in the meantime, antacids will fit the bill nicely.

Again, it should be emphasized that if you experience unpleasant GI symptoms for more than two weeks, or if your symptoms are severe, it may be more than something run-of-the-mill.

Get it checked out.

About the Author

www.fda.gov
FDA is A United States government body that oversees medical devices, including contact lenses, intraocular lenses, excimer lasers and eyedrops. In the US, these products must be approved by the FDA before they can be marketed.