Heartburn can be a literal pain to deal with when it's something that happens to you every day. Each meal comes with the expectation of a burning sort of pain when it's all over, and bedtime can hold the same problems.
If you suffer from heartburn, it's natural to want to turn to heartburn remedies for relief from the pain. It helps, though, to know the wide range of different remedies for heartburn that exist so you can try everything that you can to prevent this problem from affecting you more.
Simple Remedies
Some heartburn remedies are simple enough that you should need to spend very little money to help with your problem. Many of these simply work from knowledge of the main problem of heartburn, that of stomach acids in the esophagus, and counter it with common sense.
For instance, if you tend to suffer from heartburn when lying down, the best remedy is to sit up if you feel the familiar burn, since it's harder for the acid to travel upwards than sideways, and to avoid eating for two or three hours before bed, which cuts down on acid production prior to your bedtime. The combination of these two remedies will help prevent the bedtime heartburn from being more severe.
Other simple heartburn remedies involve using eating and drinking to help prevent heartburn. For instance, knowing to avoid certain drinks, such as alcohol and coffee, can cut down on heartburn. In addition, drinking water in order to help dilute the acid can cut down on the severity of heartburn symptoms.
One of the more clever heartburn remedies involves simply chewing gum more, since this stimulates the production of saliva, which has a natural ability to help neutralize the acids in your stomach.
What to Take?
Sometimes, simple heartburn remedies aren't enough, and you need to seek out something stronger. For times like this, the place to start is with antacids, which can be purchased over the counter and help to counteract the acid in your stomach, which the name implies.
The main problem with antacids is that they can cause diarrhea or constipation, however. A great counter to this, though is to find an antacid that contains both hydroxide and aluminum hydroxide, since the former causes diarrhea and the latter constipation, so they counteract each other.
If things get so severe that antacids don't do the trick, the next step in the arsenal of heartburn remedies to turn to is prescription medicines, which inhibit the production of acids in the stomach and can protect you from heartburn for days at a time.
Given the cost of constantly purchasing medicine, though, you should try other options before resorting to this step, and as with all medical problems, consult with your doctor about heartburn remedies so you can stay free from the pain.
