We all have experienced some heartburn or acid reflux, where you actually feel a burning in your chest or acid moving up into your throat. Gastro Esophageal Reflux Disease is a more chronic and serious problem. The most common signs of GERD is heartburn, regurgitation and trouble swallowing (dysphagia). Unfortunately, even if you have no outward symptoms of an acidic pH, you may have acid silently damaging your skin, muscles, bones, arteries, nerves, organs or brain. You don’t see the symptoms of acid until it has caused enough damage to begin inflammation and scarring that can limit circulation through any part of the body.

When you think of acid problems you tend to think of food as being the culprit. Food does play a part because everything that goes into your mouth eventually breaks down in the body into either an acid or alkaline ash. When you eat more fruits and vegetables you produce a healthier alkaline ash, when you consume red meat, chicken, fish, white rice, bread, pasta, chocolate or drink coffee, tea, soda, beer, wine and alcohol you produce an acid ash. The goal is to keep the internal body in a neutral pH or slightly alkaline at 7.2 on a pH scale. You do this by balancing your foods and drink and other lifestyle choices that promote circulation like exercise, drinking enough water, deep breathing and self-lymphatic activation.

Consuming too many acid producing foods and beverages is a contributing factor in most acid related health problems. There is also a structural and of course a lymphatic system component that must also be looked at in GERD.  Since the esophagus lacks the mucus lining like that of the stomach to protect it from acid, it can get irritated by stomach acid that passes the cardiac sphincter. Even though this section of the esophagus is often called a sphincter, it is actually a stricture, a normal narrowing of the esophagus before the stomach that acts as a valve to keep acid in the stomach.

Understanding the lymphatic system, acid can come from a buildup of cellular waste and not only from stomach acid. The cisterna chyli is where three lymph vessels merge into one main lymph duct in the right lower chest called the thoracic duct. When this area becomes congested, acid waste can build around and in the diaphragm, which is a large, thin, flat muscle below your lungs. Your esophagus is the tube from your mouth to your stomach, it passes through the diaphragm right before the stomach. When the diaphragm constricts around the esophagus and the blood vessels and lymph vessels that pass through the hole in the diaphragm, it squeezes around the esophagus and vessels. This limits circulation and allows acid waste to build in the area creating inflammation and scarring that can stiffen the esophagus.

 As acid waste builds up around and in the esophagus it can constrict and make it hard to swallow or lead to excess acidity that can damage the throat and vocal chords. It can also limit circulation that can damage the esophagus as when part of the esophagus turns black and dies in acute esophageal necrosis.  The key to stopping heartburn or GERD is to reduce acid waste by eating more alkaline foods and activating your lymphatic system regularly to manually improve detoxification of acid waste from the body and esophagus. Two important places to activate often during the day is the main lymph drain beneath your clavicle bones and the area of the cisterna chyli by the right rib cage and gall bladder. Opening these two area alone, will help reduce your symptoms by improving lymph flow and detoxification in the diaphragm and esophagus.
Copyright ©2009 John Ossipinsky