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HEARTBURN
COMMON CAUSES
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Gastro-esophageal Reflux Disease [GERD] affects millions of Americans daily. GERD is a condition that occurs when gastric acid regurgitates into the lower esophagus. Gastric acid erodes the esophageal lining leading to inflammation, ulcers, coughing, throat and laryngeal inflammation, reactive airway disease, and asthma.
If you suffer from GERD, AXIA3™ is not designed to replace your daily maintenance prescription. But when your medication is not enough, or doesn't act fast enough, get fast relief with AXIA3™.
AXIA3™ does not represent a cure for GERD. AXIA3™ has been created solely for the acute relief of reflux symptoms. It can be used in conjunction with pharmaceutical agents that offer a therapeutic benefit with no known drug-drug interactions. The goal for long-term treatment of GERD should not be pharmaceutical agents, but rather adjustments in diet, weight loss, lifestyle changes and behavioral modifications. Patients with severe refractory symptoms should be under the consult of a physician. Few patients may require surgical treatment for definitive therapy.
DO I HAVE GERD?
The most common symptom patients experience is heartburn or chest pain. Unfortunately, the esophagus shares nerves with the heart making this distinction difficult at times for clinicians. Heartburn usually occurs after a large meal or when a patient is lying in a recumbent position on a couch or in bed. Reclining facilitates highly acidic gastric contents to enter the esophagus and erode the lining leading to a painful stimulus. Other common symptoms include regurgitation resulting in a bitter taste and bad breath, hoarseness from vocal cord irritation, chronic cough from throat irritation, difficulty breathing from airway spasm, and difficulties (and/or pain) with swallowing from inflammation and strictures of the esophagus.
COMPLICATIONS
GERD can cause not only the symptoms mentioned above but also permanent structural damage to the lining of the esophagus. These pathologic alterations can lead to multiple chronic medical conditions, such as chronic swallowing disorders, asthma, aspiration pneumonia, permanent vocal changes, halitosis, and esophageal cancer. Studies have shown patients with GERD have a 43.5 times greater risk of developing cancer of the esophagus. Thus, early recognition and appropriate management of GERD is vital to the overall health for a large segment of the U.S. population.
TREATMENT
The majority of treatments on the market focus on stopping gastric acid production through either histamine blockade or proton pump inhibitors. Histamine receptor blockers stop the signal to the stomach to produce acid. These medications are partially beneficial stopping about 80% of acid production. Proton pump inhibitors block acid production at the gastric cellular level with good success stopping 90%-95% of acid production. However, these remedies do not benefit patients during an acute attack of GERD. Antacid tablets have been developed for this purpose with only limited relief until the development of AXIA3™.
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