Doctors now divide cases into 'typical', 'atypical' and 'respiratory', and make the diagnosis of acid reflux or GERD mainly from the mixture of symptoms that the patients present to them.
Typical symptoms include, first and foremost, heartburn, defined as:
"A burning feeling rising from the stomach or lower chest up towards the neck that is related to meals, lying down, stooping and straining, and is relieved by antacids."
Patients who identify with this clear definition have already diagnosed themselves. They have GERD, and they can look into gerd and acid reflux treatments for it without having to wait for further tests or investigations.
Other typical symptoms include discomfort behind the breastbone, acid brash, (regurgitation of acid or bile), waterbrash (excess saliva in the mouth) and pain on swallowing (medically, this is called 'odynophagia').
Patients with pain when they swallow do need urgent investigation as it may be due to severe esophagitis with ulceration and bleeding or a stricture caused by scars from old episodes.
Atypical symptoms include pain in the centre of the chest, very similar to angina or the pain of a heart attack, pain in the upper abdomen ('epigastric' pain), and bloating, a feeling that you can experience in the chest and in the abdomen.
It is difficult for doctors and paramedic staff in emergency ambulances to differentiate initially between the chest pain of acute GERD and a heart attack, because the quality of the pain in the two cases is very similar.
It's now recognized that, in chest pain emergencies, half of the patients who have normal electrocardio-grams (ECGs), and no signs of coronary disease showing on angiograms, actually have acute GERD. One clue to the real diagnosis is that there is no relationship between GERD chest pain and exercise or acute mental or physical stress. Angina, on the other hand, is closely related to exercise and stress.
The respiratory symptoms include wheezing, breathlessness and cough. The Cherry-Donner syndrome is typical of the breathing problems faced by some people with GERD. Anyone who has an unexplained cough that doesn't resolve within two or three weeks is now automatically a candidate for the diagnosis of GERD.
A minute amount of acid spilling up to the larynx (the voice box) and then breathed into the lungs is enough to produce a cough. That's especially true for non-smokers. Smokers have other strong reasons for coughing, such as chronic obstructive lung disease and lung cancer, but that's another story. A non-smoker who has a permanent cough, and has not had a previous history of asthma, is considered to have GERD until proved otherwise.
Find more here: Acid Reflux and Gerd