Another good clue that a person is suffering from heartburn and not heart attack is if it occurs after meals. People sometimes get it if they eat a fatty meal, for example. And another very common feature of it is it goes away with medicines that eliminate acid. So either antacids, which you can buy over-the-counter, or medications that we have for treating the acid in the stomach, will typically stop the heartburn.
What are the alarm symptoms that accompany heartburn that should be evaluated?
There are a number of symptoms that, when experienced together with heartburn, warrant a trip to a physician for evaluation. If heartburn is accompanied by weightloss or if food gets stuck in your chest on the way down, it could be indicating something more than just simple heartburn, and we would be concerned about it. If you have heartburn and you have also thrown up blood, or if you notice that your stools have become black, that's a sign that there could be internal bleeding. If it hurts when you swallow, that is, whenever you're swallowing you're feeling pain in your chest at the same time, or if you're having fevers in association with any of these symptoms, you should be evaluated. So those are the symptoms that would say this is not just simple heartburn—that it could be more complicated.
Now, if you have just simple heartburn—meaning you have heartburn and none of these warning symptoms—then I think you could try some of the over-the-counter medications and see how they work for you.
