How to Diagnose Acid Reflux Disease

If you suffer from heartburn on a regular basis, you may have acid reflux or gastroesophageal reflux disease (GERD). Occasional heartburn is nothing to worry about...antacids will cure this. When the frequency of the heartburn increases, it is time to see if you are one of the millions who suffer from acid reflux.

Things You'll Need

• Doctor

Show More

Instructions

• 1

  See your doctor. Usually an examination is all that is needed to tell if you have acid reflux. However, if you happen to be the exception to the rule proceed to Step 2.

• 2

  Schedule an endoscopy. This test can be done when you are asleep and therefore will have no knowledge of your doctor inserting a tube down your throat. The tube allows the doctor to look inside your stomach and see what is causing the heartburn. Although this test is good for diagnosing complications of acid reflux, only about half of the patients show the actual disease with this test.

• 3

  Have a pH test. This can measure the amount of acid in your stomach that is backing up into the esophagus. Usually this is only done if the endoscopy doesn't detect any evidence of acid reflux disease.

• 4

  Set up Barium x-rays. After examining the x-rays your doctor will be able see what is causing the heartburn, but again, this test is not a reliable diagnostic test for acid reflux.

• 5

  Ask your doctor if you should have an upper GI and small bowel series. This can narrow down the reasons for your heartburn and possibly tell if you are suffering from acid reflux.

• 6

  Take a manometry, which is a technique that records muscular pressure. It can determine what is causing the chest pain in patients who have acid reflux.

• 7

  Understand what you need to do after you have been diagnosed with acid reflux. There are many things (including medication, diet and exercise) that you can do to control your acid reflux.