Acidity - Causes and Treatment

Acidity is one of the most common yet one of the most harassing problem faced. The reason I say it is so harassing is that once you have it, it constantly keeps resurfacing despite all the medication you take for it. A little change in diet, one late night or just some minor change in routine triggers acidity and the patient is never at ease. Interestingly acidity has become incurable with modern medicines these days, very similar to diabetes. If a strict lifestyle or diet is followed the symptoms don't show and medication, if started, is taken perpetually. The reason I say this is because the root cause of acidity is not dealt with at all and treatment prescribed increases the problem at the root while giving symptomatic relief.

Associated symptoms commonly seen with acidity are

• Headache
• Hairfall
• Sleep deficiency
• Red spots on the back and shoulder
• Anger and Irritation
• Acne
• Redness of eyes
• Burning urination
• Burning of palm of hands and soles of legs

Causes -

• Increased intake of sour, spicy and fermented food
• Increased intake of water
• Intake of stale food
• Long gap between meals
• Late nights
• Increased stress levels

Pathophysiology -

Acidity is originally formed from indigestion. The indigestion could be because of excessive water intake diluting the gastric juices or could be because of overeating or eating heavy to digest foods regularly. It is also seen that this indigestion comes as a result of eating a lot immediately after fasting.

This indigestion stays in the body in the form of "aam" or a sticky fermented product stuck to the intestines. It does not clear even on purgation. Think of it as a chewing gum stuck to the intestines. The only way to remove it would be to completely digest and disintegrate it.

This "aam" being acidic in nature increases the overall acidity levels in the stomach. For simplicity purposes let us call the acid generated by the human body in order to digest the food "good acid" and the acid caused due to "aam" as "bad acid".

The good and bad acid increase in overall acidity levels in the body causing "Acidity". We usually try to treat this by a number of ways

1. We take something that is alkaline in nature like "eno" or "digene" etc. This gives us relief as it neutralizes the acid.

2. We eat sweet, heavy and cold food. A very common example is cold milk, or sweets.

3. We drink even more water to dilute the acid.

4. We start medication from something like a rantac to a pan-40 to an omez etc.

The problem with these steps is that none of them help digest this "aam" but in-fact increases the "aam", forming a vicious circle. In the first step, the neutralization does not differentiate between the good acid and the bad acid hence weakening our digestion causing further indigestion. In the second treatment, the indigestion definitely increases causing further problems. In the third treatment, the dilution of acid itself does not allow proper digestion and in the fourth one the medicines do not allow good acid to be formed hence giving the same result as the 3 above.

Generally once the acidity medication starts, it keeps increasing in dose and the patient gets hooked onto it and eventually cannot start his/her day without it.

This is the reason I say that acidity these days has become an incurable disease.

Treatment - 

To treat acidity the patient must suffer from increase in acidity and related symptoms. For curing acidity we increase the acid levels in the body especially the good acid levels which in turn digest the long-standing "aam" in the body. Once this "aam" is digested the formation of bad acid stops and a permanent solution to acidity is found. Ayurvedic doctors these days also give medicines to suppress symptoms of acidity but very few really cure it as it increases the symptoms.

For home remedies please refer to this video

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