Acid Reflux and Sore Throat

Although many people don’t know it, acid reflux sore throat is very real. When you consider what reflux is, it shouldn’t be that surprising. It really is just a matter of how severe the reflux is.

To begin with a definition, acid reflux means that acid from the stomach is backing up into the esophagus. The actual acid is HCl and as you might imagine is quite irritating to tissues that were meant to handle it such as the lining of the esophagus.

This is typically limited to the far end of the esophagus immediately next to the stomach. the most common symptom is a burning sensation commonly referred to as heartburn.

However if there’s a lot of reflux, for example if somebody 80 really large meal and the stomach is very full, the acid can back up even farther. In that case people can have what amounts to an acid burn all along their esophagus and even into the back of the throat.

I think is pretty easy for you to imagine that if you swallowed acid you might get a sore throat as a result. The acid backing up from the stomach does the same thing. Even worse, it can spill over into your windpipe and really cause problems.

In addition to having a sore throat, another symptom that goes along with stomach acid reach the back of the throat is an unusual slightly metallic taste in the mouth.

I think you can see now that is not so surprising that heartburn and a chronic sore throat can have the same underlying cause. Someone that has a persistent sore throat because of acid reflux has a particularly severe case and it’s very important that they get treatment. This is especially important to prevent possible lung complications.