Home Diseases and Conditions Indigestion Dyspepsia. Table of Contents. What is indigestion dyspepsia? Symptoms of indigestion Indigestion can feel like a stomachache. Seek medical care right away if your symptoms are severe, such as: Shortness of breath Trouble swallowing Ongoing vomiting Throwing up blood Sudden pain in chest, arm, neck, or jaw Cold sweats Thick, black, or bloody stool.
What causes indigestion? A lot of factors can cause indigestion. These include: Eating certain foods, such as those that are spicy and fatty, and those with lots of acid or fiber Eating too late in the day Drinking alcohol or too much caffeine Taking certain medicines Smoking Not sleeping Problems in your GI tract or other health issues also can cause indigestion. These include: Acid reflux, gastroesophageal reflux GER , or gastroesophageal reflux disease GERD : This is when your food and drink comes back up from your stomach after eating or drinking.
Acid reflux also can produce vomiting. This condition also may cause heartburn. Irritable bowel syndrome: This disorder affects your intestines. Symptoms include stomach pain, bloating, gas, constipation, and diarrhea. Infection: A bacterial infection from Helicobacter pylori H. Gastroparesis : This condition affects digestion. If muscles in your GI tract stop working, your body slows down or stops the movement of food.
Symptoms include nausea, vomiting, stomach pain, bloating, and acid reflux. Ulcer: This is a sore on the lining of your stomach peptic ulcer , small intestine, or esophagus.
Gastritis: This is inflammation of your stomach lining. Stomach cancer: This is a rare condition, but indigestion can be one of its signs. How is indigestion diagnosed? Can indigestion be prevented or avoided? Indigestion treatment Your treatment will depend on what is causing your indigestion. Antacids two brand names: Tums and Alka-Seltzer work against the acid in your system.
Indigestion may also be due to the lining of your digestive system being overly sensitive to acid, or the "stretching" caused by eating. Indigestion can also be triggered or made worse by other factors. Some of these are explained below. You may have indigestion if you take certain types of medication. Some medicines, such as nitrates taken to widen your blood vessels relax the oesophageal sphincter ring of muscle between your oesophagus and your stomach , which allows acid to leak back up.
Other medicines, such as non-steroidal anti-inflammatory drugs NSAIDs , can affect your digestive tract and cause indigestion. Do not take NSAIDs, such as aspirin and ibuprofen, if you have stomach problems, such as a stomach ulcer , or have had this in the past. Children under 16 years of age should not take aspirin.
Never stop taking a prescribed medication unless you are told to do so by your GP or another qualified healthcare professional who is responsible for your care.
If you are very overweight, you are more likely to experience indigestion because of increased pressure inside your stomach abdomen. The increased pressure, particularly after a large meal, may lead to acid reflux into the oesophagus. If you regularly experience feelings of stress or anxiety, this can contribute to symptoms of indigestion.
A hernia occurs when an internal part of the body, such as an organ, pushes through a weakness in the surrounding muscle or tissue wall.
A hiatus hernia occurs when part of your stomach pushes up into your diaphragm the sheet of muscle under your lungs. It may partially block refluxed stomach acid clearing from your oesophagus, leading to heartburn. Helicobacter infection is very common. It may lead to stomach ulcers or, rarely, stomach cancer.
In most cases, however, it does not cause any symptoms at all. Some people may get bouts of indigestion from helicobacter infection and, in these cases, getting rid of the bug with antibiotics eradication will help. However, many cases of indigestion are not caused by helicobacter, and in these cases eradication will not get rid of symptoms. Gastro-oesophageal reflux disease GORD is a common condition and one of the main causes of recurring indigestion.
It's caused by acid reflux, which occurs when the oesophageal sphincter fails to prevent stomach acid from moving back up into your oesophagus. A little bit of acid reflux is normal and rarely cause any symptoms. It becomes GORD when large amounts of reflux occur, and the sensitive lining of your oesophagus may get inflamed by repeated irritation from stomach acid.
This can lead to heartburn, the sensation of regurgitation or painful swallowing. A stomach ulcer is an open sore that develops on the inside lining of your stomach a gastric ulcer or small intestine a duodenal ulcer. If you have a stomach ulcer, you may have indigestion as a symptom. Stomach ulcers form when stomach acid damages the lining in your stomach or duodenum wall. In most cases, the lining is damaged as a result of an H pylori infection see above. In rare cases, recurring bouts of indigestion can be a symptom of stomach cancer.
Cancer cells in your stomach break down the protective lining, allowing acid to come into contact with your stomach wall. For most people, indigestion dyspepsia is mild and infrequent, and does not require treatment from a healthcare professional. However, if you have indigestion regularly, or if it causes you severe pain or discomfort, see your pharmacist.
Depending on the type of indigestion symptoms you have, your pharmacist may recommend you see your GP to investigate your condition further. This is because indigestion can sometimes be a symptom of an underlying condition or health problem, such as a Helicobacter pylori H pylori bacterial infection.
An endoscopy is a procedure used to examine the inside of your body using an endoscope — a thin, flexible tube, about the width of your little finger, with a light and a camera on one end. The camera is used to relay images of the inside of your body to a TV monitor. An endoscopy is not often needed to diagnose indigestion, but your GP may suggest that you have one if:. Taking certain medicines for indigestion can hide some of the problems that could otherwise be spotted during an endoscopy.
Therefore, for at least two weeks before your endoscopy, you will need to stop taking proton pump inhibitors PPIs and H2-receptor antagonists. Read more about treatments for indigestion. Your GP may also recommend changing other medications that may be causing your indigestion.
However, only stop taking medication if you are advised to do so by your GP or another healthcare professional responsible for your care. If your GP thinks that your symptoms may be due to an infection with H pylori bacteria, you may need to have a test for it, such as:. Antibiotics and PPIs can affect the results of a urea breath test or a stool antigen test. Therefore, these tests may need to be delayed until two weeks after you last used a PPI, and four weeks after you last used an antibiotic.
If your GP thinks that your indigestion symptoms may be caused by another underlying medical condition, you may need to have some further tests to rule this out. For example, abdominal pain and discomfort can also be caused by conditions affecting the bile ducts in your liver. Your bile ducts are a series of tubes that carry bile fluid used by the digestive system to break down fats from the liver to the gallbladder a pouch that holds bile and the bowel. If your GP thinks that you may have such a condition, they may suggest you have a liver function test, which is a type of blood test used to assess how well your liver is working.
You may also need to have an abdominal ultrasound. An ultrasound scan uses high-frequency sound waves to create an image of the inside of your body. Treatment for indigestion dyspepsia will vary, depending on what is causing it and how severe your symptoms are. If you have been diagnosed with an underlying health condition, you may want to read our information on:. If you only have indigestion occasionally, you may not need to see your pharmacist or GP for treatment.
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When you have indigestion, you may have one or more of the following symptoms: pain, a burning feeling, or discomfort in your upper abdomen feeling full too soon while eating a meal feeling uncomfortably full after eating a meal bloating burping Other symptoms may include burping up food or liquid loud growling or gurgling in your stomach nausea gas Sometimes when you have indigestion, you may also have heartburn.
When you have indigestion, you may have pain, a burning feeling, or discomfort in your upper abdomen.
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