Keeping a Heartburn Diary
Updated June 09, 2015.
Written or reviewed by a board-certified physician. See About.com's Medical Review Board.
When you suffer from heartburn, especially if it is frequent, it's important to find out what could be triggering it. Keeping a heartburn diary can help you determine what your triggers are, allowing you to avoid them and ultimately easing your heartburn symptoms.
Before we discuss keeping a heartburn diary, or log, we should consider the reasons a person may have frequent symptoms of heartburn.
Occasional heartburn is fairly common, but frequent heartburn may be a sign of a more serious problem called gastroesophageal reflux disease (GERD), a chronic condition caused by irritating stomach acids that back up into the esophagus.
The esophagus and stomach are connected by a band of muscle fibers called the lower esophageal sphincter (LES). Normally, the LES works like a valve, opening to allow food to pass into the stomach, and closing to keep food and digestive juices from flowing back into the esophagus. But if the sphincter relaxes when it shouldn't, or becomes weak, stomach acid can flow backward into the esophagus, causing the burning sensation we know as heartburn.
Having a hiatal hernia can also contribute to heartburn. A hiatal hernia is a condition in which there is an opening in the diaphragm — the muscular wall below the lungs that separates the chest cavity from the abdominal cavity, permitting the upper stomach to protrude through the hole into the chest and impairing the LES's ability to prevent reflux.
There are several things that can trigger heartburn, including eating "trigger foods" such as acidic foods (e.g. tomatoes and citrus fruits), drinking alcoholic beverages, and smoking cigarettes.
Because every individual is different, there isn't one list of heartburn triggers that will apply to everyone.
I've listed some guidelines below, but it's important that you find out what your own triggers are. For this reason, you should keep a heartburn diary or record. You can use the log at the preceding link, or you can create your own. Jotting everything down in a small notepad will also work. Whenever you experience heartburn, write down whether it occurred after a meal and what you ate, whether you were exercising or doing some other activity, and so forth. You will need to keep a record of your heartburn episodes for a week or two to give you an idea of what is triggering them.
When people think of things that cause heartburn, they most often think of food, a notion that's often backed up by commercials for various heartburn remedies showing someone eating, and then having a problem with heartburn, as a result of that food. So we'll concentrate on that first. But before you can hope to eliminate your food triggers, you need to know how to find out which ones those are. Some of the foods that cause my own heartburn may be completely safe for you to eat. On the other hand, some of the foods I have no problems with may be impossible for you to eat without causing a five-alarm fire in your chest.
You will need to determine which foods cause you problems, and which foods are safe for you to eat. Below are a couple of lists, one of foods safe for most heartburn sufferers to eat and one of foods most heartburn sufferers have to limit. These can help get you started.
A partial list of foods that I have found to be tolerable:
Foods that heartburn sufferers may need to limit:
And then there are some things we do each day without thinking that may cause us distress, like going to bed too soon after eating at night, or lying flat on our backs when we go to bed. We may need to change a few things to avoid having nighttime heartburn, or adjustments may be necessary to avoid heartburn during exercise. There are also other lifestyle modifications we can make that can reduce our chances of suffering from heartburn.
If you aren't sure what's triggering your heartburn even after keeping a log for a couple weeks, you can take your records to your doctor, and together you may be able to find the troublemakers.
__________
Related Resources:
Sources:
American Journal of Gastroenterology, "Updated Guidelines for the diagnosis and Treatment of Gastroesophageal Reflux Disease." The American College of Gastroenterology
"Heartburn, Gastroesophageal Reflux (GER), and Gastroesophageal Reflux Disease (GERD)." NIH Publication No. 07–0882 May 2007. National Digestive Diseases Information Clearinghouse (NDDIC).
Sklar, Jill and Cohen, Annabel: Eating for Acid Reflux: Marlowe & Company; Imprint of Avalon Publishing Group, Inc. 2003, ISBN: 1569244928.
Written or reviewed by a board-certified physician. See About.com's Medical Review Board.
When you suffer from heartburn, especially if it is frequent, it's important to find out what could be triggering it. Keeping a heartburn diary can help you determine what your triggers are, allowing you to avoid them and ultimately easing your heartburn symptoms.
Before we discuss keeping a heartburn diary, or log, we should consider the reasons a person may have frequent symptoms of heartburn.
Occasional heartburn is fairly common, but frequent heartburn may be a sign of a more serious problem called gastroesophageal reflux disease (GERD), a chronic condition caused by irritating stomach acids that back up into the esophagus.
The esophagus and stomach are connected by a band of muscle fibers called the lower esophageal sphincter (LES). Normally, the LES works like a valve, opening to allow food to pass into the stomach, and closing to keep food and digestive juices from flowing back into the esophagus. But if the sphincter relaxes when it shouldn't, or becomes weak, stomach acid can flow backward into the esophagus, causing the burning sensation we know as heartburn.
Having a hiatal hernia can also contribute to heartburn. A hiatal hernia is a condition in which there is an opening in the diaphragm — the muscular wall below the lungs that separates the chest cavity from the abdominal cavity, permitting the upper stomach to protrude through the hole into the chest and impairing the LES's ability to prevent reflux.
There are several things that can trigger heartburn, including eating "trigger foods" such as acidic foods (e.g. tomatoes and citrus fruits), drinking alcoholic beverages, and smoking cigarettes.
Because every individual is different, there isn't one list of heartburn triggers that will apply to everyone.
I've listed some guidelines below, but it's important that you find out what your own triggers are. For this reason, you should keep a heartburn diary or record. You can use the log at the preceding link, or you can create your own. Jotting everything down in a small notepad will also work. Whenever you experience heartburn, write down whether it occurred after a meal and what you ate, whether you were exercising or doing some other activity, and so forth. You will need to keep a record of your heartburn episodes for a week or two to give you an idea of what is triggering them.
When people think of things that cause heartburn, they most often think of food, a notion that's often backed up by commercials for various heartburn remedies showing someone eating, and then having a problem with heartburn, as a result of that food. So we'll concentrate on that first. But before you can hope to eliminate your food triggers, you need to know how to find out which ones those are. Some of the foods that cause my own heartburn may be completely safe for you to eat. On the other hand, some of the foods I have no problems with may be impossible for you to eat without causing a five-alarm fire in your chest.
You will need to determine which foods cause you problems, and which foods are safe for you to eat. Below are a couple of lists, one of foods safe for most heartburn sufferers to eat and one of foods most heartburn sufferers have to limit. These can help get you started.
A partial list of foods that I have found to be tolerable:
- Apples
- Bananas
- Baked potatoes
- Broccoli
- Carrots
- Green beans
- Peas
- Lean ground beef
- Lean pork tenderloin
- Lean pork chops
- Lean turkey
- Lean ham
- Skinless chicken breasts
- Fish
- Eggs
- Low-fat cheeses (in moderation)
- Bread
- Corn bread
- Rice
- Pasta
- Decaffeinated, non-carbonated beverages
- Non-citrus fruit juices
- Water
Foods that heartburn sufferers may need to limit:
- Fried (greasy) foods
- High fat meats
- Butter and margarine
- Mayonnaise
- Creamy sauces
- Salad dressings
- Whole-milk dairy products
- Chocolate
- Peppermint
- Caffeinated beverages (e.g. soft drinks, coffee, tea, cocoa)
- Caffeinated beverages
- Carbonated beverages
- Alcohol
- Spicy foods
- Black pepper
- Citrus fruit and juices (e.g. orange, grapefruit)
- Tomato juice
And then there are some things we do each day without thinking that may cause us distress, like going to bed too soon after eating at night, or lying flat on our backs when we go to bed. We may need to change a few things to avoid having nighttime heartburn, or adjustments may be necessary to avoid heartburn during exercise. There are also other lifestyle modifications we can make that can reduce our chances of suffering from heartburn.
If you aren't sure what's triggering your heartburn even after keeping a log for a couple weeks, you can take your records to your doctor, and together you may be able to find the troublemakers.
__________
Related Resources:
- Lifestyle modifications
- Dietary changes
- Controlling nighttime heartburn
- Gerd
- Hiatal hernias
- Foods with little risk of causing heartburn
- Dining out without heartburn
- Heartburn-free picnics
- Heartburn-free school lunches
- Tips For Controlling Heartburn At Party Gatherings
- Why Heartburn Happens
- 10 Things to Stop Doing If You Suffer From Heartburn
Sources:
American Journal of Gastroenterology, "Updated Guidelines for the diagnosis and Treatment of Gastroesophageal Reflux Disease." The American College of Gastroenterology
"Heartburn, Gastroesophageal Reflux (GER), and Gastroesophageal Reflux Disease (GERD)." NIH Publication No. 07–0882 May 2007. National Digestive Diseases Information Clearinghouse (NDDIC).
Sklar, Jill and Cohen, Annabel: Eating for Acid Reflux: Marlowe & Company; Imprint of Avalon Publishing Group, Inc. 2003, ISBN: 1569244928.
