Heartburn and Migraine

Many heartburn sufferers are intimately familiar with the word "trigger." Triggers are factors that can cause regurgitation of stomach contents. (Spicy foods, smoking and obesity are just a few examples.) But less attention has been given to how reflux disease itself can trigger other health problems.

When you eat, food travels from your mouth to your stomach through the esophagus. Acid reflux, commonly known as heartburn, occurs when food that you have eaten defies gravity, regurgitating back up into your esophagus. The stomach acid that comes with it can burn your throat, but it doesn't stop there. As if the painful symptoms in your throat weren't enough, one doctor has suggested that reflux can trigger certain types of migraines.

A headache expert, Dr. Egilius L.H. Spierings of Harvard Medical School (www.headachemd.com), described two patients in the September 2002 issue of the journal Cephalalgia. Both had gastroesophageal reflux disease (GERD) and experienced frequent migraines.