Refractory Gastroesophageal Reflux Disease- Causes, Treatments and Medical tests

Refractory Gastroesophageal Reflux disease is used to refer to those patients with GERD who are unresponsive to treatment from proton pump inhibitors. Such patients are divided into two categories by the doctors:

• One those who have an aggressive form of GERD
• Other those who have GERD as a symptom of some other disease

A more aggressive treatment of Refractory GERD treatment does not necessarily mean that it has to be surgery. In fact, truth be told, people with refractory GERD do not respond too well to the surgery compared to the success rate in people who have previously responded well to medications. However that does mean that surgery won't work for you at all. Treatments like fundolication work for most people but the surgeon has to weigh the risk and complications of the surgery with the possible advantages to patient before taking the final decision.

But before considering surgery, your doctor would try to keep going the medication way by probably doubling the doses of PPIs to two rather than the tradition one time. He may also increase the strength of dosage.

Most important is to keep your Acid Reflux in control at night. This is when your stomach is parallel to the force of gravity and therefore the chances of your stomach juice flowing back increases. For this you should take a look at some precautions you should take at night to prevent acid reflux.
A few fingertips to prevent Acid Reflux at night are:

1. Elevate your head at around 6 inches when sleeping by way of something hard like books.
2. Sleep on your left side and not on your stomach or right side.
3. Keep a difference of 3 hours between your meal and sleep.
4. Eat light at night.

Even after the aggressive treatment of methods for heartburn if it does not go away then the doctors would take look at other possible reasons of Acid Reflux.
These can be digestive disorders like hiatal hernias or motility disorders.

A doctor may also prescribe medical tests to diagnose the reason of aggressive Acid Reflux.

Refractory Gastroesophageal Reflux disease is very rare. If even after testing home remedies for acid reflux and proton pump inhibitors your acid reflux doesn't go away then you should consult your physician and decide the future course of action.