Heartburn can be quite uncomfortable at times with the pressure in your chest and pain so bad you might think you are having a heart attack. This pressure can even radiate into your back or your arm and may cause numbness.

As a matter of fact people often mistake the symptoms of heartburn for signs of a heart attack. However pain from a heart attack is made worse by physical activity, and is usually accompanied by one or more of the following: chest pressure, shortness of breath, fatigue, totals loss of energy, nausea, or vomiting. Other symptoms may also be present.

On the other hand heartburn is not usually caused by physical activity. However, if you think you are having a heart attack, or you're not quite sure, it's important that you seek medical attention immediately, call 911.

People that experience heartburn usually have damaged the delicate cells of their esophagus which it is very easy to correct, once they know exactly how it got damaged in the first place.

Most people today have a very busy life and they tend to rush everything they do, and this would also include eating.

It's such a RUSH-RUSH world that people don't stop to enjoy their food and they take even less time chewing up the foods they do eat. Considering that we extract most of our vitamins and minerals from our food during the chewing process it's not really healthy to gulp our food down until it is entirely chewed-up, because we are missing out on valuable nutrients that our bodies need to function properly.

Harsh and crunchy foods such as crackers, toast, nuts, popcorn, sports bars, and other crunchy foods will actually scratch and damage the delicate cells of the esophagus when you swallow if they haven't been completely chewed!

When we swallow, our food is forced down our esophagus and into the stomach by a wavy squeezing motion. The medical term for this is ?peristalsis.? Picture squeezing the contents out of a sausage casing. The sausage meat is pressing against the casing as you force it out.

Our esophagus works much the same way and if we fail to completely chew our food up before we swallow, then any bits of harsh or crunchy food are going to scratch or damage the delicate cells of our esophagus when we swallow. This damage is usually in the form of tiny cuts or lesions.

Then when we swallow acidic beverages like coffee, orange juice, tomato juice, or acidic foods they will come in direct contact with these sores or lesions and the result is pain. It's much like spilling vinegar on a cut . . . it will sting or cause a burning sensation.

A simple burp will even expel acidic stomach gases into our esophagus and when these gases come in contact with the damage in our esophagus, the result is a pain or burning sensation behind the breastbone. People that don't have any damage to their esophagus can burp and the gases are expelled up the esophagus with no pain symptoms what so ever.

Even if we don't belch and we are just suffering from indigestion and bloating the acidic stomach gases can seep past the Lower Esophageal Sphincter valve and reflux into our esophagus. When they come in contact with any damage that is present we will experience pain or a burning sensation. It is very rare that the actual liquid contents of our stomach reflux into the esophagus it is usually just the acidic stomach gases which contribute to heartburn.