If you suffer from gastroesophageal reflux disease (GERD), you may develop a symptom called water brash. This happens when your body makes too much saliva, causing it to mix with your stomach acid and back up into your throat.
Water brash may also be called pyrosis idiopathica, acid brash, or hypersalivation. It appears to be similar to regurgitation, but it isn’t. Regurgitation is a mixture of stomach acid and undigested food. It’s more common with GERD than water brash.
This can be confusing because if undigested food is present when an instance of water brash occurs, it may come up into your esophagus. The main difference is that water brash is accompanied by excessive salivation while regurgitation is not. Water brash causes you to have heartburn and may lead to a bad taste in your mouth.
GERD symptoms develop because your body’s normal functions that keep stomach acid in your stomach stop working properly. Oftentimes, it’s the lower esophageal sphincter, a flap that keeps stomach contents down, that stops functioning and causes symptoms.
You also have a phrenico-esophageal ligament connecting the tissue between your esophagus and your diaphragm. It’s designed to manage the movements of swallowing. If this ligament sustains damage, it may lead to symptoms of GERD, like water brash, impacting you.
Some medical research shows that excessive saliva production is your body’s response to acid in your esophagus. It activates as a way of addressing the acid but can worsen your condition instead.
When you eat and swallow, muscles in your esophagus contract to push food down into your stomach. The lower esophageal sphincter opens to allow food into your stomach but usually shuts afterward to prevent contents from going upward.
GERD occurs when your stomach contents flow back up into your esophagus, a path that is usually blocked. It’s common for some food to back up temporarily into your esophagus right after eating. But it happens so briefly that you may not even notice it.
If food backs up into your esophagus too often, it can damage the tissue, leading to inflammation and worsening symptoms. Long-term damage may also occur if the food that backs up contains too much acid.
Water brash is one of the less common symptoms of GERD. Other more common symptoms include:
You’re at an increased risk for developing GERD if you:
You may also have health conditions affecting your esophagus that lead to GERD and water brash. Esophageal stricture, or the narrowing of your esophagus, is caused by scar tissue that narrows the passageway food uses from your mouth to your stomach.
An open sore called an esophageal ulcer may form and bleed, causing pain and inflammation. Barrett’s esophagus is a chronic condition that increases your risk of esophageal cancer because of persistent damage to the area.
There are many over-the-counter (OTC) medications that may help manage your water brash symptoms. Talk to your doctor about your symptoms before starting a new medication. They may have a recommendation for something that can address multiple symptoms if your GERD causes other issues. These may include antacids, proton pump inhibitors, or histamine-2 receptor antagonists.
If your symptoms persist for longer than two weeks, your doctor may refer you to a specialist, like a gastroenterologist. Goals of GERD treatment include:
Your doctor may also recommend lifestyle choices that impact water brash symptoms, including:
SOURCES:
GI Associates: “GERD.”
Mayo Clinic: “Gastroesophageal reflux disease (GERD).”
OPA: “What is water brash?”
How it starts, and how to stop it.
Get lifestyle and diet tips.
Medication options.
Symptoms of both.
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