Heartburn/Reflux symptoms only at late night?

[10thShore]

I start having terrible heartburn and reflux symptoms whenever I stay awake past 1 am... seems to be a rare situation since docs haven't given a reason for that...

The problem aggravates
1) the longer I stay up late, or
2)(if woke up from early sleep) the later I wake up (with peak at about 3 am; that is, if I went to bed early and woke up at 4 or 5 am, most likely I won't get any symptoms)

First I thought I could get rid of the pain by eating something soft or taking an antiacid, however, the problem persists and if I stay late the next night it comes back worse (and worse the following one, etc).

I ask you to please post anything that could explain this, which is preventing me from developing all of my career plans, which require regular late hours. Thank you.

[10thShore]

Yup. I

[10thShore]

That was a way of saying that my heartburn symptoms are triggered mostly in that time lapse.

[Jaybay]

If the other OTC remedies don't help your GERD (reflux) try  a proton pump inhibitor - also OTC - called Prilosec.  

Your symptoms sound like classic GERD to me, so I'm surprised your doc hasn't brought this up?

[10thShore]

Yes, the doc diagnosed it as GERD, but he (and others I talked about it as well) didn

[10thShore]

If I know I'm going to stay late, apart from 7-8 pm dinner, I eat something else at 10-12 pm. As to antiacids, I take Mylanta or Milk of Magnesia (both have simethicone I think), nothing with peppermint as it seems to aggravate symptoms in my case. However, I try to stick w/(soft) food as I'll need the extra strength for the night.

I do have raised the top of the bed about 6, 7 inches, and it surely helps.

This is kind of strange... I have seen experienced docs and none could come up with an explanation, they seemed even more puzzled than myself... some of the "explanations" that I have tried are

1) The tissue in the stomach, esophagus, and the valve between them somehow "gets tired" and does have to rest after 16 hs of activity.
2) Simply, the stomach needs to have something new in it every 5-6 hs, otherwise the gastric acids start accumulating and, little by little, coming up the esophagus
3) Extra gastric-acid activity takes place during our organism's sleep time, and if we stay awake, it just segregates an additional amount of these acids