Pennsylvania DUI Gastroesophageal Reflux Disease

Do you suffer from GERD? Have you recently been charged with DUI in Pennsylvania? If so, please contact our attorneys right away. GERD is a medical condition that could have changed the results of your breath test and we can use this as a defense to your DUI charge.

Many people are unaware that they even have GERD. Instead, they take over-the-counter medications to alleviate their indigestion or heartburn while others have a prescription medication to relieve their symptoms. However, these medications are not the cure to GERD. Gastroesophageal Reflux Disease means that you have a continuous flow of alcoholic gas that flows from your stomach up into your mouth. So even when you haven’t had one alcoholic drink, GERD can cause a breath test machine to make it seem as though you have been drinking. Or, if you’ve had a small amount of alcohol and you have GERD, it’s likely your blood alcohol content will be higher than the state’s legal limit of .08% causing you to be arrested for DUI!

Here’s how inaccurate your breath test results could be. Let’s say you had an actual blood alcohol content of .02%. With GERD, the breath test machine may say that you have a BAC of anywhere from .12% to .14%--well over the legal limit of .08%! And unfortunately, the breath test machines are not able to detect the GERD disease. It’s simply designed to measure the alveolar air from your lungs. So when you blow into the machine, the device is assuming the air is coming directly from your lungs—not from another source like your stomach, which is the case with GERD. And when the alcoholic gas from your stomach mixes with any alcohol that may be in your lungs, it causes your blood alcohol content to seem much higher.

How your attorney can help

Because we specialize in the defense of DUI, we understand the complexities of the GERD disease. If it’s determined that you have GERD, we will bring this to the attention of the judge as your defense to failing a breath test.