Taimoor Rana is seasoned criminal defense attorney specializing in DUI related cases. He shares his expert legal opinion here « Breath Test Results Can Be Raised Because Of GERD
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- There is a possibility if any person is having GERD, can have high breath test result. It’s difficult to say why it will get high, but with GERD, breath test result can be as much as 100% high. However the breath test result ranges between 20% and 80% high.
Commonly GERD (Gastro Esophageal Reflux Disease) is known as heart burn. The main reason why breath test falsely becomes high is because with GERD, the machine does not measure breath alcohol or deep lung air. The machine in fact measures the alcohol gases or vapors erupting from the stomach into the mouth which are then blown into the breath analyzer.So, the results gets high as machine is measuring stomach gas alcohol instead of deep lung air.
One more problem that occurs is that machine measures the mouth alcohol instead of lung air. It’s because of GERD raw alcohol erupts to mouth and that makes the result high too.
So remember that if you are having GERD and you’ve been arrested for DUI, knowing the GERD has impact on breath results, then you must prove the truth and under confirmatory testing.
For confirmatory test you will go under the endoscopy. In this test, a small catheter is inserted from mouth to your esophagus and then photographs of esophagus and the Lower Esophageal Sphincter (LES) are taken.
After the completion of the test, the specialist will see the results and will determine if there is evidence of damage caused by acid erupting into esophagus from the stomach. The photographs taken through endoscopy will also be checked if there is hiatal hernia which increases the likelihood of GERD due to mechanical and motility factors.
If in endoscopy it’s revealed that the person is having GERD condition with a constant reflux/regurgitation. This medical result plays a major role for declining the breath test result.
Conclusion:
If you are arrested for DUI and have GERD and also charged with OWI based on UBAL (unlawful bodily alcohol level), then it means you are convicted wrongly. The best for you is to have complete knowledge about GERD.
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