PITTSBURGH -- The University of Pittsburgh Medical Center has begun offering a new, incisionless procedure for people suffering from chronic heartburn.

For patients like 53-year-old Wayne Sera, the pain from severe heartburn or gastric reflux is all too familiar.

Sera suffered a backflow of stomach acid into his esophagus for 10 years until he had trouble swallowing.

“There was a loss of weight -- I wasn't sleeping well until this past February. I actually thought I was having a heart attack,” said Wayne Sera, a heartburn patient.

Medications can often help symptoms but not the reflux.

Sometimes drugs don’t help at all, but there’s a new option for patients.

For years doctors have used minimally invasive surgical techniques to treat gastric reflux.

Now they don't even have to do that.

A new form of surgery, known as EsophX, requires no cutting at all.

Dr. Blair Jobes, a UPMC thoracic surgeon, is one of three performing the procedure.

Jobes said it’s not for patients with Hiatal hernias caused by the top of the stomach migrating up into the chest.

“We're only working from the inside, and so when we fix a Hiatal hernia, we have to take down a lot of the tissue surrounding the esophagus and the esophageal junction,” said Jobes.

The tubular device sits over a standard endoscope, and is inserted into the mouth, down the esophagus, and into the stomach.

As the stomach is inflated for surgery, tiny instruments are deployed to grab the stomach tissue and reconstruct the valve.

Surgeons then fire stiff clips in a circle to tighten the once floppy valve.

The procedure takes 30 minutes to an hour and the patient can go home the next morning.

The surgery is so new that Sera couldn’t take advantage of it, but would definitely explore the option should trouble arise again.

“All the way around I can see advantages going this way,” said Sera.