Recovery from Digestive issues (LPR, Dyspepsia)

I had struggled with major digestive issues for well over a year and lost 35 pounds because of it. I was convinced I had LPR (Silent Acid reflus), GERD, and IBS. I was able to get over other health issues in the past using Sarno's methods as I had back pain and nephropathy that I was able address but could not figure how to apply his work to digestive issues.

Here is a full list of symptoms i had

Chronic sore throat
Chronic hoarse voice
Chronic chest chest pain
chronic cough
non stop stomach and bowel pain nearly all day everyday
chronic heartburn and what felt like acid reflux
burning in my throat, stomach and chest (even had a burning tongue)
chronic bowel issues with lose bowels similar to IBS
weight loss
--------------------------------------------------

These symptoms came on after taking some strong headache medication that seem to mess up my stomach but I was also under stress and anxiety at the time. It took over a year for me to finally get over most of this stuff and it was a big struggle.

Over the course of the first 6 months I tried everything. I was on double dose of Nexium (Acid Suppressing PPI) which was not helping at all and causing cramps and other side effects. I also tried extreme diets for months such as low acid diet and foodmap etc... None of them really helped my issues and I lost a lost of weight and started looking very unhealthy.

I went to see a throat specialist to see if he could help with the chronic throat issues and he put a scope down my throat and said it was totally healthy but I was convinced it was burnt and scared form acid as my symptoms pointed to that. He told me to get a humidifier and that should help. My symptoms did improve after seeing him but not totally gone.

I also went to see a stomach specialist to see what was going on with my stomach and bowels. We did a scope of my stomach and he saw me afterwards and diagnosed me with "Functional Dyspepsia". Basically I had stomach digestion issues of an unknown cause. He offered me a low dose anti depressant that has been known to help with chronic heartburn and stomach issues as it calms the nerves. I decided not to take it as I didn't want to get hooked on more drugs as I found it difficult to get off the Nexium I was on. I had to wean for many weeks. So he gave me a flyer with very little info and wished me luck. From here at felt better that I didn't have any nasty underlying issues but my symptoms were not really any better. It took about another eight months to finally get over these symptoms and here is what worked for me.

1) I stopped going to LPR and Reflux health forums and googling cures and acid reflux symptoms and cures and I had started obsessing over this

2) I went through the TMS recovery program ( i really liked lesson 5 and listened to the audio on a daily basis) - the key message for me from the program is to practice outcome independence. -

3) I worked with an acupuncturist who did guided mediation with me. These sessions were amazing. After one 45 min sessions of guided breathing my throat issues showed improvement. I started meditating 2 times a day for 10 minutes. The key is not to mediate to try and take the pain anway it's really just to get better at staying in the moment and focusing on your breath without any expectations of results

4) I found success stories of people recovering from digestive issues and I read them daily to help reaffim people can heal

5) I worked with a new naturalpath who had me follow a very basic "BLAND DIET". It's essentially eating like a baby (bought baby food and made soups with it), I stopped eating any raw fruits or vegetables. Eating like a baby for 3 months or so really help calm and heal my stomach and helped my stomach calm down while I worked on changing my mindset about my stomach. I also had a warm glass of water with a splash of lemon every morning. This was a simple diet that I was able to gain weight on and follow easily.

6) I started trying to do many things I was avoiding due to stomach pains like going on vacation again and seeing friends. I stopped tying to live in so much fear of my stomach. I think fear was the main thing that kept my symptoms alive

7) I was kinder to myself. You don't yell at a child who is already hurt and that was hat I was doing. I kept blaming myself for not doing TMS right, not eating good enough, etc... you need to be kind to yourself. treat yourself like a hurt child who needs help and don't be so hard and critical on yourself as this won't help you get better.

The body is meat to be in a healthy state we just need to give it the right path to get there.

TMS recovery is very individual but what I've learned is that you need to find ways to relax your mind and body, not be hard on yourself and be okay doing things while you are in pain as you should not fear the pain. Only then will things get better.

I had major stomach pains while eating a few weeks ago I just did some deep breathing and actually kept eating the food I was having and did not panic about it. Within 15 minutes it was gone. I really hope this post can help others improve even if it's only a little.

 

Welcome @zeeman01 , and thank you for the truly excellent post! You have hit all the main points, and as someone whose TMS-induced digestive issues often sneak back to haunt me, I loved every single thing you said. I wish I could Like your post more than once.

~Jan

 

Hi Zee,

I love what you've written, and posting it will be a huge help to others. As Jan says, you've hit all the right places, but you know this, because it worked!!

Your journey to health is a classic example of skillful TMS work. It takes following one's own inner guidance, patience, education, experimentation, trust, and knowing that once you've successfully worked it on some symptoms, that it will work on others.

Bravo!! I am so happy for you.

You might enjoy my post, which I wrote to celebrate our understanding and encourage!

http://www.tmswiki.org/forum/threads/ease-trust-success-and-positive-loops.19807/ (Ease, trust, success, and positive loops)

Andy B

 

Thank you for sharing your story. I am in the depths of LPR despair and it makes no sense for a healthy person like me to have this. I’d love to chat if you’re willing. I’ve done it all like you said and know TMS is the answer for good, but this throat stinging and burning kills me

 

Wow, Zee, I'm so glad I found this! I've been battling with LPR and IBS and what is probably functional dyspepsia for about 18 months now. I lost 28 pounds, which really frightened me. I have been on The Acid Watcher Diet by Dr Jonathan Aviv (he's an ENT doctor based in NYC and wrote the book), but I can't seem to put on weight either. On top of this, however, I suffer from pelvic pain (pudendal neuralgia), for 10 years now, which pretty much took away much of my quality of life as the condition is very painful and affects all the pelvic floor organs--so this means no relationships (as in sexual), bladder voiding dysfunction, vaginal and perineum pain, not being able to sit for long, and other physical limitations. So it felt like adding insult to injury when I developed LPR and had to give up all the foods I used to love! These days I can't even go to a restaurant, and this has isolated me even more! The IBS, I had since my 20s, so I'm used to it (I'm now 57 years).

Aside for the above, I have other TMS type things, but the above are the main ones I live with every day. Re the LPR, unlike you, I didn't have any invasive tests because I was too frightened (as I had a bad experience once with an invasive test that could have killed me); so I ended up diagnosing myself; same with the functional dyspepsia.

One of my biggest fears is that I cannot put on any weight, but lately (due to so much anxiety and fear) my LPR symptoms started to come back. I should say that The Acid Watcher Diet helped me a lot in decreasing my symptoms, but if I eat anything outside of this I usually react almost straight away or a few hours later.

Lately I've developed this awful reflux, which feels like I swallowed Vick's Vaporub, and the fumes come up from the back of my throat, into my mouth, and they also travel to my right ear (I think this is the pepsin mist from the stomach). Anyway, I'm quite upset right now, but I don't want to go to any doctors or take any PPIs. I've been doing everything naturally so far, except for a bit of Gaviscon, which sometimes helps.

Your story gives me hope. I'm struggling with too many major issues, so when I get improvement on one issue, another one decides to wake up and give me hell. So in the last two years I've been going round and round and round in a cycle of awful symptoms, pain, fear and anxiety.

Tried Qigong, mindfulness, etc. It helps a bit, but I feel that I need to get to the point where I totally let go of all the fear. I thought I'd reached it, but then the LPR decided to come back with a vengeance, or I should say "this fumes thingy" came back, plus my IBS is playing up again! Needless to say, I am going through a bad phase, but like you, I'm keeping away from forums and from prescription drugs. Although I refuse to have a scope, I have the strong feeling that if I did have one they wouldn't be able to find anything wrong.

Oh, and did I mention I also suffer from chronic anxiety and panic attacks? Yes, I've been battling this since age 14! I think I'm a typical type for the likes of TMS

 

Hi Kira,

I can relate to the throat burning. It's one big scary symptom that I'm trying to overcome too.

 

Hey @Syl, please, please don't just try mindfullness. Get into to and give it time. Regular deep breathing will give you body a change to heal and recover. This takes a lot of practice but guided sessions can help also things like binural beats will help improve focus while mediating. it's really about focusing and being present with your breath so you are not focusing on all the other health stuff and the healing can start. Get back to doing things you love also and really get into them as this is also a form of mediation. You could also benefit from reading the book by Claire Weeks called Hope and Help for your nerves. I personally would quit the acid watcher diet. I started eating lots of apple pie and the weight came back on. The only thing I did was drink a warm glass of water with lemon and a pinch of baking soda in the morning before eating anything and then i would just eat easy foods to digest such as white bread, cooked apples and pears, pea soup. Any cooked fruits and vegetables will work. Food is tricky because I used to think that what I ate was 100% responsible for my symptoms but I really don't think that's the case. It was more that If i felt I was cheating or not following a good path I would get symptoms. For me it was more of a mindset issue then an actual food issue. Of course you shouldnt have a large pizza right before bed but your body is build to handle eating all kinds of foods. How are feeling when you consume those foods you think are bad? what is your thought process? Try to change it into something more positive. Good luck!

 

Hi @zeeman01, thank you for your response. I appreciate it. Only this morning, I got an email from Dr Howard Schubiner pretty much about the same thing in terms of foods and food intolerances being MBS (mind-body syndrome). I read his book, along with a whole lot of others, including Claire Weeks. Alan Gordon knows Dr Schubiner, and right now I'm going over Dr Schubiner's book a second time, which pretty much incorporates a lot of what Alan teaches as well as others such as Sarno, etc. This is what Dr Schubiner wrote to me:


Dr Schubiner’s response to my email re LPR and all its insidious symptoms


Yes, I have seen this kind of thing so many times, Sylvia.

LPR is really MBS; and fear of it will tend to make it worse; and you will develop new symptoms (as the "danger" neural circuits in your brain get more stimulated). That is what is happening to you!

These fumes and intolerances to mild foods are just more MBS. That is obvious.

I would suggest doing exactly what you did with the pelvic pain; i.e., stop fearing these symptoms.

Start gradually getting your life and your diet back. Introduce more foods gradually and keep telling yourself that you're fine, that these foods are fine; and you will be fine.

OK?

Best, Howard


Howard Schubiner, MD

Director, Mind Body Medicine Program, Department of Internal Medicine, Providence-Providence Park Hospital, Ascension Health, Southfield, Michigan, USA

Clinical Professor, Michigan State University College of Human Medicine

Website: unlearnyourpain.com

I also showed my doctor your post on how you recovered, and he was very impressed and agreed with what you did. He advised me to do the same. I printed your post and refer to it for help and reassurance. Thank you for sharing your story! I do understand what you say and on the whole I do follow these principles; at the same time, I'm trying to overcome decades of anxiety and panic, a whole decade of pelvic pain, decades of IBS and other tummy symptoms, and most recently this LPR thing that's been driving me insane. The weight loss made a huge impact on me, and made me fear this thing even more. I am now working on accepting that the weight loss is a mixture of anxiety and the very clean food I eat. As you yourself have experienced, putting on weight on the low acid diet is impossible. I am now experimenting a little with other foods, but I must say they sometimes give me bad symptoms, only because I fear them. I am retraining my brain not to fear it. It's a long process, and the brain isn't helping as when I overcome my fear about something the brain goes and changes symptoms, just to give me new fears! The brain, as Alan says, is very, very sneaky.

 

Wow Syl, it's awsome to have access to such great resources. I think you are on the right path with the advise and new mindset. Please continue to be kind to yourself and patient as that will help and get out there are enjoy life despite any pains or symptoms your are feeling!

 

Thank you, @zeeman01. I know the only way is to keep moving forward. Sometimes the challenges are huge, but it's always good to know there are so many people, such as Dr Schubiner, Alan Gordon, and people such as yourself who are themselves sufferers but who have inspired those of us on this journey toward healing! Like I said earlier, your story really inspired me, and it gave me the reassurance that I can overcome this. I know there will be "low" times, but that's when I will re-read your story and that of others, and also refer to material from Dr Schubiner, Alan Gordon, Dr Sarno, and others. I call this cognitive soothing!

 

Thank you all for this wonderful exchange. Very helpful to me for same symptoms and fears.

 

Hi Kira, I too am in LPR despair with a chronic dry cough (that's how it slowly started), throat clearing, a menthol type sensation when I breath in my throat, burping and difficulty speaking.

I fixed my chronic back pain issues witch my mind, I fixed my leg pain with my mind, my IBS with my mind and now I have this.

I guess my issue is not actually knowing if it's TMS or a serious underlying issue. I know that you have to believe 100 percent that is TMS like I did with my other problems.

How have you been doing?

 

Love your story.

Tiny bit of discomfort on left side stomach.. thats about it for me..and since I see u been thru it all with your post I was wondering if u ever had that kind of sharp ache once in a while there. Thank u

 

Hi all

Tiny bit of discomfort on left side stomach.. thats about it for me..and since I know everyone been thru it all with your posts I was wondering if u ever had that kind of sharp ache once in a while there. Thank u

 

I am still dealing with these symptoms but I know it’s TMS and I need to retrain my brain that these symptoms and pain is not important and it will go away. You mentioned it started with just a cough, and then probably once you became hyper focused, obsesses and scared, the symptoms grew and amplified. Would that be accurate? That’s how TMS works. It’s difficult but can be done. If you’ve had all those other TMS symptoms you can overcome this too.

 

Yeah I agree. It's the cough that is now arriving and not going away. I believe it's TMS 95% and that 5% is holding me back. I've been here before with other chronic issues so I know I can overcome. You can too. I am adding meditating practices in on a daily basis to calm the central nervous system in order to think clearly and calmly. Secondly I've started exercising a lot more which definitely seems to help with symptoms. It all works in conjunction with the mind

 

Hi @zeeman01 Thanks for posting your success story. I was diagnosed with LPR also and refer to your recovery to give myself hope.
Did you have trouble swallowing at any stage? My throat crunches or clicks from time to time. Think it might just be muscle tension.

 

I think we ALL have the doubts along the way as to whether we have TMS or a "real" issue that needs addressing. I have a combo of symptoms...digestion, anxiety, severe weight loss, post nasal drip, high cortisol with possible hashimotos...a mixture that I obcess over. I can't seem to let go of the fear that I might be ignoring something serious. Is it all stress??? I find things that seem intuitive like thyroid meds and recently LDN ( low dose naltrexone) and as soon as I ask my doc about them, she prescribes and i immediatly start doubting if that is the right approach. What a loop! Wish I could turn it off!

 

Dunno about thyroids meds, but LDN never helped me. To be honest I think it's placebo at best, without any physical impact
One week ago I went to yet another gastro doctor. I have stomach(and teeth) pain since 2011. It's one of the best gastro doctors in my area, actually chiropractor adviced me to go there. And you know what she said to me? That sure, maybe antibiotics I took(and I get pain right when I finished them) maybe initially were resposnsible for my pain, but now it's because of my nerve system. SHe asked about my parents, my childhood. It was the first medical doctor that asked such questions! She concluded that probably it's all because of my nerve system. So even some doctors are more inclined towards Sarno, Schubiner, Moskovitz etc approach
What I concluded after that visit is that probably pain didn't developed overnight(that's what I thought before). Sure, maybe antibiotics did something to me that was trigger, or more like something my brain could use to induce long lasting pain. But those neural pathways propably were developing like that since my childhood....
That always takes so much pressure off me. I don't have to find solution that will work RIGHT NOW. Just small steps in right directions are all I need... even if it takes years, so be it... but the most important thing is to doubt no more, to break of the loop.
Even if this not gonna work(and I believe it will!) just think about it - in for example 2025 do you wanna still be in loop or think something like 'I've tried it, it didn't work, but at least I know that I did what I could'
And if you stressing that you are ignoring something serious then do all the tests you need. No harm there, we all should get tested from time to time. Many diseases like cancer can be very treatable when discovered fast enough. But if this is really chronic - like in my example - then it's very doubtful it's something serious(well, TMS is serious too )

 

thank you, kozas. i have SERIOUS anxiety over having any conventional medical procedures done. i just don't trust that system. i will do blood tests and non-invasive anything but will not go through the poking and prodding like colonoscopies and such. i realize this is a risk, but i choose to take it. the LDN may or may not help, but it is the last thing i will try unless i need thyroid med, in which case i am willing to do that. that is the part that complicates everything. the variables involved in stress/cortisol/hormone imbalance are insurmountable to me and i get anxiety just thinking about it. i am convinced my stress and anxiety over all this downward health and the loop it has created is THE cause of at least most of my symptoms. thyroid issues are not tms, so i'm dealing with that separately. everything else i intuitively know is my mind, iow TMS. i have definitely given my nervous system a run for its money! combo platter. ugh!