Stomach Problems/ Acid Reflux gone

I want to make a quick post here for encouragement. I honestly don't care about this much anymore (which is where you need to be in order to get better) but I thought I should post my success story at last. You can look at my old posts to see about my problem. It had really taken over my life for about three and a half years. I barely went an hour during those years without thinking about my stomach symptoms, being upset about it, etc.

Despite knowing about TMS and having read Sarno some years earlier (helped me to get rid of a neck problem which dominated my life similarly between 2014-2016), I was not able to overcome my stomach problem myself. Re-reading Sarno and all other books I had didn't help, all attempts to convince myself the problem was psychological or that I had no legitimate disease/disorder were futile. I spent thousands of hours over those years looking up symptoms online, mostly trying to convince myself that it was like my neck problem had been - i.e. of psychological origin. I would compulsively look up "Gerd psychological" and such things online, try to find studies connecting depression or anxiety to GERD or functional dyspepsia.

Another thing was that I was constantly trying to convince myself that what I had was "functional dyspepsia" rather than "GERD" because it seemed to me that the former was more likely to be nervous or psychological while the latter could be due to a physical weakness of the lower esophageal sphincter or a hiatal hernia.

I had (mostly early on, in 2021) basically every test that could be used for this problem. First an endoscopy (which revealed some small amounts of irritation in my stomach and esophagus, but no esophagitis or hiatal hernia), a barium swallow test, a HIDA scan to rule out the gall bladder, a SIBO test showing I (allegedly) had SIBO - I then took antibiotics with no change. Later I had a manometry and finally a BRAVO ph test where a capsule is placed in the esophagus to measure acid levels and confirm the presence or absence of pathological acid reflux.

Most of these tests were borderline. Some signs of reflux, some irritation, no hiatal hernia on the first three ones but then (when they did an endoscopy to put the BRAVO capsule in) they supposedly found a "very small" hiatal hernia. The BRAVO test was just over the borderline of normal acid levels.

As I said no psychological methods were helping, medicine like PPI also did nothing. I tried some antidepressant which is used specifically for stomach problems and while it did help a bit I didn't want to take it forever. As late as summer 2024 I was really upset about my reflux/stomach problem, spiraling, etc., like I am sure many people are acquainted with.

Finally I just got lucky. I couldn't overcome the problem with this forum, with Sarno books, with "journalling" (which never really helped). Part of the problem is that most of the literature deals with musculoskeletal pain, rather than things like GERD. Sarno mentions it but does not focus on it.

In desperation I made an appointment with a surgeon. Part of the reason is that it was very difficult to get an appointment with a (non-surgeon) GI doctor. I had had a couple and they were also completely useless. Saying things like take more PPI or "chew gum" or just "well we have done all the tests so I don't know what to tell you." It was a lot easier to get an appointment with a surgeon.

So I met with this guy whose job is to do fundoplications or other gastric surgeries. And he looked at my test results and said I shouldn't have a GERD surgery and if any other doctor wanted to do the surgery I should call him first. He was not a Sarno doctor but he clearly understood the psychological /nervous basis of many stomach problems. He didn't directly say that my symptoms were psychological but he did say they could not harm me. In fact he said something to the effect of "you can live forever with this and it won't harm you, but you don't have to" (saying we will find a way to get rid of it). He wanted to do one more test, a stomach emptying test (which I later did). He said there is nothing anatomically wrong with me that their tests could discover and said that my burping is what pushed my PH test results just over the border of normal. The idea of the stomach emptying test was that my stomach is just not operating properly, which I felt was also of nervous origin.

Essentially, without being a doctor who specializes in psychological explanations for physical disorders, he let me know that that was the case - and this despite the fact that he is a surgeon who has an incentive to find operable problems. And when I left the appointment I felt very happy and thought it was likely my problem would be gone.

It took maybe a couple days before that was the case. Obviously I had had good days and bad ones before but it was different since my mind was now at ease, far more than I could ever convince myself. By the time I did the stomach emptying test a couple weeks later I thought it was a formality. When I had my followup appointment I simply told him the problem was much better and that I thought it was because of the things he said - he seemed to understand this.

This was early August of this year and I have hardly thought about my stomach since then. I still burp (I think) more than I did before this problem ever started, but even that has decreased to well within normal range (after previously burping hundreds of times a day). I had maybe a couple of instances when I had some brief discomfort in my chest after eating, but it has become a non-factor in my life.

I was reading old emails and saw how upset I was about this even in July 2024, my descriptions of my symptoms then, etc. And it has completely disappeared since then. It's a pity that I spent those years 2021-2024 suffering over this, but maybe I just needed to.

I don't know what to say for someone else in the same situation. I couldn't overcome it on my own. The deep suspicion that there is something wrong with you is something that is hard to defeat. A doctor on the other hand has the authority of their title and their word can dispel the illusion in a moment. As soon as you believe on a subconscious level that you are okay, then your symptoms go away quickly. Hopefully this post can help some who haven't been lucky to find a good doctor to do the same.

 

Hi! thank you for sharing this. I am also dealing with a lot of stomach problems right now, mainly excessive gas and burping. What are somethings that eased your mind or got you out of this?

 

Thank you so much for this post!! Been dealing with reflux for years off and on, but daily for the past year. I totally relate with "Part of the problem is that most of the literature deals with musculoskeletal pain, rather than things like GERD. Sarno mentions it but does not focus on it." So it's very helpful to hear what worked for you

 

Thanks for writing this. I'm struggling with something similar. Can I ask, were you on any diet restrictions beforehand to manage the reflux? I've recently basically been living on chicken and rice to control the discomfort. I have that ph monitoring test thing coming up soon. I'm just wondering if I should be on a restricted diet or not because the idea is to act as though you're already better, how did you manage the symptoms that maybe are worsened by certain foods?

 

This sounds like the exact problem i am dealing with. Numerous meds, tests, scoped 3 times, and no relief. They are calling it functional dyspepsia. And all i do is worry it's gonna become cancerous.

 

@mdh157- I had something similar and the problem started with food poisoning, but then became TMS. I tried PPI's etc. and then finally when the volcano in my stomach didn't give up, I saw a GI doctor and had a scope. I told him of some things going on in my life, wondering if that could be the problem, (read that as TMS). The scope came out fine with only a comment of possible mild gastritis. I sent him an email and asked if stress could be a factor with and he wrote back, no, So, I finally had a light bulb moment and realize it was tms back again. I got right on it and along with doing the tms work also read a great book by Albert Ellis - How to Stubbornly Refuse to Make Yourself Miserable, and learned Rational Emotive Behavioral Therapy. It works very very very well with TMS!! Give it a try.