Misdiagnosed? 5 Signs it's your Hiatal Hernia

[00:00:00]You've been to the doctor, you've got a diagnosis, maybe more than one, and you were given medication. Maybe an acid blocker, something for anxiety, an inhaler, something for your bowels, but you still have the same symptoms you walked in with. Here's what almost nobody tells you. Your diagnosis may not be wrong, it's just incomplete because there's a mechanical problem underneath it that nobody checked, and the drugs you've been given are just treating the symptoms. I'm going to show you five symptoms that are either caused by a hiatal hernia or the hiatal hernia is making them worse. And number three is where the research is finally catching up. So, first of all, let's start with what is a hiatal hernia. What we've got is your stomach, and your stomach, there's a tube that connects your mouth to your stomach.

[00:00:47]It's called your esophagus. So, this tube right here is your esophagus. It starts in your throat, goes all the way down, and it's what brings food and drink into your stomach. Now, this horizontal line is your diaphragm.

[00:00:59]That's your breathing muscle. What we've got is the stomach. It's just left of center in your body. It's sitting comfortably below that breathing muscle called the diaphragm. That's this horizontal line, and the esophagus. And there's got to be an opening in the diaphragm for the esophagus to pass through. So, all of this is normal. Now, a hiatal hernia, a hiatus is just an opening. That's normal. A hernia is something coming up through an opening which should not. So, in this case, the stomach, you can see, has pushed up above the diaphragm. Here it's correctly below, but here you've got this bulge of stomach that's pushed up above the diaphragm. So, the stomach where it belongs, the stomach where it goes. So, let's start with sign number one, bloating, constipation, diarrhea, blamed on IBS. I'm not going to tell you your IBS diagnosis is fake, but you should know what the label actually means. IBS is a diagnosis of exclusion, meaning they looked for a lot of things being wrong, they couldn't find any, so they gave you the diagnosis of IBS. IBS only explains what you're feeling, irritable bowel syndrome. It doesn't explain why.

[00:02:18]The part that nobody connects is that when you have gas, it has to go somewhere. When bacteria in your small intestine ferment, that produces gas, and that gas tends to push outward, you get distension, and upward, which can lead to a hiatal hernia. So, we've got the bloating, what about the constipation and the diarrhea? We go back to those bad organisms that have been fermenting.

[00:02:41]When your digestive tract is working correctly, any bad bacteria that enter the stomach, the acid in your stomach kills them. So, then they don't get to propagate in your stomach, you know, happily multiply, and they don't then move down through the rest of your digestive tract. It's all about these bacteria, and when they you have too many bad guys, then you can get constipation and or diarrhea. And if you have the type of IBS that leans toward constipation, there's that type, things are moving too slowly, or you're so irritated, things are passing really quickly cuz the body's like, there's a lot of bad guys here, I just want them out of me, and you get the diarrhea. Or, you get the alternating, diarrhea back and forth. So, the label is given to you, irritable bowel syndrome, it's kind of like, yeah, no kidding, I get that it's irritating. It's just the why that's not explained. And how it connects to hiatal hernia is this gas and bloat is is pushing the stomach up.

[00:03:42]If you've been collecting diagnoses for years with nobody connecting the dots, that's exactly what we do here at Root Cause Medical Clinic. We work with patients across the country through telemedicine. So, no matter where you're listening to this, we can help. The link is below. Let's go on to number two. So, number two is heartburn and reflux.

[00:04:04]You have those symptoms and it's like, "Okay, you have GERD." which is acid reflux. And then what you're given is the PPI. The problem with this diagnosis of you've got GERD, you've got acid reflux is it's a dead end because nobody's asking the question, "Why is the acid going up in the first place?"

[00:04:22]Now, it's when pressure is exerted on that stomach, it's supposed to be a bag of acid. It's just when it's squeezed, when pressure is being exerted upon it, then the acid moves upwards and you get the symptom of heartburn and the burning because your esophagus is not designed to have acid bathing it. Your stomach is designed to have acid bathing it. That's its very job. There's a lot of side effects to PPI, proton pump inhibitor drugs. Now that we're talking about the side effects of PPIs, let's let's delve a little bit deeper. Why do you have stomach acid in the first place? Two very important reasons. One, we were talking about a little bit with the IBS, which is that that acid is there to kill bad organisms. The other reason you have acid is that the acid allows you to absorb certain key minerals and vitamins, calcium, magnesium, iron, zinc, folate, and vitamin B12. That's why when you are taking PPIs for longer than just a couple of months, the side effects are, okay, you're not absorbing calcium, you're likely to get brittle bones, which can lead to fractures. There's a kidney disease association. Why are infections increased? Because you're not killing the bad organisms and they're perpetuating. These are very important vitamins and minerals that are not substantively absorbed elsewhere in your digestive tract. You've got one chance to absorb them, and that's because you have enough stomach acid. And if you're on the PPI, you don't, and then there's these long-term effects. I talk about this valve. So, you this is lower esophageal sphincter. A sphincter is just a valve. There's a lower one, there's also an upper one up near your throat. Now, these valves are mostly closed, but when they sense food or drink coming, they open, they let it pass, and then they close again. But now we're talking about reflux. So, let's look at what's happening. So, you have the valve of the esophagus that's designed to prevent reflux because it's closed with a nice downward pressure.

[00:06:30]There's also your diaphragm. We mentioned there's an opening in your diaphragm. There's an anti-reflux valve in your diaphragm, not just in your esophagus. So, you've got this lower esophageal sphincter, and it and where it's located is right where the esophagus, just before the esophagus connects to the stomach, right at that juncture, and right where your esophagus passes through your diaphragm. So, you've got the lower esophageal sphincter, and the diaphragm itself acts as another valve that basically backs up the esophagus. So, you have this two-tiered system as an anti-reflux barrier.

[00:07:10]So, what happens when the stomach gets pushed up is now the valve has gotten pushed up, right? Because the valve is right where the esophagus and the stomach meet. So, now, because the stomach got pushed up, the valve has moved upward, but the diaphragm is is still in the same place, of course. So, that redundancy, that backup system, it's lost because now they're separate.

[00:07:35]And as the reflux continues, this valve gets weaker and weaker, and so it's much easier for for reflux, for for acid to come upward. Let's go on to number three. Shortness of breath, wheezing, air hunger, and that's blamed on asthma or COPD. It's very commonly seen in smokers. It's very important if you have any breathing issues to get checked out.

[00:08:00]So, we're not jumping to hiatal hernia.

[00:08:02]Remember, we're talking about symptoms that can be a cause, can be an aggravator, but there's certain very key symptoms that you have to make sure you get checked out first. Breathing issues is one of them. But, what's important is once that diagnosis is made, then everybody stops looking. Here's your drug, that's the end of it. And what they're missing is how a muscle can be influencing this. So, let's look at normal breathing.

[00:08:28]So, here we have the stomach again, comfortably sitting below that diaphragm, and the diaphragm pulls down on a deep breath, and as it pulls down, it's creating a kind of a vacuum for your lungs to fill. So, you take that deep breath, and the diaphragm bows down, the lungs fill, and then you exhale, it pushes up, and the lungs exhale, and it's a beautiful synchrony that you have between your lungs and your diaphragm.

[00:08:56]However, now we're back to our hiatal hernia. The stomach has pushed up, and that's bothering the diaphragm. It's interfering with it because it's getting kind of stretched and irritated because that stomach has pushed up where it shouldn't be. So, now I have these little arrows, and I'm showing this irritation of the stomach. So, now the hernia is in the way, and you don't have that effortless breathing, and you can get short of breath. There's some new lung research coming out showing an association with asthma and diaphragm dysfunction. Researchers are actually calling this impaired diaphragm function a treatable trait of asthma. So, I'm not saying you don't have asthma, what I'm saying is if the hiatal hernia is addressed and the diaphragm is addressed, your symptom rate, your flare-up rate can really go down. For those of you with a smoking history who've been diagnosed with COPD, the same thing is is in play. So, let's go on to number four. We have chronic cough, throat clearing, hoarseness blamed on allergies or postnasal drip.

[00:10:05]So, maybe you have a cough that won't quit, you're constantly clearing your throat, you get hoarse, and you've been to the ear, nose, throat doctor, the ENT, they've been diagnosing you with maybe a sinus infection or allergies.

[00:10:18]You got the medication, but but it's still not handling it. What might be aggravating this and/or the complete cause of it is something called silent reflux. And it's not just acid coming up, it can be bile and also pepsin. All of these are coming up from the stomach.

[00:10:34]And pepsin is an enzyme that breaks down protein. Now, a silent reflux is getting up into your voice box and throat. Now, your esophagus has saliva that's constantly going down that it can clear acid, but your throat and your voice box don't have that. What's interesting about the pepsin that I mentioned is that it stays very active even once acid is gone. So, you can be taking the proton pump inhibitor and it's neutralizing acid, but it's not neutralizing bile and it's definitely not neutralizing the pepsin. And so, that inflammation is continuing. So, you're coughing and you're clearing your throat and everybody thinks it's allergies, but it's really coming from your stomach. How you can tell is it's worse after meals, it's worse after lying down, and it's worse first thing in the morning. Let's move on to number five. You have palpitations, you have chest tightness, and it's blamed on anxiety. Now, the reason it's blamed on anxiety is that you've gotten your heart checked out, and that's critical. You have palpitations, you have tightness in your chest. You go to the cardiologist, you go to the urgent care. Heart disease is our number one killer, so you're not ignoring that, you're getting it checked out. I'm talking to those of you who have had it checked out, and your heart has been deemed healthy, and now because you continue to have the palpitations and the chest tightness, you're labeled with anxiety. So, the tell for this is that you're feeling this anxiety after meals or after lying down. So, it's important to stop accepting that it's just anxiety diagnosis, and really look at whether you have a hiatal hernia or not. So, before I leave you, a couple of things that are very important. I'm not telling you to throw out your diagnosis of COPD or anxiety or asthma. What I'm telling you is to look further. And there's definitely symptoms that are not about waiting and seeing. You're vomiting, you've got black tarry stools, you've got severe chest pain. Get to the urgent care, get checked out immediately. The major point, and the reason I did this video, is there's a difference between being diagnosed incorrectly and being diagnosed incompletely. And that's the point I wanted to make. Many of you were probably diagnosed correctly, it's just that it stopped there. I want you to keep going. I want you to get to that root cause, and I want you to find out whether mechanics, pressure issues, like we've been discussing, are really at the root of this and can make a huge difference into how you're feeling.

[00:13:06]You've been looking for answers for a long time. You're in the right place.

[00:13:09]I'll see you on the next one.

[00:13:30]>> Mhm.