I felt a jarring in my core. I paused and thought “oh no, I think I hurt myself.” What was that anyway? Did I pull a muscle? If so, it felt like a major muscle. I stood there breathing and analyzing, and then finally convinced myself I was okay. You see, it was a Monday, and I had woken up feeling better than I had in a long time. I had slept well, had fabulous energy and was ready to get stuff done. Unfortunately, I had an error in judgment on a household project that was a little much for me. I wanted to complete the project, and unfortunately that over-rode my reasoning. I was almost done when my energy dropped, and my body felt like it was ready to stop. However, I kept going and that’s when I hurt myself.
After that episode, I went on with my day and as I recall I felt okay, until an hour after dinner. I started noticing a tightness at my diaphragm like food was stuck, but at the same time, I was having some pain in my stomach. Then at bedtime, I discovered I couldn’t lay down because it made the pain unbearable.
Urgent care
After a terrible night with no sleep and continued pain for nearly 24 hours, I finally gave up and went to urgent care. The doctor diagnosed me with GERD/Acid Reflux. He put me on an acid reducer, gave me some diet restrictions and sent me home. The most interesting thing about this diagnosis is I had never had acid problems, and only very seldom had heartburn. I made some diet changes based on his recommendations and took the pills.
Listening to my body
After a week on the pills, I stopped taking them. I felt they were doing more harm than good. The stuck-food feeling had not improved, and I still wasn’t able to eat anything solid. Luckily I found success with smoothies. Through researching foods that are good for digestion, I discovered mango was on the list. My meals became mango smoothies. Eventually, I’d add banana and protein powder. During lunchtime, I added spinach. I became concerned because I wasn’t able to eat a more varied diet and I was losing too much weight. I would experiment adding in different foods, but anything more substantial gave me that stuck-food feeling.
Five weeks after the urgent care visit, I was talking to my chiropractor, and he brought up a hiatal hernia. I had read about it, but there was something in the list of symptoms that made me doubt that was it. I think it might have been fever, which I didn’t have. Anyway, I thought okay, I need to check this out again.
What is a hiatal hernia?
A hiatal hernia occurs when the upper part of your stomach pushes up through your diaphragm and into your chest region.
The diaphragm is a large muscle that lies between your abdomen and chest. You use this muscle to help you breathe. Normally, your stomach is below the diaphragm, but in people with a hiatal hernia, a portion of the stomach pushes up through the muscle. The opening it moves through is called a hiatus. (https://www.healthline.com/health/hiatal-hernia)
At this point, I was willing to try just about anything, since I wasn’t getting better. I went home and googled “what to do for a hiatal hernia.” After reading up on it, I found some tips and information on a blog that helped me. The guy who wrote the blog referred to his stomach as being “up.”
I’m pretty in-tune with my body. So I got quiet and centered and asked, “is my stomach up?” Answer: Yes.
After that, I felt empowered that I could do something to help myself.
Getting stomach to drop back down
- Drink a cup of warm water to relax the stomach
- Get on a rebounder (mini trampoline) and jump
I usually jog/jump on my rebounder, but not very hard. This time I jumped harder. I couldn’t keep going non-stop, so I would jump, then stop for a moment to rest and then jump again. Total time was around 3 minutes. Afterward, I could feel that my stomach (right at the solar plexus) felt less tight. I asked my body “is my stomach up?” Answer: No. I thought “Oh my goodness, it worked!”
Recovering enough to eat again
Once my stomach had dropped back down I found I couldn’t immediately eat my typical diet. My stomach and muscles were sore from being out of whack for so long. My core was so sore that I couldn’t do basic activities that I took for granted, such as washing dishes or doing laundry. Anything that had my arms reaching out and pulling in caused pain and made me sorer.
I continued with the smoothie diet and eventually was able to have a spinach salad for dinner. After about a month the muscles in my core became less sore. As I continued not to have the stuck-food feeling I gradually started eating more solid food.
Mimics acid reflux
Something I learned is that when the stomach is “up” acid can escape from the herniated stomach into the esophagus and this mimics acid reflux. Well isn’t that interesting? The doctor misdiagnosed me. I don’t have GERD/Acid reflux.
Months later
The reason food felt stuck was that it was. The part of my stomach that was up through the diaphragm was like having a tiny stomach. Now it all makes sense, and I know what to do about it. I’m happy to say I’ve only needed to get my stomach to drop back down two other times over the last eight months.
There are different levels of a hiatal hernia and instances where it could be severe enough to require surgery. My thought was I’d try what I could on my own to see if it made a difference before I took the step to go back to the doctor for more tests.
Here is the link to the blog I found that helped me. I think the author published four articles, but I only needed the one about using the rebounder to make the difference. (https://hiatalhernialifestyle.wordpress.com)