PCS, Anxiety, Gerd Related?
 

Hello its been close to 3 months since falling and hitting the back of my head on a barbell at the gym. Immediately following the concussion I started experiencing acid reflux and heartburn which I had never had before. I also started experiencing extreme anxiety along with headaches/dizziness.

After about a month of misery I went to see a GI doctor and had an endoscopy. He told me i just had GERD and basically said Id have it long term and told me Id be taking pills for years. I ended up getting in an arguement with the guy because I kept trying to explain how I had never had this problem before hitting my head etc. etc. but he didnt care

Anyway for the past 5-6 weeks Ive been taking Protonix 2x a day for my acid issue. After seeing my primary doctor started taking 50mg of Zoloft and Ativan for the anxiety. Both have helped and although neither are as bad as they were I am still experiencing heartburn/acid reflux and anxiety especially if I do not take any Ativan (was taking 1mg twice daily, now once for a few weeks).

I've also been in physical therapy for my concussion and neck/back pain I started having. This has helped me alot. My headaches dizziness, and eye sensitivity have gotten better but I still have alot of neck/shoulder tightness which doesn't seem to be going away fully. and still can't do anything physical

I was wondering if anyone knew of a correlation between head injuries and stomach problems? Maybe compression of the nerves in my neck or the anxiety is to blame for the stomach issues? Or perhaps all of the anxiety is causing the reflux? Like I said I had never experienced any reflux or anxiety to this degree before in my entire life (24yr old) and generally eat healthy and am not overweight. Really just looking for some insight to the root of this problem as I am doing everything I can to recover from the concussion but have no idea how to stop this gerd:confused:

There is a connection but more likely at the lower neck/upper back. I don't see what most PT's can do to help. Some careful and skillfull spinal manipulation can help. My GERD was from TOS cause by the head/necj trauma. TOS Thoracic Outlet Syndrome is common in people who have cervical ribs, false ribs the protrude off the bottom one or two cervical ribs. They get out of place and inflamed causing nerve issues that innervate the stomach.

My Stanford professor GI doc refused to accept that the problem was resolved by spinal therapy.

I've had this twice. Once, I dislocated a rib at the vertebra. One a chiro reduced the rib dislocation, my GERD relief was almost instant.

Most of my problem was not GERD but more esophageal spasms. I struggled to swallow and get food to go down properly. Lost 14 pounds in 2 weeks because of this.

You could also have cervical vertebra inflammation causing a failure of some of your autonomic nervous system.

The PT or chiro alone cannot solve this. One must also be disciplined with posture during sleep and rest.

The 'Doctor fix me' only goes so far. We need to do our part to help with healing.

btw, PT skill sets are all over the map. Some are useless in certain areas while others are true healers. But, they all usually claim to have the skills to treat the issue.

Some ssri's can cause herd also.

Bud