Is acid reflux a musculoskeletal problem?

Is acid reflux a musculoskeletal problem?

Is acid reflux disease a musculoskeletal problem? Let's look at a patient who recently came to my office with a headache. She stated that she had constant headaches for six weeks. She also suffers from lower back pain and says she has frequent urinary tract infections. She had been to her doctor about lower back pain and he had diagnosed her with osteoporosis and given her a prescription for Celebrex. This patient also had a history of acid reflux.

Her primary care doctor has been treating her acid reflux with Nexium for several years. He recently ordered an endoscope of her esophagus, which revealed a hiatal hernia and a condition known as Beret's esophagus. This is a condition that occurs due to persistent irritation of the esophageal lining, which is actually the beginning of cell change, and is a pre-cancerous condition. This patient is postmenopausal and taking hormone replacement therapy. Now let's take a closer look at what's going on with this patient. She takes Nexium for acid reflux and has done so for several years. This will effectively lower the acidity of your stomach. When it lowers the acidity of the stomach, it reduces its ability to absorb calcium, which is needed for healthy bone mass. Lower acidity also promotes the growth of bacteria in the urinary tract.

Taking Nexium does not affect hiatal hernia, which is a protrusion of the stomach through the hiatal valve. This valve is normally closed and only opens to the pressure of the swallowed food to allow it to enter the stomach. You have to ask the question: “Why is this valve stuck open?” This patient was prescribed Celebrex for back pain, which is known to cause gastrointestinal upset. When this patient came to me she was a nervous wreck. She couldn't sleep, she was in constant pain and she was always crying. She thought she was going to die.

We found out that she had several structural problems with her spine. She had lost the normal curvature of her cervical spine and developed bone spurs on her cervical vertebrae (bones in her neck). Her spine in her lower back was curved to the left. She had misalignments (subluxations) in several areas, C2, C3, C4, C5, affecting the nerve supply to the diaphragm. This is the large muscle that we use to breathe and through which the esophagus reaches the stomach. It was also misaligned at T4, affecting the nerve supply to the heart, lungs and gallbladder, and also at T12 and L1, affecting the nerve supply to the bladder and kidneys. She stopped taking all of her medications. We had her take some digestive enzymes as well as some other supplements to help build healthy bone mass.

She began a series of adjustments to realign her vertebrae and relieve pressure on the nerves. After 10 treatments she is smiling, she has no pain and she sleeps through the night and wants to go dancing with her husband. She stated that she is 60% improved. Is acid reflux a biomechanical problem? It was in this case. So let's get back to my last article about dangerous doctors. What did all these drugs treat? Just the symptoms. Nothing was done to find out why she had a hiatal hernia, why she was losing bone mass, why she was getting frequent urinary tract infections, why she was having back pain.

I heard a commercial for Advair on TV this morning. This is a prescription medication used to treat asthma. The ad said it treats two common causes of asthma, "inflammation and bronchial constriction." These are not the “causes” of asthma, but rather part of the symptoms of asthma. These are the causes of asthma wheezing and breathing, but what causes the inflammation and bronchial constriction? Many studies have shown that misalignment of the bones in the neck and upper back has been linked to asthma, and realigning these structures has had a dramatic impact on this condition in many people. The cause is not always a subluxation, but shouldn't it be investigated before a dangerous drug intervention or an even worse surgical intervention? Please feel free to comment and you can also listen to this as a podcast at http://www.westvalleyfamilyclinic.com/audio/refluxpodcast.mp3.

Inspired by Mark Snow