Horrible hiatal hernia symptoms

One more thing. Once my surgeon got in there she discovered the hernia was larger than shown so she put mesh in to hold it in place to keep it from coming back. Good luck and hope the information is helpful.

I have been reading all of your stories and it's incredible to see how similar my experiences have been relating to this issue.

Since the beginning of this year I've been having chest pains in the middle and left side of my chest. They range from my upper abdomen, up to the center of my chest, and then to the left just under my collar bone and on mu side under my arm. I have gone to the Emergency Room 20 times in the past 5 months thinking i was having a heart attack.

Whenever the pain starts, I feel that my chest gets heavy, my heart beats much harder, and my resting heart rate goes from around 60-70bpm up to over 100bpm. I get such bad palpitations that it feels like my heart is trying to burst through my chest wall on the left side. It feels like a heart attack every single time. Ill begin to feel the pain in my left neck, shoulder, and upper arm. Classic signs of cardiac pain, but everytime i go to the hospital my EKG, chest x-rays, and blood labs always turn out perfectly normal. I have developed severe anxiety from this issue to the point where i can no longer live a normal life. I was diagnosed with a 3cm sliding hiatal hernia and severe gerd after finally doing a barium swallow. Even knowing this makes it hard to reassure myself that it isnt my heart causing this pain.

I have had EKGs, stress test, echo, and blood labs done and everything comes out negative. Cardiologist says there is nothing wrong with my heart or arteries. But when the pain kicks in out of nowhere, its so hard to reassure myself that it's my hernia causing that pain, and not my heart.

GP put me on 20mg omeprazole daily to treat the gerd but so far i feel that it has done nothing to help. I've tried to avoid trigger foods and eat bland, but they pains still come anyways. My daily diet now consists if chicken breast, brown rice, and veggies. I started eating smaller portions and not because they say it helps, but because i am scared to eat because of the fact that after eating is when i feel the pain the most.

I am not at a healthy weight. I am 5'3 and was 320lbs when all of this started. Thinking it was my heart, I immediately started to lose weight and try to save myself and get healthier (obviously i should have done this much before i reached such a high weight) but I have lost 45lbs so far. This weight loss has not helped my symptoms at all. Maybe i just need to lose more weight? My blood glucose is normal, normal cholesterol, great blood pressure.

How do you guys cope? How do you find reassurance that it isnt your heart? This small hernia is taking over life and ability to function normally. It's taking away my mental health and i feel that i may never be the same and will always be worrying about my health whenever any of these feelings come in.

i pray for you all. Doctors make it seem that hiatal hernias arent that big of a deal, but those of us who have one and experience the effects of it on our physical and mental health know that this isnt something they should just be brushing off. I wish they understood this more. I wish they understood what and how we felt, and put more effort into helping us fix the problem rather than giving us meds to treat the symptoms.

Hi jake, this thread and all the posts have just saved my sanity

I have had psoriatic arthritis for 7 years now and been on biological injections for it for 6 years. In the past few years I started to suffer from odd and intense symptoms that I have continually put down to my arthritis .

Major fatigue, heart pounding, missed heartbeats and irregular heartbeats, difficulty breathing, anxiety (mostly as I feel so ill a lot of the time), feeling cold when it's actually quite warm, intense pains in chest, sides, intestines, back (middle and kidney area), light headedness, spasms or "kicks" in the abdomen followed by a wave of nausea or what feels oddly like an adrenaline rush and an absolute all over feeling of just something is wrong and so ill.

I tried explaining the symptoms to my doctors many times but I started to feel like a hypochondriac and was wasting their time!

I felt like I was losing my mind but something felt so wrong.

I saw a new GP at our practice 2 days ago and he sat and listened to all of my symptoms for about 5 minutes non stop. Within 5 minutes more, after an examination and listen to my stomach, he told me I had a hiatus hernia!

I was shocked as I never imagined for one second I had anything like that. In my head I had every illness under the sun but never thought of a hernia. He is also the first UK doctor I have ever heard mention the vagus nerve and that the hernia may be interfering with it. I had looked at a lot if info regarding the vagus nerve but never had a medical professional speak of it.

I still couldn't understand how all my symptoms could be caused by a hernia but after reading this thread it seems I am not alone.

Thanks for starting it and to all that have contributed.

I have started PPI's and I hope to have some relief soon, both physical and mental.

Hope you are well and stay safe

cheers

Greg.

It started with racing heart and lightheadedness. and then it got worse. shortness of breath, Nausea, Acid Reflux, chest pain (heart area), back pain. Now i have body spasms, ringing, wooshing and crackling of ears (like pressure or something). happens more when i lay down to sleep or getting up.

anybody have any ear or head issues? ive seen ENT, PCP and Cardio doctors and everything checks out fine. i have a 2cm (2021) HH, that i didnt have a year and half ago which was my second to last endoscopy (had gastrtitis h pylori in 2019).

I have had severe symptoms that I believe stem from a hiatal hernia on and off. It started with a feeling of pressure in my chest near my stomach. Then progressed to pain in the same area, shortness of breath, difficulty breathing, loss of energy, confusion, dizziness, difficulty eating, lots of burping and air in my chest, food getting caught in my throat, and even passing out. If things are bad I have difficulty talking as my vocal chords get irritated and I have to breathe a lot between words as I am short of breath. Most of all I had constant discomfort in my chest. This has been a huge issue for me as I am a very active person and I love mountaineering and climbing solo in the mountains. In the past, my issue flared up a few times in the mountains making me confused and dizzy and putting me in serious danger. Luckily, I have found a trick that has helped me reduce the symptoms and get back to a normal life which I will describe below.

The interesting thing for me is that when I went to doctors they all just listened to my symptoms, came up with no plan of treatment even when I kept pushing them to do so, and so I continually walked in and out the door of different doctor's offices. They all just rolled their eyes when I told them my list of symptoms and how severe it was. I had to research on my own which is how I discovered hiatal hernias. I asked my doctor whether I might have one and whether that could cause my symptoms and was told to go to a gastroenterologist. The gastroenterologist told me there was no way my symptoms could be caused by a hiatal hernia and when I pushed trying to get him to look into it further, he literally yelled at me and told me I was wasting his time that he could spend on patients with real problems. So I went to a different gastroenterologist. This time I did not mention any of my unusual symptoms due to a friends advice that doctor's won't take you seriously if you talk about unusual symptoms. So I just described general discomfort in my chest area, fullness when eating, and a lot of burping. That doctor then did an endoscopy and diagnosed me with a hiatal hernia. That's when I learned the lesson that it is important to hide strange symptoms from your doctor if you want to receive quality treatment. However, the only thing my doctor did was prescribe proton pump inhibitors which did absolutely nothing for me. They actually made me feel worse.

However, I accidentally learned a technique that has mostly fixed the problem. I had so much discomfort and pressure under my left rib cage just below my heart every single day that I just wanted the pressure and discomfort to go away. So I started pushing down on the rib cage which made things feel a little better. Over time I started changing how I was pushing and through trial and error discovered a trick that will mostly resolve my symptoms. What I do now is I start with two fingers from my right hand pressing the flesh below my sternum and with my left hand I push down on the side of my ribs. I then push down with the fingers on my right hand firmly (but not to a point where it is painful) and then push the fingers on my right hand down along my rib line toward my stomach. Sometimes I use my cell phone instead of my hand to push down like this.

I do this pushing motion and over again in a row and do this multiple times a day, especially when my symptoms are acting up. When pushing down I have learned to feel when my fingers catch something in my stomach that I push down on. As I do this there is a huge amount of gurgling and squishing noises and sometimes I can even feel a squish pop when things get moved back down. Also, when I do this I will often release burps and burp up a huge amount of air. And, on a good attempt I can suddenly feel the pressure in my chest release and I feel instantly better after performing this. Some days it is harder to get it to work properly and I only get mild relief. If things get really bad, I will lay in bed and repeatedly push things back down using the above technique until the symptoms go away.

I don't know if this will work for anyone else. I also want to note that I am a thin and fit person so I am able to get my fingers to push down on my internal organs fairly easily. I don't know if that will be the case for everyone. And I'm not advising anyone else to try this as this could be causing worse problems down the line for me. But, all I know is that when I do this it suddenly gets rid of all of my horrible symptoms and I can get back to living a normal life. My confusion, stomach/chest pain and discomfort, throat issues all disappear instantly when I do this. Suddenly I can breathe deeply and clearly again and eat again without discomfort. It is incredible how well this works to temporarily fix my symptoms. I want to make clear that I don't know why this works for me. I don't know if it is going to cause other health issues for me. I'm not advising anyone else to try this. Just wanted to share my story and how I got relief from these weird issues I have been having since I was unable to get doctors to take me seriously and offer me any treatments.

hello Jake i am a 29 yr/f , I cannot tell you how much I relate to everyone of your symptoms. I was diagnosed with a medium sized hiatal hernia earlier this year with gastritis esophagitis and GERD. it is wrecking havoc on me right now as I am typing this. I too believe that I have just acquired tachycardia since it always feels like my heart is skipping or pumping extra hard and I have shortness of breath dizziness the chest pain overproduction of acid throat pain esophagus spasms belly pain nausea rapid heart rate especially after eating and fluctuating blood pressure. I mean the list goes on and I think we should definitely talk more about it because people are suffering from this awful disease and it seems that the doctors are never pressed to do the surgery when the patients are explaining how severe the symptoms are. it can absolutely be debilitating and I hope all is well with you and I hope that you feel better soon. so far I have found absolutely no relief I have tried honey I have tried drinking warm water I have tried Prilosec pantoprazole omeprazole hot tea ginger, I have tried actually not eating and we all know that that's not a good idea. I have lost about 20 lb in the past month and a half. because I eat very small and bland. I would really like to discuss this more with you and we can compare our symptoms and see if we can help each other.

I don't know if you still post here but I am going to share my hiatal hernia story so others may identify with. I am a 70 year old female. I have had a hiatal hernia for 30 years which was pretty much controlled with protonics. The worse part for me over the years were the spasms. I had them often and many times the only way it would pass was to vomit.

For years I was on 20 mg of a protonic. Now I take 80 mg pantoprozole and 40 mg rantadine.

I don't know how large my hernia was in past years, but now it is very large. I am taking the maximum in meds and next step would be surgery. I have experienced many of the same symptoms as all of you. At the bottom of my esophagus and upper abdomen I have a gnawing pain . With chest pain its hard to know whether its my heart or not because I have had a quad bypass and 5 stents. I have pain across my belly button, and to the left up to my upper abdomen and all across. Also I have pain in kidney area in my back. Now the meds aren't working for me and I need surgery but I'm very high risk. I have lost my appetite and cant eat much. I am going to see an excellent surgeon and see what he thinks. For years I didn't think having the hernia was a big deal but it is a major health issue.

Anyone on here had success with their hernia? i have a lot of the symptoms you all describe but the worst is the chest pain like a baby elephant sitting there. Have tried changing diet sleeping upright and various exercises for hiatal hernia. was diagnosed with a small stomach ulcer and small hernia and oesophigitus after endoscopy last year all the gastroentorologist did was put me on pantrapazole.

hi

my symptoms as follow

diagnosed with 2 cm hiatus hernia in Dec 2019 and originally only suffered heartburn

but past 3 months:

symptoms as follows: waking up feeling very tired 'SMOKE'LIKE FEELING IN CHEST

coughing -particularly bad in morning-first 2 hours, pretty constant-

WHICH LEAVES ME EXHAUSTED

steady post nasal drip and restricted throat, MINOR DIFFICUTY SWALLOWING FOOD

coughing up white phlegm-no other colour

tight feeling in chest ,'cotton feeling' in mouth ,'puffy 'and spotty soft palate area of mouth which comes and goes

ALL SYMPTOMS EASE WHEN EATING BUT RETURN SHORTLY AFTER WITH 'SMOKE'LIKE FEELING IN CHEST

back on 1 x 20mg of omeprazole but has made no difference. waiting on doctor appointment but has of little help so far..very depressed

does this sound familiar? sorry about the typing-it was cut and pasted from a message to my Doctor

Hello Jake, all your symptoms seems to be from hiatal hernia and there is no need to worry, I am no professional but I have the same symptoms too except chest pain only a little pressure now and then. I 've been to the cardiologist 3 times this year and the last time he even send me away hahah. Let me give you my personal experience with hiatal hernia maybe it will help you, I found that an empty stomach gives the worse symptoms for me, heart palpinations, breathing problems ( especially when laying down flat, couldn't even sleep in that position) also a full stomach is a no no too, it is better to have your stomach half full all the time. relieve stress as much as possible and lose any extra weight if you have, lastly there are some exercises you can due in the morning that helps push the hernia down it really helped me. One last thing, hh is bad because breathing problems and abnormal heart rate or pounding can give you severe health anxiety because it is not easy to calm yourself, I couldn't even exercise because I thought my heart will stop or I ll pass out, that is not the case believe me. Best luck to you and try no to give it to much attention, sometimes our minds makes symptoms worse than they truly are.

i feel for you ,

ive been suffering with this for 3 years

i had an endoscopy done which revealed a 4cm hiatus hernia and oesophagutis,

was given all different meds because none worked ,

Had another endoscopy done and my hiatus hernia went from 4cm to 7cm and been on the waiting list for over 2 years

the surgeon wanted a PH test done , had to have a tube up my nose and down my stomach for 24 hours with a machine I had to press when I eat food , when I was laying down etc ,

I'm supposed to be taking 80mg omeprozole but after reading how bad they are if you take them for a long period. I've cut down to 20mg in the morning and 20mg in the evening ,

I've lost count of the times I've been in AnE with chest pains , all the things you mention above ,

I see a doctor and they I wait months for a abdomen scan for gallbladder stones , but it comes back negative ,

I've lived the last 2 years in bed , as well as having no energy from waking every 2 hours to depression ,

I ring the waiting list people and the man I spoke to has said that I've been put on top priority and that all they are waiting for is the surgeon they give him dates and he's "busy" doing day consultations ,

I'm currently in AnE as I've had pain in my right side upper abdomen for 2 days and I've had enough,

I've lost 8 teeth due to the acid that comes up

it's disgusting I'm still waiting for this operation

I hope you get a date for an operation because if meds are not working ,

take it from me fight to have the surgery done