Published on 12, July, 2020
I have been doing a lot of reading about this recently, and I am finding more and more that there are potentially significant links between people with autism and people who have gastrointestinal (GI) issues such as gastro-oesophageal reflux disease (GORD) or gastroesophageal reflux disease (GERD).
I am a 32 year old male. I have suffered from acid reflux my whole life due to being born with a hiatus hernia. I am medicated for it, and I have been told that I will always be on medication for it due to the severity of my condition. It gets worse with stress, sleeping in a different position, changes in diet... all sorts of things can trigger it to be worse.
Does anyone else, formally or self-diagnosed with autism, have any issues like this?
I have had chronic and severe indigestion, which I resolved, and diverticular disease, which is still a problem. I was investigated for a suspected stomach ulcer, but nothing was found. I still had agonising indigestion, but eventually the penny dropped and I put two and two together. For a number of years I could not drink cask conditioned beer without horrible stomach pain. I reviewed what I was regularly consuming that might be related to cask beer and I thought yeast! Cask beer and leavened bread both contain yeast. I cut out leavened bread from my diet and my stomach symptoms disappeared completely. I obviously have a food intolerance for yeast.
This is very interesting. It's quite interesting that you have managed to resolve your issue.
Do you have any other GI-related issues other than this?
The diverticular disease is the only major problem. I have occasional flare-ups, where I can lose blood and then have to 'rest my gut' i.e. starve myself (no solid food) for up to 7 days.