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?
On an educational session earlier in the year, it was positioned that the link might be the other way round.
Higher than normal levels of stress and anxiety as a result of our autism increase the hormones our gut has to deal with and as a result causes various conditions and issues.
I share the same digestive profile as my spaniel, food goes through too fast and his guts are never settled. He's also shy, nervous, excitable, get anxious and hides under the bed when there's too many people in the house, seems very intelligent too....
Co-occurring conditions like GI issues or other medical issues potentially do mask autism so, I believe that this is likely to be correct. It's very interesting!
Your spaniel and my beagle would potentially get on very well because you've just described his personality to a tee!