Autism and gastrointestinal (GI) disorders

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?

Parents Reply
  • Hello Red82, For how long before your Coeliac diagnosis did you have problems? Coeliac disease has nothing to commend it, in my opinion. The food is expensive and bland. I also have chronically low vitamin B12 levels.

    I was diagnosed with Coeliac disease, aged seven, back in the days when not much was known about it. I spent much of those seven years in various hospitals being tested for various maladies as I failed to thrive because on nutrient malabsorbtion. As a consequence, I didn't start school until I was eight years old.

    I started drinking when I was eight years old. That Christmas I got drunk for the first time! By the time I hit my teen years I started drinking more to help with my social anxiety. It didn't help. I would start drinking and continue drinking until I had passed out. Then I would wake and be violently ill, vomiting everywhere. Let me tell you that being a vomiting drunk is not socially advantageous. I realized once I started I had no "off" switch. I could never recall the drinking only the waking and vomiting. Once, after an evening's drinking and vomiting I returned home. On the way I stopped and laid in the middle lane of the A4 in London and waited for the end.

    The next day I realized I had a major problem -one of many. My new year's resolution that year was to stop drinking. It didn't help with my social anxiety. I was 15 years old and I have kept that resolution through some very dark times.

    A couple of years later my alcoholic mother died in a pub! The North Star - the star that guides one home.Oh, the irony.

    I can empathize with your Coeliac situation and your alcoholism.

    I was diagnosed with ASC earlier this year aged 65.At this stage of my life I am back in the middle lane of the A4 in waiting for the end, figuratively speaking. As that sage Bobby McFerrin one opined, "Don't worry, be happy" Slight smile

    There's a line from a song I like that resonates with me: "Someday we'll look back on this and it will all seem funny"...but not yet, in my case.

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