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?
Another up-vote here for the stress theory. When I’m settled, calm and not triggered or obsessing negatively about things - essentially ‘well’ from a mental viewpoint - I notice a very happy and settled digestion. When my mental state is not good it’s the opposite either with reflux or let’s just call them “challenges” at the other end of my digestive tract. I have been tested for the various digestive conditions and the very serious illness that can develop and thankfully I am negative. I believe this is all stress related. And as an autistic, I do get stressed or make myself stressed more than I should. For me the best treatment is to try to avoid all the stressors. To me the link is now so obvious that I can use my digestion as an early warning system of stress levels rising.
I agree, it is an early warning sign for me, too. My body has the same response as yours when getting stressed. Either reflux or "challenges at the other end", as you beautifully put it
Do you find anything that works to relieve your symptoms? What do you do when you start to notice those initial signs?
I am finding all of this so interesting...