As an addendum to the previous post about heartburn or GERD where I shared the nerve control and mechanism of heartburn, there is a situation where restoring nerve control doesn’t stop the heartburn. I was asked by someone who's been suffering since her teens, what to do.
(credit Mayo for the fancy picture)
That’s when the nerve has been blocked for years and the valve, the gastroesophageal sphincter (or, pyloric valve), which is a muscle controlled by nerves coming out of the spine between the shoulder blades, doesn’t contract and keep acid in the stomach. It says "relaxed" in the picture above from the Mayo. Paralyzed or weakened is more accurate.
If this problem is allowed to persist, the acid gets up in the esophagus, right behind your sternum, and it hurts because there’s no mucus on the tissue to protect the tissue from the acid. The acid of course will break down your esophageal tissue just like it would a hamburger you ate. Because of this, the body tries to repair it with scar tissue. That scar tissue adjacent to the valve, may prevent the valve from closing in the future because it is no longer elastic. This condition is called “pyloric stenosis”.
In the earlier post I pointed out you can correct the nerve and correct the reflux. But, not always. This is why chiropractic is not a treatment for any disease. Not headaches, back pain or heartburn. chiropractic corrects the nerve communication. But, in these cases, the tissue has been damaged and may not recover during that person’s remaining life years. In chiropractic, we call that “limitation of matter”. The body may heal from anything but it is subject to some laws of physics. And limitation of matter is one of them. The matter being the stuff of your body, can be damaged and become non functional even if a nerve is sending messages to it. I hate to use my one legged guy example. But, this guy with one leg has been coming here for years and I've been adjusting the spine correcting the nerves to his legs and he still hasn't grown a new leg. That's limitation of matter.
In chiropractic, we restore nerve function. That’s how your body runs the best. But it doesn’t mean that everybody heals from everything because I say and it’s true, the body heals itself. The body adapts to the environment. That’s what’s true. The adaptation to stomach acid where it doesn’t belong is scar tissue for the esophagus. Otherwise you’d bleed to death. That’s healing don’t you think? You’re not dead but you got heartburn.
You still gotta correct the nerve problem because it doesn’t only go to that sphincter. Even if that that sphincter may not be able to contract and you still have heartburn.
So, what to do if you’ve had this for decades?
This situation is different than all others. It puts us in palliative measures because having that pain is very uncomfortable. So, this isn't chiropractic but as an adjunct, some care or treatment even, to assuage the condition even if not “curing” or recovering, is helpful for this situation.
Palliative for pyloric stenosis is physical measures like making sure you’re not so large in the belly that your belly presses the stomach contents up into the esophagus when you lie down.
You can raise your headboard or incline bed.
You can neutralize the acid when it hurts with cheap calcium that you wouldn’t take for a fracture or osteoporosis. This is oyster shell or calcium carbonate. The stuff you get at Walgreens. That calcium doesn’t absorb well but stays in the stomach and GI tract and for this purpose is OK because it neutralizes acid. Tums has calcium carbonate. It’s just more expensive when it has food coloring and sugar added. You can certainly just chew your calcium supplement. They also make chewable calcium but that’s a far better absorbed calcium and for this, we’re not trying to absorb the calcium across the stomach wall. We want it to stay in the GI tract.
This is far better than proton pump inhibitors that stop acid production. But, it's not completely harmless either. Chronic calcium use alters the pH of the stomach and that affects the microbiome. That very low pH in the stomach protects you from a lot of germs that otherwise may make you sick. So, here we’re going to alter that so your esophagus doesn’t hurt but puts your immune system a bit behind. This is true of the medications too. If you raise your stomach pH from stopping acid production or neutralizing it, the effect is similar.
Some concern has been raised about kidney stone formation if you’re taking calcium. It’s a theory. It’s never been shown. It could be.
Also, if you have hyperparathyroid concerns, you’ve already got high blood calcium and taking additional, will definitely make your heart misbehave. So, even supplements have concerns. But for 99% of people, calcium supplementation is not an issue.
How to use: Don’t just take it indiscriminately. You want the acid when you eat, to break down the food, absorb B12 and other minerals that require acid like magnesium and other metals. You would take your calcium when you go to bed. Ideally, just chew some calcium carbonate and swallow with a bit of water. This helps the esophagus as well so it’s fine if it feels like it’s still in your throat.
If this is your problem, you have likely degenerative problems in the thoracic spine. You need to be adjusted regularly whether it hurts there or not. As I said, those nerves don’t just go to the pyloric sphincter. They go to the pancreas, liver and spleen and partially, your heart. If you’ve got problems in one, you’re developing problems in the others.
Get adjusted first. And if your teenager or baby is dealing with this, don't let it go on. That can be corrected. It's much harder if not impossible 40 years later.
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