Today, I'm talking about the connection between your stomach problems in your anxiety. I've seen a number of patients with anxiety who also have gastrointestinal problems for some. Of them anytime they have a flare-up of their intestinal issue or stomach issue it, ramps up their anxiety. Let's look at Paul. Paul has gastroesophageal reflux disease. Also called gerd.
This is where you get acid from your stomach splashing back up into your esophagus or food tube. As we think of it, your stomach lining can handle the acid and bile, but your esophagus is too delicate for that. So when that happens you get this burning sensation and pain. And because the The junction of your stomach and your esophagus is around the middle of your chest. The burning pain can be mistaken for chest pain and some people even think that they're having a heart attack.
So, imagine a person Paul, Paul is afraid to take any medication and he wants to handle his gerd by changing his diet to eliminate acidic Foods. This helps a little but he can still get chest pain when he lies down to go to sleep. And when this happens, he has an attack of anxiety. Just about every night, he has panic attacks and has trouble falling asleep. Because there's usually happens every night he starts getting anxious late in the afternoon, thinking about having to go to bed. He got a recliner chair to sleep in to help with the reflux, and it did a little. But this whole chest pain, anxiety thing starts to make him think he's got something bigger going on. Now, he worries that he really has stomach cancer. Why? Because it can barely eat. He's lost about 15 pounds and has trouble. Keeping down food, his doctor. Prescribes a medication for his reflux, but says that Paul really needs to see a psychiatrist for his anxiety. Paul comes to psychiatrist and says, I'm not crazy. I just have a bunch of medical problems that have messed with my mind, and I want to feel better about my health.
Now, you may think this sounds a little like health anxiety, but it's not with health anxiety. You worry about having any disease. Whether or not you have real symptoms of it and even if you do have an illness, once that illness is treated or you get a workup that shows that you don't have an illness, you start to focus on another illness that you think you have in this scenario, Paul has gastroesophageal reflux disease and this is something that can be worsened by anxiety, but gerd can also cause, or worsen anxiety. It turns out there's a bi-directional relationship between Gastrointestinal disorders and anxiety. This relationship is thought to be controlled by a gut, brain connection. Research studies have concluded that there is signaling between the gut and the brain that affects the way we think and behave. So what does this mean? It means that having a disorder like gerd or irritable bowel syndrome or perhaps even colitis can cause anxiety as well as depression.
Why does this matter it matters? Is how you handle the anxiety?
The usual medication treatment for anxiety is serotonin enhancing antidepressants like Prozac or Zoloft. But one of the main side effects of these medications is gastrointestinal distress like nausea diarrhea or constipation so they can make your gastrointestinal illness worse. It may not. I have had patients whisker. Take acid reducing medication and still do fine with one of these antidepressants. It's but not all do so knowing that the anxiety medication can worsen your symptoms and alternative approach may be to focus on getting the optimal treatment for your gastrointestinal symptoms first, and then using cognitive behavioral strategies to address your anxiety. Another topic related to this gut-brain connection is what we call the microbiome. The microbiome is the trillions of microorganisms called microbes. That inhabit, your body, the mic. Include bacteria. Fungi, parasites. And viruses. And most of them live in your small and large intestines, think of them as like having a population of organisms living in your body, doing a lot of work behind the scenes to keep your body. Functioning some important work that they do is helping your immune system run properly. This microbiome is so important that some consider it to be like a second brain located in your gut. Researchers have studied the microbiomes of different people and see that people with anxiety and depression, have a microbiome that looks different from those without anxiety and depression.
Even the amount of body fat that you carry on your body is affected by the microbes you have in your gut, you know, how some people seem to be naturally thin and others large. Even when they eat the same things where I come from, they call that being big-boned. This isn't all metabolism your gut health plays a role in this. So here's how this relates to anxiety. If gastrointestinal disorders can cause anxiety and having bad microbes can cause or worsen anxiety, Then maybe the way you can address your anxiety when you have a. Gastrointestinal illness is to get treatment for your g.i. problem, first, and then turn a hard Focus to your gut health. There are some preliminary studies That probiotics that contain certain bacterial strains like lactobacillus and bifidobacterium could help treat mental disorders but the research into this intervention is still in the early stages and we're not able to say yet, take this much of this probiotic to treat this disorder but healthy food produces good microbes, a good place to start with. This is eliminating sugar and processed food and eating a clean diet and this would be food. That reduces inflammation.
So the take home here is that if you have gastrointestinal problems like, gerd or irritable bowel syndrome, these illnesses can cause anxiety. So make sure you prioritize having the gastrointestinal problem treat it. Don't it Nor it thinking that it's probably just stress because ignoring it could then trigger a bigger problem of anxiety for you. Also, you want to take a serious look at your diet. I know that that's not an Innovative intervention, but it is real, it matters and it could make a big difference in how you feel without the need for taking another medication to get rid of your anxiety.
If you haven't seen it already, take a look at this video. I did on dealing with health anxiety. That is a different problem, as I mentioned from Paul had but nonetheless, if you do tend to focus on having our have a lot of anxiety about multiple health issues and take a look at this video. Thanks for visiting.
Above article is only for information purpose. I you face problem like this concern with professional doctor/psychiatrist.