A video About Hiatal Hernia Pain: Where Else Can You Feel It? – Video

Hiatal hernia pain: Where else can you feel it?

You may feel painful symptoms radiating from your abdominal area, but is this the only location where hiatal hernia pain can be felt? Dr. Vikki discusses the various area in which the symptoms of Hiatal Hernia Syndrome can be felt.

Transcript of the video

I’ve been asked to review where is hiatal hernia pain located… If you feel like you have a hiatal hernia, where would you feel discomfort?

Hiatal hernia is a syndrome

Something important to realize is that hiatal hernia is a syndrome. It’s not like a broken arm. There’s where the break is, and there’s where the pain is. It’s not quite that simple.

Pain in the upper abdomen

But it does start with the basic of where your stomach is located, which is right under your ribcage, on the left side. And one of the hiatal hernia pains you can definitely feel is in that area just on the upper abdomen, under the ribcage on the left. And you can feel pain from bloating. You can feel pain from the stomach being in spasm. It’s a discomfort there.

Pain in the oesophagus

That, people often talk about. One of the major symptoms associated with hiatal hernia is the stomach spasming and pushing its juices, its acid up into your oesophagus. So another area where you can feel hiatal hernia pain is in the oesophagus, in your chest, and that can be lower down… It can go all the way up into your mouth where you’re tasting acid, a burning in your chest. So anything along the whole oesophagus, you can feel pain and discomfort because of that.

Pain in the neck or ears

Another interesting thing is that the nerve that goes to your diaphragm comes out of the base of your neck, the bottom of your neck. That’s the nerve that makes the diaphragm work. So sometimes people can have neck pain associated with this. We recently had someone with ear pain because this nerve also goes up into the jaw; she was having a lot of ear pain and it was a hiatal hernia. So every time we feel as a team that we’ve seen every manifestation of hiatal hernia pain, a new one comes into play.

But it does make sense. So jaw pain, neck pain…

Tingling in the left arm

When someone is having trouble with getting enough oxygen because the diaphragm isn’t moving as freely as it should, and they’re a little short of breath or they’re getting heart palpitations, they can also get tingling into the left arm, which of course is scary because that’s a symptom of a heart attack as well.

In the emergency room, it has been very well known for a very long time that the differential diagnosis with someone coming in with shortness of breath and pain down the left arm is rule out the heart attack. And if it’s not that, it could be hiatal hernia pain, they do know that.

Panic attack is another alternative diagnosis. Those are the main symptoms.

I’m gonna look at my notes to see if there’s anything else…

Pain in the chest

Certainly because you’ve got sometimes shortness of breath and heart palpitations, you can get just pain in the chest. And as people get more panicked and more anxious, you can just get overall chest pain and you feel like, “isn’t my heart…?” or “isn’t my lungs…?” And certainly that’s a worthwhile differential diagnosis to make sure you’re not having a heart attack, not a life and death situation.

I’ve had so many patients go after the emergency room, then go to a cardiologist and go to a pulmonologist to evaluate the lungs and make sure it’s not that. Because their symptoms are predominantly the racing heart, the shortness of breath, the panicky feeling, and all these tests are done and the doctors told them “your heart is fine, your lungs are fine”. And by the time we meet them as like, “that’s great, I’m so glad to know my heart and lungs are fine, but I’m short of breath and I feel panicky and my heart’s racing and you know, I feel like I’m having a heart attack.”

So, it’s just a matter of realizing there is an underlying cause to that. And certainly number one, you rule out that life and death situation, but as soon as that’s ruled out, don’t give up: get to that root cause. That’s what we’re here for. So as far as where hiatal hernia pain can be located, there are those few areas, but they all make sense as far as the manifestation of hiatal hernia.

So I hope that was helpful. If you feel like this is something that’s been bothering you, or you know, you’ve been frustrated with not getting a proper diagnosis, please reach out. This is our area of expertise and has been for at least a decade now. I truly know of no other group of doctors working together who have seen so many patients and have such a high success rate.

So, if you think this is you, you don’t have to keep suffering and reach out for free consultation, give us a call at (408) 733-0400.

In-clinic and telehealth consultations

Root Cause Medical Clinic has its facilities near downtown Clearwater, FL, at the intersection of S Ft Harrison and Magnolia. We have ample parking space, you won’t have to go around to find a spot. However, if coming to our medical clinic is not possible because you live in another state or are just too far from our facility, we also offer telehealth consultations. We have been doing telemedicine for years in California, and we also propose this mode of consultation in Florida and several other states. Hiatal Hernia Syndrome is a pathology we can treat in the context of telehealth: if this is your diagnostic and we are your medical professionals of choice to treat your condition, we will work with you remotely if you are located in the states where we are licensed. Please call our offices to get details.

 

Additional Resources:
Read Dr. Vikki Petersen’s new book on Hiatal Hernia Syndrome
Video by Dr. Vikki on Hiatal Hernia Syndrome
Web MD on hiatal hernia symptoms
Image of chest pain