Melissa E
New Member
Over the last few years I've had intermittent difficulties with shortness of breath, throat clearing and a feeling of "shakiness" in my chest. The symptoms got more prominent after my boyfriend and I broke up in March and he moved out. I went and got a bunch of lung scans and pulmonary function tests done, which were normal, so my primary care doc told me she thought it might be GERD. Since she told me that, I developed sternum pain when I roll over and cough that was constant. I was really worried this was a "silent" reflux damaging my esophagus, even though I wasn't feeling any acid symptoms, so I finally decided to go to a functional medicine doctor last week since there was a long waitlist to get an endoscopy done. When I went, I had a mild chiropractic adjustment from a naturopathic doctor who believed my sternum pain was being caused by a hiatal hernia and he was trying to "release it" by stretching and pushing down on the area below my ribs for several minutes. I experienced pretty intense pain the entire time. Since that adjustment a week ago, I've had gradually worsening, non-stop acid reflux, chest pain/burning, difficulty swallowing, pain, pressure and feeling of swelling in my abdomen and bloating. I've tried all the anti-acid medications and stomach soothing supplements with no relief except Prilosec which is only helping the burning about 50%. I've never had ANY of these symptoms before except mild ones once a week after a heavy meal.
I'm wondering if I can approach any of this from a TMS perspective or if this doctor damaged something in there and now I need surgery to fix it. This is causing me an intense amount of anxiety because I'm having trouble sleeping at night from the pain and burning and so scared he caused permanent damage and now I'm going to have reflux and pain non-stop until I have surgery done which could be months.
Other things going on for context - my boyfriend and I have been slowly trying to work it out over the last few months, but it's been a slow process because we had a difficult relationship that hurt us both in a lot of ways so this has been pretty stressful. On top of that, I'm moving to Oregon for a job in September and he's staying here in Utah, and I don't know what's going to happen with us and I'm pretty scared. I also have my professional licensing exam in two weeks and I'm really scared these symptoms are going to make me fail my test because I'm in so much pain and obsessing over the symptoms and having trouble sleeping ad studying.
I had all this stuff going on before the adjustment was done, and didn't have any of these symptoms except the breathing stuff and sternum pain, so I'm having a hard time believing any of these stressors are related to my symptoms and not the adjustment. However, I'd really appreciate any feedback if there's any way of approaching this with TMS or if I'm totally screwed.
Thank you
I'm wondering if I can approach any of this from a TMS perspective or if this doctor damaged something in there and now I need surgery to fix it. This is causing me an intense amount of anxiety because I'm having trouble sleeping at night from the pain and burning and so scared he caused permanent damage and now I'm going to have reflux and pain non-stop until I have surgery done which could be months.
Other things going on for context - my boyfriend and I have been slowly trying to work it out over the last few months, but it's been a slow process because we had a difficult relationship that hurt us both in a lot of ways so this has been pretty stressful. On top of that, I'm moving to Oregon for a job in September and he's staying here in Utah, and I don't know what's going to happen with us and I'm pretty scared. I also have my professional licensing exam in two weeks and I'm really scared these symptoms are going to make me fail my test because I'm in so much pain and obsessing over the symptoms and having trouble sleeping ad studying.
I had all this stuff going on before the adjustment was done, and didn't have any of these symptoms except the breathing stuff and sternum pain, so I'm having a hard time believing any of these stressors are related to my symptoms and not the adjustment. However, I'd really appreciate any feedback if there's any way of approaching this with TMS or if I'm totally screwed.
Thank you
