acid reflux and asthma

[Guest guest]

Lenore Heitkamp wrote:

Has anyone had an asthma attack triggered by an isolated incident of

acid

reflux? I woke up from sleep recently with a great start because of

pain in

my throat/chest. It was obviously acid reflux, but I've never had this

before so it was a very strange and uncomfortable sensation.. And

then the

asthma kicked in with the worst, fastest attack I've ever had, I

think (and

I left my inhaler at school because I use it so infrequently). How

could

this be?

______________\

The 4 day seminar I was at was totally on pediatric feeding and

swallowing and associated problems. We spent quite a few hours

discussing reflux and how it affects the body.

I can answer this question for you. It was something *I* didn't

know! When you have acid reflux into the esophagus, you have an

automatic response in the airway to close off at the level of the

vocal cords to protect the airway from acid. Whenever acid gets into

the esophagus this happens. For EVERYONE! The larynx can spasm

(laryngospasm) and partially or fully close off the airway as a

protection mechanism. If this happens, you can also have bronchiols

constrict in response, causing wheezing or an asthma like attack.

Bob Beecher, one of the presenters, said that this was discovered

because MD's used to use Theophyline to treat asthma attacks. They

found that instead of the attacks correcting themselves, they kept

repeating because the bottom 2/3's of the esophagus is smooth muscle,

like the lungs. The Theophyline is used to counteract the

contractions of the lung smooth muscle. Well....when the theophyline

was also stopping contractions of the smooth muscle of the lower

esophagus, including the lower esophageal sphincter, which keeps the

acid in the stomach, therefore more reflux was happening,

continued " asthma " attackes...vicious cycle.

He also said that reflux in infants has now been shown to be the

culprit in 5-7% of SIDS deaths due to the larynx spasming in response

to the reflux.

This response may also be a reason for sleep apnea in people.

Bonnie

[Guest guest]

Thanks for the responses. Bonnie, that talk by the pediatrician you

mentioned was very useful. I guess the trick is to prevent the acid reflux,

which for me, I know, is generally eating better, properly combining foods

as much as possible (fruit by itself, vegetables and meat together, and

vegetables and starches together, but no meat and starches together!), and

more vegetables. Incidentally, when I first learned about this food

combining thing, I obeyed it rigorously and as a result, a rectal prolapse

problem for which a surgeon had recommended surgery almost completely

disappeared. But surprise surprise, the surgeon wasn't interested in how the

problem managed to go away without outside assistance.

Does anyone else agree with the generalization that with EDS we need to

process our food quickly, for various reasons?

Lenore