Can a Hiatus Hernia be caused by years of high pap pressure?

I have just been diagnosed with a HIATUS Hernia!!!!

I was just wondering if there could be any link between the stomach being inflated
with huge amounts of air (auto pap going to 20 H2O) over many years,often resulting in
crippling stomach pains the following day due to my having ingested an ocean and 6 truck loads of air?

Anybody else have a hernia wondering the same, or is there no connection whatsoever and so am following the wrong sent??

The most common risk factors are obesity, smoking and age (being over 50). Causes are unknown.

Hiatus hernia is when the stomach moves up into the esophagus (weak valve at the junction) so seems to me it would not work that way.

hiatal hernia is something that has probably been with you a long time, just not diagnosed til now. 20cm/h2o (<.25 psi) is not real high pressure and wouldn't have caused it and wouldn't be over-inflating your stomach. it can't even inflate a balloon. you're swallowing air for whatever reason. what did your doctor say about it when he told you that you had it?

greatunclebill wrote: 20cm/h2o (<.25 psi) is not real high pressure

20cm is generally considered a pretty high pressure.

and wouldn't have caused it and wouldn't be over-inflating your stomach.

I can't get to 11cm of pressure without experiencing aerophagia (the fancy name for what you describe). Obviously pressure is correlated with aerophagia (the higher the pressure, the more likely). There are some people who can tolerate 20cm and others, like me, who can't even tolerate 11cm, or less. There is a possibility that you will adapt, as many do; unfortunately, I never did.

Thank you all for your responses.

I will not get to see my sleep doc for many months and do not have the option of bringing the appointment forward, unfortunately.

Sleeping ugly, I tollerate it in that I sleep through it, but wake up in great pain, burping for hours sometimes.

I am now interested to see if my machine, set at a pressure of 20 will not inflate a balloon, (I must try that experiment, some day) even though my stomach feels extremely well inflated and sore when my auto pap used to ramp to 20. That was before I knew better. Now I limit my machine range to a max of 16 to prevent what are, these possible runaways.

I do not smoke/never have except for passively, which I still do,at times and get my passive hit , as I follow people in the street who smoke.

So I cannot blame my beloved machine for my hernia!
Bummer! So it must be just life and getting older,as I steadily fall apart!

I am still in shock as it was a totally unexpected diagnosis, now have to take all these pills

Thank you all for your responses.

I will not get to see my sleep doc for many months and do not have the option of bringing the appointment forward, unfortunately.

Sleeping ugly, I tollerate it in that I sleep through it, but wake up in great pain, burping for hours sometimes.

I am now interested to see if my machine, set at a pressure of 20 will not inflate a balloon, (I must try that experiment, some day) even though my stomach feels extremely well inflated and sore when my auto pap used to ramp to 20. That was before I knew better. Now I limit my machine range to a max of 16 to prevent what are, these possible runaways.

I do not smoke/never have except for passively, which I still do,at times and get my passive hit , as I follow people in the street who smoke.

So I cannot blame my beloved machine for my hernia!
Bummer! So it must be just life and getting older,as I steadily fall apart!

I am still in shock as it was a totally unexpected diagnosis, now have to take all these pills

I was told a hiatus hernia was very common. Some people only find out incidentally and others have symptoms. I sure notice mine when I overeat...which is daily. I do take nexium though and that helped.

Elle wrote:I was told a hiatus hernia was very common. Some people only find out incidentally and others have symptoms. I sure notice mine when I overeat...which is daily. I do take nexium though and that helped.

This is absolutely correct. Many HH are considered 'sliding HH' they slide in and out of the diaphram. Most people that have HH don't even know it until they have some symptoms and have an x-ray or an endoscopy. Most are a result of a weak LES and or a weak diaphram.

Hey guys,

I have been diagnosed with a hiatus hernia about 2 years back. I don't take any meds... no antacids of any kind. I don't even bother much about diet. I am moderately careful, but that is all. The thing that makes the biggest difference for me is to sleep on an incline. I find it works better for me if I incline my entire bed up by an angle, instead of using extra pillows.

sleepinglass wrote:I am now interested to see if my machine, set at a pressure of 20 will not inflate a balloon, (I must try that experiment, some day)

here it is set on 20. it fills to normal form, but does not inflate past that.:

I have a "small" hiatal hernia. I believe I know the exact time mine happened. Back in the 80's a chemical spill of a large amount of formaldehyde damaged my airways and lungs, and the resulting respiratory distress included a cough that sounded like some sort of tortured creature. At times I ended up in the ER unable to breathe. One of those times I was standing by the hospital gurney, unable to even sit or I couldn't breathe, and the coughs felt like they would surely blow my innards out my mouth. Suddenly I felt a god-awful searing pain just below the sternum radiating through the chest and upper abdomen. With every cough the pain pulsated again through the area. I told the nurse about it and they were perplexed, saying they had no idea what I was describing. (Hey, how many people rip one (a diaphragm) right in the ER, huh?)

From what I've read, any increased abdominal pressure can be a culprit, sometimes sudden as in a trauma or maybe with chronic stress of the tissues, and there's even familial tendencies toward tissue weakness. Since the extent of a hernia is so varied, our experiences will certainly not be one size fits all. The worse case I saw when working in a hospital was a woman whose stomach had crept thru the hiatal hernia into the chest in front of the lung, then traveled up and was hanging over the top of her lung, showing up on xrays as a large strange mass on her upper lung. Coming out of that surgery was the best news any family could hear. The stomach was put back in place, the diaphragm repaired, and she was soon to be as good as new. Thankfully, most of us will never experience that extreme. Since cpap has helped my reflux symptoms, I consider mine just a minor annoyance. Don't know anatomy well enough to say, but just wondering if the same pressure that can cause a hiatal hernia can also cause a weaking of the LES sphincter. Hmmm.

Great uncle Bill you are a gem. Now you have satisfied my curiosity and I no longer need to do that experiment.
I find that truly fascinating! They say simple things please simple minds! You have made my day!

Thank for all the insight! I never realized that it was so common. They took an ex ray and did a gastroscopy. Since my gastroscopy 10 days ago I am in pain! Had no pain whatsoever before the procedure though. My doc says he thinks they may well have perforated something,which is reassuring!

I elected not to have sedation! BIG mistake! I think the doc was a novice and I really thought I was going to die, as I just simply could not breath. It was the worst experience of my whole life. I only know 2 people who have ever had one both without sedation and both said it was absolutely fine. I think I am just unlucky. A person I spoke to who had the procedure done by the same doc described it as medieval torture and should be illegal!

She too could not believe what she had just been done to her!
I am still re-living that moment and have constant flashbacks!

as you see, .25 psi really is not much pressure, as pressures go. 20 is of course on the high end of 4 - 20 but still not near enough to inflate the lungs. it just splints the airway open. vents that put air in the lungs are more in the 80 cm/h2o range. even at that, it's still under or just over 1 psi. probably still not enough for the balloon.

i've had hiatal hernia for 40 years with accompanying bad reflux. back in those days, rolaids and tums were about the best we could do so i can testify about very real pain. i,ve had the procedure done a couple times over the years. along with the mild sedation to put you into twilite sleep you get a little amnesiac so you don't remember. even under sedation you must be awake enough to swallow the probe as it goes down. if people remembered it they wouldn't have it done again and would scare others into not doing it. it is really no different sedation than the colonoscopy.

i'm pretty sure the cpap pressure keeps the reflux in your throat if it rises up. without cpap, apnea tends to contribute to reflux by helping to pull it up when it can't get air.

gone