Hiatal hernia can be really terrible and causes a lot of GERD cases. For those who don't understand the anatomy of your upper body, your stomach is in your abdomen, which is below your diaphragm. The diaphragm separates the abdominal cavity from the chest cavity, and it is the giant muscle that pushes the air out of your lungs and then relaxes so that air pressure can push new air back into your lungs. Your esophagus (food tube) has to pass from your throat through the chest cavity and then through the diaphragm and then connect to your stomach. There is a small opening (hole) through the diaphragm that allows the esophagus to pass through to the abdominal cavity, and this opening is called the 'hiatus'. A hernia is anytime a structure in your body passes into an area where it's not supposed to be. A hiatal hernia is when your stomach passes partially or completely through the hiatus and up into your chest cavity, which puts pressure on your lungs and stomach and squeezes food and acid out of your stomach back up into your throat. Usually people with hiatal hernia will have the stomach move back and forth between the abdominal cavity where it is supposed to be and the chest cavity where it is not supposed to be.

I had surgery (Nissen fundoplication) 20+ years ago to prevent my hiatal hernia, and it did a very good job of that. But it also caused several permanent side effects, for example I cannot throw up. If I get sick, my stomach can heave and heave and heave, but I cannot throw up anything from my stomach and I have to go to the emergency room and get i.v. anti-nausea meds. I also can't burp, so any air or gas in my stomach has to go the other direction. There are a lot of new procedures they have now for hiatal hernia, and I am not very familiar with any of them or how well they work, but you can find a lot of information about them online. I do wish every day of my life that I had NOT had the Nissen fundoplication, but it's irreversible now because of the danger of severing the major nerve that passes through and controls the entire digestive system, so I'm stuck with it for the rest of my life. If you have hiatal hernia, do a lot of research and make any treatment decisions very carefully.

Hiatal hernia can be really terrible and causes a lot of GERD cases. For those who don't understand the anatomy of your upper body, your stomach is in your abdomen, which is below your diaphragm. The diaphragm separates the abdominal cavity from the chest cavity, and it is the giant muscle that pushes the air out of your lungs and then relaxes so that air pressure can push new air back into your lungs. Your esophagus (food tube) has to pass from your throat through the chest cavity and then through the diaphragm and then connect to your stomach. There is a small opening (hole) through the diaphragm that allows the esophagus to pass through to the abdominal cavity, and this opening is called the 'hiatus'. A hernia is anytime a structure in your body passes into an area where it's not supposed to be. A hiatal hernia is when your stomach passes partially or completely through the hiatus and up into your chest cavity, which puts pressure on your lungs and stomach and squeezes food out of your stomach back up into your throat. Usually people with hiatal hernia will have the stomach move back and forth between the abdominal cavity where it is supposed to be and the chest cavity where it is not supposed to be.

I had surgery (Nissen fundoplication) 25+ years ago to prevent my hiatal hernia, and it did a very good job of that. But it also caused several permanent side effects, for example I cannot throw up. If I get sick, my stomach can heave and heave and heave, but I cannot throw up anything from my stomach and I have to go to the emergency room and get i.v. anti-nausea meds. I also can't burp, so any air or gas in my stomach has to go the other direction. There are a lot of new procedures they have now for hiatal hernia, and I am not very familiar with any of them or how well they work, but you can find a lot of information about them online. I do wish every day of my life that I had NOT had the Nissen fundoplication, but it's irreversible now because of the danger of severing the major nerve that passes through and controls the entire digestive system, so I'm stuck with it for the rest of my life. If you have hiatal hernia, do a lot of research and make any treatment decisions very carefully.