Meditation makes gastritis worse. Curious if anyone can speak to my meditation

[themarkacosta]

I am a 30 yr old male who was diagnosed with gastritis when he was 20. It appeared stress induced. I thought for the past 10 years I had chronic anxiety because when I used to put any pressure on myself socially, my stomach would respond sharply. I have done a lot of psychological and consciousness work and my thoughts are much less provoking nowadays but when I close my eyes to meditate, I feel like I am under attack since my attention is now on my bodily sensations. My breath becomes a trigger for my stomach, especially on the out breaths and before my mind relaxes I have already provoked my stomach which obliterates my mood and attention.

I am doing a bland diet and supplements to try to heal it but meditation, exercise and breathing exercise all appear to make it worse but all seem necessary to achieve relaxing states. I can't do anything visual for meditation bc my eyes have floaters and its very distracting. 

I may be changing my breathing patterns too aggressively. Typically I take short shallow breaths when I am not focused on my breath. But when I focus on short rapid breaths, my brain is followed a pretty chaotic breathing pattern and not sure what to focus on. 

I am trying to figure out what to do. I feel like I am trapped in a paradox which will keep me low consciousness and emotionally unstable. I am so ready to make a positive impact and chase my goals but this paradox is preventing me from finding the way. Any help out there?

Edited September 19, 2021 by themarkacosta

[Ora]

try being aware of the natural breath, whether is it long or short, shallow or deep. just light awareness of the inhale and exhale. dont try to control the breathing.

if you still find yourself putting too much effort on the breath try breathing in for 5 seconds, and breathing out for 10 seconds. longer exhales promote parasympathetic response (relaxation response). then after a while of doing this you can go back to the natural breath.

if still focusing on the natural breath is too difficult, you can use the counting method. after an inhale and exhale note 1, after another inhale and exhale note 2. count to 10 then go back to 1 and start again.

[Michael569]

Might be you are approaching the meditation mechanically. Such as "meditation = less stress" and so you force the meditation and expect less stress immediately but the brain actually becomes stressed about it because it is not working as effectively or as quickly as you want it ti. 

You could try switching perspective from "I meditate to suppress my gastritis" to "I'll just sit here and see what happens". And you let go of trying to control, you let go of desiring an outcome (less gastric pain, less inflammation) and just sit there and take it all I. No judgement, just pure 100% observation. And if there is any pain during the process, see if you can accept and tolerate that as well. 

May I ask what the bland diet is based on? What supplements are you taking for the gastritis? Is there any medication? 

And finally, have you been tested for H-pylori? 

[undeather]

13 hours ago, themarkacosta said:

I am a 30 yr old male who was diagnosed with gastritis when he was 20. It appeared stress induced. I thought for the past 10 years I had chronic anxiety because when I used to put any pressure on myself socially, my stomach would respond sharply. I have done a lot of psychological and consciousness work and my thoughts are much less provoking nowadays but when I close my eyes to meditate, I feel like I am under attack since my attention is now on my bodily sensations. My breath becomes a trigger for my stomach, especially on the out breaths and before my mind relaxes I have already provoked my stomach which obliterates my mood and attention.

I am doing a bland diet and supplements to try to heal it but meditation, exercise and breathing exercise all appear to make it worse but all seem necessary to achieve relaxing states. I can't do anything visual for meditation bc my eyes have floaters and its very distracting. 

I may be changing my breathing patterns too aggressively. Typically I take short shallow breaths when I am not focused on my breath. But when I focus on short rapid breaths, my brain is followed a pretty chaotic breathing pattern and not sure what to focus on. 

I am trying to figure out what to do. I feel like I am trapped in a paradox which will keep me low consciousness and emotionally unstable. I am so ready to make a positive impact and chase my goals but this paradox is preventing me from finding the way. Any help out there?

I need more information to help you.
- What kind of gastritis were you diagnosed with? (H. pylori?, autoimmune ...)?
- What did the diagnosis process involve?
- Did you get any treatment? 
- Did you get any check ups lately?
- What does your diet look like?
- what kind of supplements are you taking?

I highly doubt the breathing or medidation process is causally linked to your problems. 
Michael already mentioned that "real" medidation involves letting go of a desired outcome. This is difficult step, especially for beginners - but its also a fundamental one. You could also consider different kind of medidation practices - there are some, in my opinion very weird but maybe helpful, techniques which aim to "heal" the upset body. Contrary to western medidation advice, simple minduflness practices are not good for everyone. Sometimes I cringe so hard when I see people giving medidatin advice and they clearly dont know whta the fuck they are talking about. For example, you would never tell a person with PTSD to start a mindfulness practice. 

Anyway, before we start getting into that, I first need the questions above ansewered.
Best regards

Edited September 20, 2021 by undeather

[themarkacosta]

@Michael569 @undeather

I can definitely provide more information. I am grateful for you taking the time to try and help. 

First and only endoscopy was 10 years ago to test for celiac disease and was diagnosed with gastritis at that time. I didn't know gastritis was important and I was very compelled at that time to fix my anxiety / depression issues that developed earlier in that year. At the same time that my "anxiety" started, I realized that some thoughts were creating a strong sharp nervous system jolt from my stomach and I thought it was a normal response to anxiety. Fast forward many years of trying to treat mental illness instead of gastritis, I ended up finding spirituality and observing that my stomach is reacting independently of my thoughts but still reacting to certain thought patterns. 

- Type: gastritis type unknown, going back for a scope within a couple weeks. symptoms include burning / sharp sensations that jolts my whole awareness. very jarring sensation.
- Diagnosis procedure: diagnosis process involved a scope and biopsy. no ulcers at the time but this was 10 years ago. recently I have it responding positively to dietary changes / supplementation and keeping away from healthy routines which makes my stress worse such as running, breathing exercises, meditation or folding my body in ways that puts pressure on the abdomen. 
- Treatment: Too many to count but specifically for gastritis, has primarily been the past ~6 months. 
- Checkups: Working with Adapt 180 (Chris Kresser) but I find their help to be lackluster. My experience with medical doctors is always take a PPI which I did briefly at first and felt I had side effects to all of them at the time but wasn't too worried about fixing it then.
- Diet: I cannot steer away from this very restrictive diet at all. 
          - Overnight rolled oats with Three Trees nut/seed milks, hemp hearts, manuka honey and raisins all blended. 
          - Rice lightly salted with some boiled veggies
          - Potatoes maybe, not sweet potatoes though
Supplementation: I make great money and am constantly broke because all I do is research, purchase, experiment. There's not a supplement on the market I haven't tried that I am aware of. I even have mucosta shipping from the Czech Republic. I had some success with cabbage juice but the goitrogens jacked up my thyroid so now I take a supplement called Gastrazyme and blend it into my oatmeal. I really want to like slippery elm and DGL licorice for coating but something is causing me occipital neuralgia and I find I am better off just going minimal supplements. Most of them have seemed to make things worse or do nothing. I also was taking a bile binder called GI Detox which seemed to improve my sleep but may have been the cause of the neuralgia.
Test Results: (taken very recently)
     - GI MAP: some mucous degrading bacteria are high and some promoters are low. H pylori detected in insignificant levels with no virulence factors
     - SIBO: appears to be hydrogen SIBO positive
     - Dutch Adrenal Hormones: low cortisone crashes midday roughly
     - Bloodwork: low vitamin D, could use more vitamin B, IGa elevated although my pantry is gluten free


I have been pretty deep meditatively and have had many successful meditations in the past where I navigate to a more relaxed state but somehow its changed for me. Trying to tell my mind to focus on a stimulus is a recipe for chaos and pain. On one hand, I do expect to achieve the reliable state of a clear mind afterwards which I always can if I sit long enough but on the other hand, I am not expecting anything of the practice itself. Just trying to still my mind. I have tried just sitting there without any forceful thoughts or focus but it still happens. My mind will notice my breathing happening and once that happens, its game over. Being aware of my breathing makes my stomach flare up. Sometimes at the bottom or top of a breath I will pause or panic. If I try to count breaths, if I try to slow breaths, if I try to belly breathe, it all leads to the same result which is more stomach pain and never making it to mental relaxation. I am really trying to put my finger on what is happening and I am usually very self aware. To me its almost like an invisible tripwire related to controlling my attention. 

I have resolved to fix my stomach first before attempting to raise my consciousness again or exercise at all but I have had psychosomatic chronic pain before (lumbar discs, tennis elbow and carpel tunnel in both arms, hip labrum) and I fear that if I don't practice, it may never go away because my stomach is reacting to my lower conscious state. 


 

Edited September 21, 2021 by themarkacosta

[themarkacosta]

22 hours ago, Ora said:

try being aware of the natural breath, whether is it long or short, shallow or deep. just light awareness of the inhale and exhale. dont try to control the breathing.

if you still find yourself putting too much effort on the breath try breathing in for 5 seconds, and breathing out for 10 seconds. longer exhales promote parasympathetic response (relaxation response). then after a while of doing this you can go back to the natural breath.

if still focusing on the natural breath is too difficult, you can use the counting method. after an inhale and exhale note 1, after another inhale and exhale note 2. count to 10 then go back to 1 and start again.

It does seem that light attention is much less aggravating then forceful attention. That's a good tip. I find that trying to focus my mind on any repetitive task can cause the issue so counting numbers or counted breaths are a no go. I wish I could take your advice. People are so nice for trying to help.

The weird thing is at one point, meditation was super effective for my anxiety, beliefs and thought patterns because I was forcing it to focus solely on my breath and follow it closely with an intense breathing practice where I pursed my lips and forced air in and out at a normal pace but greater air flow. The sensation on my lips was the focal point. I actually forgot about that being how I started meditating for the first bit. I guess I could try it. The noise from the breathing and the stimulus were louder. Much less focus on "belly breathing". 

[TripleFly]

Wait so you can't sit? This doesn't sense. How do you sleep? How do you rest?

Look man, meditation is not supposed to be hard. EVER. Open your mind to meditation being simple, easy, enjoyable. Like you were a 6 year old kid, how would you instruct your 6 to meditate? You know some 6 year olds can barely stand still for 1 minute.

I can see that your body is really sensitive and your mind also because of your condition. This is a positive tool in meditation because it means you have very strong signs and communication from your body. follow it...

 

[themarkacosta]

1 hour ago, TripleFly said:

Wait so you can't sit? This doesn't sense. How do you sleep? How do you rest?

Look man, meditation is not supposed to be hard. EVER. Open your mind to meditation being simple, easy, enjoyable. Like you were a 6 year old kid, how would you instruct your 6 to meditate? You know some 6 year olds can barely stand still for 1 minute.

I can see that your body is really sensitive and your mind also because of your condition. This is a positive tool in meditation because it means you have very strong signs and communication from your body. follow it...

 

I can sit. But I have to engage in thoughts to keep distracted. Often I will pour over the phenomena of life or think about my direct surroundings and the materials that made it and their lifecycles.  I understand its not supposed to be stressful, I just have no idea what to do to make it not stressful since my stomach starts burning. That burning causes my stomach to tighten and then im physically uncomfortable for the rest of it. If I sit there long enough, I will become less stressed as my mind stops dancing around looking for stimulus to attach to but by then, my stomach is already irritated and this sets back healing. It happens off and on throughout the day without meditation, my brain thinks about my feelings and there's a fear response that I can't figure out yet. For the most part, I cannot feel happiness as a physical sensation, nor peace. Usually its just either discomfort or fear but mentally I can sort out some things. 

Sleep has been my main challenge for a long time because of this phenomena. I often go weeks without a full night of sleep. I have found certain thoughts and dietary routines to keep it at bay at night like telling my mind to stop thinking about all the physical things happening to me and accepting it. Also not getting frustrated that I can't sleep, and instead allowing myself as much time as I need to drift off. I still wake up in the night many times and have to repeat the process.  

[undeather]

16 hours ago, themarkacosta said:

@Michael569 @undeather

I can definitely provide more information. I am grateful for you taking the time to try and help. 

First and only endoscopy was 10 years ago to test for celiac disease and was diagnosed with gastritis at that time. I didn't know gastritis was important and I was very compelled at that time to fix my anxiety / depression issues that developed earlier in that year. At the same time that my "anxiety" started, I realized that some thoughts were creating a strong sharp nervous system jolt from my stomach and I thought it was a normal response to anxiety. Fast forward many years of trying to treat mental illness instead of gastritis, I ended up finding spirituality and observing that my stomach is reacting independently of my thoughts but still reacting to certain thought patterns. 

- Type: gastritis type unknown, going back for a scope within a couple weeks. symptoms include burning / sharp sensations that jolts my whole awareness. very jarring sensation.
- Diagnosis procedure: diagnosis process involved a scope and biopsy. no ulcers at the time but this was 10 years ago. recently I have it responding positively to dietary changes / supplementation and keeping away from healthy routines which makes my stress worse such as running, breathing exercises, meditation or folding my body in ways that puts pressure on the abdomen. 
- Treatment: Too many to count but specifically for gastritis, has primarily been the past ~6 months. 
- Checkups: Working with Adapt 180 (Chris Kresser) but I find their help to be lackluster. My experience with medical doctors is always take a PPI which I did briefly at first and felt I had side effects to all of them at the time but wasn't too worried about fixing it then.
- Diet: I cannot steer away from this very restrictive diet at all. 
          - Overnight rolled oats with Three Trees nut/seed milks, hemp hearts, manuka honey and raisins all blended. 
          - Rice lightly salted with some boiled veggies
          - Potatoes maybe, not sweet potatoes though
Supplementation: I make great money and am constantly broke because all I do is research, purchase, experiment. There's not a supplement on the market I haven't tried that I am aware of. I even have mucosta shipping from the Czech Republic. I had some success with cabbage juice but the goitrogens jacked up my thyroid so now I take a supplement called Gastrazyme and blend it into my oatmeal. I really want to like slippery elm and DGL licorice for coating but something is causing me occipital neuralgia and I find I am better off just going minimal supplements. Most of them have seemed to make things worse or do nothing. I also was taking a bile binder called GI Detox which seemed to improve my sleep but may have been the cause of the neuralgia.
Test Results: (taken very recently)
     - GI MAP: some mucous degrading bacteria are high and some promoters are low. H pylori detected in insignificant levels with no virulence factors
     - SIBO: appears to be hydrogen SIBO positive
     - Dutch Adrenal Hormones: low cortisone crashes midday roughly
     - Bloodwork: low vitamin D, could use more vitamin B, IGa elevated although my pantry is gluten free


I have been pretty deep meditatively and have had many successful meditations in the past where I navigate to a more relaxed state but somehow its changed for me. Trying to tell my mind to focus on a stimulus is a recipe for chaos and pain. On one hand, I do expect to achieve the reliable state of a clear mind afterwards which I always can if I sit long enough but on the other hand, I am not expecting anything of the practice itself. Just trying to still my mind. I have tried just sitting there without any forceful thoughts or focus but it still happens. My mind will notice my breathing happening and once that happens, its game over. Being aware of my breathing makes my stomach flare up. Sometimes at the bottom or top of a breath I will pause or panic. If I try to count breaths, if I try to slow breaths, if I try to belly breathe, it all leads to the same result which is more stomach pain and never making it to mental relaxation. I am really trying to put my finger on what is happening and I am usually very self aware. To me its almost like an invisible tripwire related to controlling my attention. 

I have resolved to fix my stomach first before attempting to raise my consciousness again or exercise at all but I have had psychosomatic chronic pain before (lumbar discs, tennis elbow and carpel tunnel in both arms, hip labrum) and I fear that if I don't practice, it may never go away because my stomach is reacting to my lower conscious state. 


 

We sometimes get patients like you in our clinic and what usually happens is that the established methods of diagnosis & therapy fail to adress the real underlying cause of the condition. Dont get me wrong, modern medicine is great and I prescribe PPI's basically every other day - but the system definitely lacks resources and background to deal with the complexitiy of some cases. What goes on in you is a bit of a chicken-and-egg problem. The way you described your symtoms and carried out diagnostics definitely show both psychological and physiological processess that could either amplify or cause each other. I am sure you are aware that inflammatory processes in your GI-system can be solely responsible for anxiety disorders plus a whole variety of different psychological/psychiatric issues and no amount of medidation will ever solve this for you. On the other side, psychological distress could cause a gastritis and other disbalances in your gastrointestinal homeostasis. There is a certain archetype of human who is usually at the core of such conditions and I think you revealed that pretty well ("Psychosomatic", "Very self aware", "anxious"). The good news is that if you manage to loosen the underlying knot, the effects will ripple up to the surface and a whole lot of issues will instantly become solved, propably including a significant portion of your psychological baggage. I remember a teenage girl who was a regular on our ward because of her ridicolous defacation quantity (over 30 times a day) and noone knew was going on. She was a psychological wreckage and couldnt do anything at all. No antidepressant really helped her, nor did any other therapy, anxiety over the roof. Well, one day we figured out what was wrong with her (our medical director is a House MDesque genius sometimes) and it litreally fixed 95% of issues in her life. She is now a blooming young woman. The bad news is that those cases usally need a very good doctor and helping someone like that through the internet is almost impossible. So the smartest move you could personally take is to take some money in your hand and find a great diagnostician who knows how to deal with complex disease. If you have already done that, then keep looking. 

So - I wont leave you like that of course. I will give you my input as well. Now I dont know exactly what you have already done, so I will just list what came to my mind. My treatment philosophy is that before we can go out into the psychological/spiritual domain we need to rigorously check for any pathophysilogic condition. A good diagnosis precedes good therapy.

Here is what you can do in my opinion:

 

Quote

Type: gastritis type unknown, going back for a scope within a couple weeks. symptoms include burning / sharp sensations that jolts my whole awareness. very jarring sensation.

Great! Thats what I would have told you as well. You need to get another gastroscopy. 10 years is too long ago for a rule out. 
-> Gastroscopy including helicopacter evauation: 
    - ideally that means biopsy + rapid urease test
-> Type A Gastritis (autoimmune) testing: Especially important if your Vitamin B12 level were low
    - Autoantibodies against parietal cells (90% of cases) and intrinsic factor (70% of cases), Possibly vitamin B12 level ↓, macrocytic anemia
-> In the case of unclear complaints in the upper abdominal area, optically inconspicuous endoscopy and a protracted course: Exclusion diagnosis by biopsies from the deep duodenum (2 ×), antrum (2 ×), body (2 ×) and fundus (2x) -> Rare but possible is a special forms of gastritis or oligosymptomatic forms of celiac disease.

 

Quote

 Checkups: Working with Adapt 180 (Chris Kresser) but I find their help to be lackluster. My experience with medical doctors is always take a PPI which I did briefly at first and felt I had side effects to all of them at the time but wasn't too worried about fixing it then.

Ahhh Kresser - the guy who praises himself for "evidence-based health answers you can trust". Kresser is in my opinion an idiot you shouldnt trust or search advice from. He is scientific illiterate, has a huge ego and is biased towards his system.
Yes, the PPI part is the "quick fix" - those drugs are great because they are usually safe and help a lot. Although I wouldnt prescribe a young person like you a permanent PPI-therapy, thats a bit unethical in my opinion. Thats why I told you that you need a good diagnostician that actually does a long and accurate anamnesis with you. 

 

Quote

- Diet: I cannot steer away from this very restrictive diet at all. 
          - Overnight rolled oats with Three Trees nut/seed milks, hemp hearts, manuka honey and raisins all blended. 
          - Rice lightly salted with some boiled veggies
          - Potatoes maybe, not sweet potatoes though

Check for all the common allergies/intolerances:
-> Gluten, fructose, lactose, allergene testing.. 
-> elimination diet approaches can sometimes be very enlightening
-> Subclinical allergies could keep your GI-inflammation at a very high baseline
-> A experienced nutritionist can help you really out there
Here is one I read good things from: @Michael569

 

Quote

Supplementation: I make great money and am constantly broke because all I do is research, purchase, experiment. There's not a supplement on the market I haven't tried that I am aware of. I even have mucosta shipping from the Czech Republic. I had some success with cabbage juice but the goitrogens jacked up my thyroid so now I take a supplement called Gastrazyme and blend it into my oatmeal. I really want to like slippery elm and DGL licorice for coating but something is causing me occipital neuralgia and I find I am better off just going minimal supplements. Most of them have seemed to make things worse or do nothing. I also was taking a bile binder called GI Detox which seemed to improve my sleep but may have been the cause of the neuralgia.

Be very, very, very careful with those supplements. 
Some lack proper quality control and they can basically put anything in there. There are dozens of papers who looked at the ingredients of supplement stacks and found everything from heavy metals, volatile organic compounds, divergent/toxic ingredient quantities and other healthy stuff in them. Also, without a proper understanding of the underlying physiology, you could make your condition even worse. I dont say that there arent good supplements out there - but most of them are cash grabs. Most lack any scientific background. 
 

Quote

Test Results: (taken very recently)
     - GI MAP: some mucous degrading bacteria are high and some promoters are low. H pylori detected in insignificant levels with no virulence factors
     - SIBO: appears to be hydrogen SIBO positive
     - Dutch Adrenal Hormones: low cortisone crashes midday roughly
     - Bloodwork: low vitamin D, could use more vitamin B, IGa elevated although my pantry is gluten free

GI MAP: Is decent for rough screening but PCR-testing(which is the method they use) lacks any real diagnostic value. Problematic to this assay is the poor level of specificity displayed by this assay reporting the presence of several pathogens, which could cause clinicians to treat with antibacterial and/or antiparasitic agents in the absence of any true pathogens. 

SIBO:  You definitely got something going on there - SIBO can be really difficult to treat but this is a route I would follow. You can try a therapy with Rifaximin for 7-10 days and watch how it affects your issues. I have seen real successes in cases where noone knew what was going on and its pretty safe. I have already mentioned in a previous post that there are specialists who only treat SIBO patients and they usually use their own wealth of experience as a fundation of their treatmeant regime. Those are the way to go in my opinion.

Dutch Adrenal Hormones: low cortisone crashes midday roughly
-> Interesting find, could be through a variety of things
- When cortisol levels are too high, you can have a crash with accompanying symptoms like severe fatigue, irritability and difficulty concentrating
- DHEA to cortisol ratio is positively related to stressful life events and perceived stress and a better marker for distress than cortisol,  therefore DHEA/Cortisol quotient would be interesting
- This could also come from allergies/intolerances against your food
- This will usually make your symtpoms worse
- I doubt there is any adrenal problem, so this propably relates to your GI-issues

Bloodwork: low vitamin D, could use more vitamin B, IGa elevated although my pantry is gluten free
-> If you havent already, start supplemenation routine asap

IGa is a very unspecific marker and pretty usless. It just tells me that there is something going on.

Quote

 

I have resolved to fix my stomach first before attempting to raise my consciousness again or exercise at all but I have had psychosomatic chronic pain before (lumbar discs, tennis elbow and carpel tunnel in both arms, hip labrum) and I fear that if I don't practice, it may never go away because my stomach is reacting to my lower conscious state. 

 

 

Lol. Keep that stuff sorted.
Leo suffers from GI-issues despite his high conscious state - those usually dont correlate. 

Here are complementary tests I would take:
- Faecal calprotectin from your stool (inflammation marker) as screening for chronic inflammatory bowel disease. 
- General lab including liver/kidney/thyroid/pancreas function + inflammation markers
- Ultrasound check - especially liver/spleen/kidneys/pancreas/Aorta
 

Everything else would be over the top at the moment! 
This advice is a bit crude because I dont really know the specifics of your case. As I already mentioned, finding a good diagnostician who will take the time is the best way to go forward. First we wait for gastroscopy results though. I think this is the first real important step. 

Take care

 

Edited September 21, 2021 by undeather

[mandyjw]

24 minutes ago, themarkacosta said:

Sleep has been my main challenge for a long time because of this phenomena. I often go weeks without a full night of sleep. I have found certain thoughts and dietary routines to keep it at bay at night like telling my mind to stop thinking about all the physical things happening to me and accepting it. Also not getting frustrated that I can't sleep, and instead allowing myself as much time as I need to drift off. I still wake up in the night many times and have to repeat the process.  

Yoga nidra!!!! Will solve both issues for you, and possibly many more. 

[themarkacosta]

@undeather Thank you very much for your time. You hit a lot of nails on the head and this was helpful as hell.

- Adapt 180 has been a joke imo. They have made things worse at times and provided nothing useful besides diagnostic testing. I have told them off a couple times respectfully. 
- There seems to be something wrong in me that is precipitating all of these issues and I am hopeful to find it one day. Either through a good diagnostician or maybe a handful of mushrooms. It seems like a well-hidden chicken / egg problem and wouldn't be surprised if it were all physical or all psychological at this point. I will try to figure out what a good diagnostician is. I spend all day researching and trying to find similar experiences and the best I have right now is bland diets for stomach and spirituality for psychology.  My doctor at Adapt 180 is also sending me Low Dose Naltrexone which is an opiate antagonist which seems like side-effect extravaganza from what I read so that's exciting. 
-  I'll get allergy testing but not sure what to do with that information because im already so careful with air filters and food products. I do take Claritin at night per the recommendation for suspected MCAS
- SIBO protocol sounds good (Rifaximin). I tried an elemental shake and the nausea was unreal. 

I will let you know if something comes up in any screenings. Please let me know if you have any diagnostician recommendations or tips. I will start looking for one asap. 

 

[themarkacosta]

1 minute ago, mandyjw said:

Yoga nidra!!!! Will solve both issues for you, and possibly many more. 

I am open to it. Thank you. Do you have a resource you like on the matter?

[mandyjw]

@themarkacosta I have this book, but there are free guided videos on youtube and elsewhere. https://www.amazon.com/Radiant-Rest-Relaxation-Awakened-Clarity/dp/B08TQRS529/ref=sr_1_1?dchild=1&keywords=yoga+nidra+radiant+rest&qid=1632243187&sr=8-1

You can also just start meditation lying down on your back and see if that helps in the meantime. 

As for eye floaters, I have them too. There's an important lesson there, if you pay very close attention you will notice that you must actually put in the effort to unfocus your eye to see the floaters at all. It happens naturally on wide light spaces like looking at the sky, so then our eye goes straight to focusing on them. However, once you realize that you can look beyond them and focus on what you're actually looking at, you will train your brain to focus on what you want to focus on. Soon it becomes effortless.

What you're doing when you focus on eye floaters is you're actually focusing on a projection of something that's in your eyeball. Rather than looking at what you're actually seeing, you're staring at a little flawed piece of yourself. You do this by choice, though I fully appreciate how it doesn't seem that way at first. The allegory is quite flooring when it hits you. 

[themarkacosta]

2 minutes ago, mandyjw said:

@themarkacosta I have this book, but there are free guided videos on youtube and elsewhere. https://www.amazon.com/Radiant-Rest-Relaxation-Awakened-Clarity/dp/B08TQRS529/ref=sr_1_1?dchild=1&keywords=yoga+nidra+radiant+rest&qid=1632243187&sr=8-1

You can also just start meditation lying down on your back and see if that helps in the meantime. 

As for eye floaters, I have them too. There's an important lesson there, if you pay very close attention you will notice that you must actually put in the effort to unfocus your eye to see the floaters at all. It happens naturally on wide light spaces like looking at the sky, so then our eye goes straight to focusing on them. However, once you realize that you can look beyond them and focus on what you're actually looking at, you will train your brain to focus on what you want to focus on. Soon it becomes effortless.

What you're doing when you focus on eye floaters is you're actually focusing on a projection of something that's in your eyeball. Rather than looking at what you're actually seeing, you're staring at a little flawed piece of yourself. You do this by choice, though I fully appreciate how it doesn't seem that way at first. The allegory is quite flooring when it hits you. 

I totally get that. I have some days where my eyes are more inflamed than others and I am more focused on them. At that point the floaters are my worst enemy but then other days where I finally accept them and realize I can view the scenery behind the floaters. There is no case where my floaters are not swirling around my vision if there's light sources but my relationship to them is a variable. I don't even feel the need to get rid of them anymore as long as I am practicing mental health techniques such as this. Thank you  I will look into this resource.

[mandyjw]

@themarkacosta  Essentially all meditation is is focusing past the floaters. No need to even make it a practice if the thought of practice turns itself into another floater. You couldn't not do it, you're already seeing everything in your field of vision. Now just look for what you like and want to be seeing. ?

[TripleFly]

Keep looking man don't give up. I know some people that made some deep breakthroughs because of their physical issues/illnesses. If you can't find a physical solution then going the mental route might find you a path. Appreciate you.

[themarkacosta]

1 hour ago, TripleFly said:

Keep looking man don't give up. I know some people that made some deep breakthroughs because of their physical issues/illnesses. If you can't find a physical solution then going the mental route might find you a path. Appreciate you.

Hey I appreciate you too. That means a lot. I will make use of this life either way but gonna keep truckin. <3