What's the Root Cause? by Dr Vikki Petersen

Root Cause Medical Clinic
  • 5.0 (10)
  • Alternative Health
  • Updated Semiweekly

"What's the Root Cause?" is brought to you by Root Cause Medical Clinic, featuring Dr. Vikki Petersen—renowned doctor, functional medicine expert, author of "Hiatal Hernia Syndrome" and host of a highly popular YouTube channel. Dr. Vikki Petersen and her team of clinicians provide cutting-edge solutions in gut health, hiatal hernia syndrome, nutrition, food, hormones, genetics, lifestyle, and more. You don’t have to accept feeling unwell or struggling with chronic health issues. Your body has the power to heal, and with the right approach, reversing many health conditions is possible. We're here to help you do just that. Have questions about your health? Contact us today at 727-335-0400 or visit RootCauseMedicalClinics.com.

  1. 2d ago

    Told You Don't Have a Hiatal Hernia? You Still Might

    If a test came back clear — or a hernia was found and called "too small to matter" — and you still have the symptoms, this video is for you. Dr. Vikki walks through why a sliding hiatal hernia is so easily missed, what the research actually says about hernia size and symptoms, and why a normal test result is not the same as a real answer. → Book a consultation: https://rootcausemedicalclinics.com/hiatal-hernia-natural-treatment/ Call us directly at: 727-335-0400 ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ ⏱️ What we cover → Why a sliding hernia is missed on endoscopy — up to a third of the time → Why a "clean scope" often means "nobody saw it that day" → "Too small to matter" — the sleight of hand between small in size and small in importance → Why size studies about reflux don't apply to palpitations, breathlessness, or anxiety → Why a normal test result is not the same as an answer ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ ⚠️ Important → Endoscopy is an important test. Trouble swallowing, food sticking, vomiting blood, black or tarry stools, unexplained weight loss, or chest pain must be evaluated by a doctor promptly. → This video is about the common small sliding hernia — not large or paraesophageal hernias, which may require surgery. ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ 🎥 Watch next → 5 Signs Your Acid Reflux Is Actually a Hiatal Hernia — https://youtu.be/MzYAyJ6JNJo → Hiatal Hernia: Symptoms You'd Never Connect to Your Stomach — https://youtu.be/-VSEeE9DT6g ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ 🩺 Work with us We treat the root cause of hiatal hernia symptoms — not just the symptoms. Root Cause Medical Clinic offers telemedicine nationwide. → Book a consultation: https://rootcausemedicalclinics.com/hiatal-hernia-natural-treatment/ Call us directly at: 727-335-0400 ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ 👩‍⚕️ About Dr. Vikki Dr. Vikki Petersen, DC, FMCP, is a certified functional medicine practitioner and the founder of Root Cause Medical Clinic in Clearwater, Florida, serving patients nationwide by telemedicine. Her focus is hiatal hernia syndrome, acid reflux, and the gut-brain connection — finding and correcting the underlying cause of digestive symptoms rather than managing them indefinitely with medication. → https://rootcausemedicalclinics.com/hiatal-hernia-natural-treatment/ #hiatalhernia  #acidreflux

  2. Sep 11

    What's Actually Happening During a Hiatal Hernia Attack

    A hiatal hernia "attack" can feel terrifying — crushing chest pressure, burning, breathlessness, a pounding heart, and a wave of panic that makes you wonder if it's a heart attack. In this video, Dr. Vikki walks through exactly what's happening inside your body during an attack, step by step — the pressure, the acid, the esophageal spasm, the trapped gas, the breathlessness, and the panic — so the episode that's been frightening you finally makes sense. Book a consultation: https://rootcausemedicalclinics.com/hiatal-hernia-natural-treatment/ PLEASE NOTE: Chest pain can be a heart problem. If your chest pain is new, severe, or comes with sweating, fainting, or pain down your arm, treat it as an emergency and get seen. This video is for people whose heart has already been evaluated and cleared. ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ ⏱️ What we cover  → The trigger — how an attack begins (meals, lying down, bending)  → Why the acid escapes and the burning starts  → The esophageal spasm — and why it feels exactly like your heart  → Trapped gas, fullness, and chest pressure  → Why you can't get a full breath  → The panic — why it's a real physical response, not "just anxiety"  → How an attack ends, and why it leaves you wrecked ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ 💬 Tell me in the comments — have you had one of these? What did yours feel like? ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ ⚠️ Important  → A hiatal hernia attack can feel identical to a heart attack. Any new, severe, or unexplained chest pain — especially with sweating, fainting, or arm pain — is an emergency. A strangulated hernia (severe unrelenting pain, vomiting, unable to pass gas) is also an emergency. This video is not a substitute for medical evaluation. ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ 🎥 Watch next  → Hiatal Hernia: Symptoms You'd Never Connect to Your Stomach — https://youtu.be/-VSEeE9DT6g → Heart Palpitations After Eating? It's Your Hiatal Hernia — https://youtu.be/ZIDAPlLPTFA ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ 🩺 Work with us We treat the root cause of hiatal hernia symptoms — not just the symptoms. Root Cause Medical Clinic offers telemedicine nationwide. Book a consultation: https://rootcausemedicalclinics.com/hiatal-hernia-natural-treatment/ ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ 👩‍⚕️ About Dr. Vikki Dr. Vikki Petersen, DC, FMCP, is a certified functional medicine practitioner and the founder of Root Cause Medical Clinic in Clearwater, Florida, serving patients nationwide by telemedicine. Her focus is hiatal hernia syndrome, acid reflux, and the gut-brain connection — finding and correcting the underlying cause of digestive symptoms rather than managing them indefinitely with medication.

  3. Sep 9

    Heart Palpitations at Night? It's Your Hiatal Hernia

    You're lying in bed. Nothing stressful has happened. And your heart starts pounding, fluttering, skipping — or you jolt awake at two in the morning with your heart racing and a feeling of dread you can't explain. If your cardiologist has already checked you and told you your heart is healthy, and this still happens the moment you lie down, there's a reason — and it has nothing to do with your mind.  Dr. Vikki explains the gut-heart connection almost nobody looks at: why lying flat changes everything, and the three ways your stomach can set off your heart. → Book a consultation: https://rootcausemedicalclinics.com/hiatal-hernia-natural-treatment/ Call us directly at: 727-335-0400 ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ ⏱️ What we cover  → Gravity — the one thing that changes when you lie down  → The vagus nerve: why your gut and your heart share a communication line  → Roemheld syndrome — the gastrocardiac connection, described over 100 years ago  → Mechanism 1: the stomach presses up on the nerve  → Mechanism 2: acid on the esophagus and the esophago-cardiac reflex  → Mechanism 3: inflammation millimeters from your heart's electrical tissue  → Why it isn't "just anxiety" — the positional tell that gives it away  → The pressure-reflux loop, and why breaking it looks different for every person ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ 💬 Tell me in the comments — does yours start the moment you lie down? How long have you been told it's anxiety? ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ ⚠️ Important → Get your heart checked first. Palpitations with chest pain, fainting or near-fainting, severe shortness of breath, or a racing heart that won't stop are not wait-and-see — that is emergency care, now. This video is not a substitute for medical evaluation, and if you're being treated for anxiety, don't stop anything on the basis of a video. ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ 🎥 Watch next  → 5 Signs Your Acid Reflux Is Actually a Hiatal Hernia — https://youtu.be/MzYAyJ6JNJo → Hiatal Hernia: Symptoms You'd Never Connect to Your Stomach — https://youtu.be/-VSEeE9DT6g ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ 🩺 Work with us We don't chase the palpitation — we find where your loop starts and take it apart there. Root Cause Medical Clinic offers telemedicine nationwide. → https://rootcausemedicalclinics.com/hiatal-hernia-natural-treatment/ ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ 👩‍⚕️ About Dr. Vikki Dr. Vikki Petersen, DC, FMCP, is a certified functional medicine practitioner and the founder of Root Cause Medical Clinic in Clearwater, Florida, serving patients nationwide by telemedicine. Her focus is hiatal hernia syndrome, acid reflux, and the gut-brain connection — finding and correcting the underlying cause of digestive symptoms rather than managing them indefinitely with medication. → https://rootcausemedicalclinics.com/hiatal-hernia-natural-treatment/ #hiatalhernia  #heartpalpitations #acidreflux

  4. Aug 26

    Hiatal Hernia: Symptoms You'd Never Connect to It

    Hiatal Hernia: Symptoms You'd Never Connect to It A hiatal hernia can cause symptoms that have nothing to do with your stomach — a hoarse voice, upper back pain, a cough that won't quit, breathlessness, heart palpitations, stubborn hiccups, filling up after a few bites. Because they're scattered across the body, almost nobody connects them to one cause. In this video, Dr. Vikki walks through the surprising symptoms of a hiatal hernia and why one small problem can show up almost anywhere. → Book a consultation: https://rootcausemedicalclinics.com/hiatal-hernia-natural-treatment/ Call us directly at: 727-335-0400 ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ ⏱️ What we cover  → How one hernia causes symptoms all over the body — the vagus nerve, the diaphragm, and referred pain  → Hiccups that keep coming back  → A hoarse voice or a lump in the throat  → Upper back and shoulder-blade pain  → Feeling full after just a few bites  → Shortness of breath  → A chronic cough — and silent reflux (LPR)  → Heart palpitations ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ 💬 Tell me in the comments — which of these surprised you? Which ones do you have? ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ ⚠️ Important  → Some of these symptoms have other causes. Heart palpitations and chest pain must be evaluated by a doctor. Worsening trouble swallowing, food sticking, unexplained weight loss, vomiting blood, or black or tarry stools need prompt medical attention. This video is not a substitute for evaluation. ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ 🎥 Watch next  → Heart Palpitations After you Eat? It's Your Stomach — https://youtu.be/ZIDAPlLPTFA  → 5 Signs Your Acid Reflux Is Actually a Hiatal Hernia — https://youtu.be/MzYAyJ6JNJo ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ 🩺 WORK WITH DR. VIKKI'S TEAM You don't have to keep managing symptoms with no real answers. Root Cause Medical Clinic helps patients across the country uncover why they're struggling — and what to do about it. We see patients via telemedicine nationwide. → Book a consultation: https://rootcausemedicalclinics.com/hiatal-hernia-natural-treatment/ ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ 👩‍⚕️ ABOUT DR. VIKKI PETERSEN Dr. Vikki Petersen is a Doctor of Chiropractic and Certified Functional Medicine Practitioner with 40 years of clinical experience in gut health, hiatal hernia syndrome, GERD, and digestive root cause medicine. She is the founder of Root Cause Medical Clinic - offering telemedicine consultations nationwide. ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ ⚠️ MEDICAL DISCLAIMER This video is for people whose heart symptoms have already been evaluated by a doctor. New or unexplained palpitations should always be assessed by a healthcare professional first — they can have many causes, including serious heart rhythm disorders. Seek emergency care immediately if palpitations occur with chest pain, fainting, severe shortness of breath, or a rapid heartbeat that won't stop. This content is educational only — not a diagnosis, treatment, or replacement for medical care. #hiatalhernia #acidreflux #heartpalpitations

  5. Aug 24

    Heart Palpitations After you Eat? It's Your Stomach

    Does your heart flutter, skip, pound, or race after eating — even though your cardiologist says you're fine?  → Book a consultation: https://rootcausemedicalclinics.com/hiatal-hernia-natural-treatment/ You're not imagining it. There's a connection most doctors don't talk about: the gut-heart connection. In this video, Dr. Vikki Petersen breaks down exactly how a hiatal hernia, stomach pressure, acid reflux, and the vagus nerve can trigger heart palpitations after meals — and why the timing of your symptoms is the most important clue. ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ ⏱️ WHAT YOU'LL LEARN → The vagus nerve — the direct communication highway between your gut and your heart → Roemheld Syndrome (Gastrocardiac Syndrome) — a gut-heart connection documented over 100 years ago → The gastrocardiac reflex — how stomach distension after eating can affect heart rhythm → The esophago-cardiac reflex — how acid reflux and irritation may influence your heartbeat → Hiatal hernia & palpitations — why symptoms appear or worsen after meals → Inflammation & the left atrium — another hidden pathway connecting the esophagus and heart → Anxiety vs. a physical trigger — how to tell the difference → What may actually help — addressing the root cause, not just the symptom ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ 🎥 WATCH NEXT → GERD, Silent Reflux, or Hiatal Hernia - What's Actually Causing Your Symptoms?: https://youtu.be/MNA8lNkJuEI → 5 Signs Your Anxiety Is Actually Your Hiatal Hernia: https://youtu.be/-nrA9ttzKfQ ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ 🩺 WORK WITH DR. VIKKI'S TEAM You don't have to keep managing symptoms with no real answers. Root Cause Medical Clinic helps patients across the country uncover why they're struggling — and what to do about it. We see patients via telemedicine nationwide. → Book a consultation: https://rootcausemedicalclinics.com/hiatal-hernia-natural-treatment/ ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ 👩‍⚕️ ABOUT DR. VIKKI PETERSEN Dr. Vikki Petersen is a Doctor of Chiropractic and Certified Functional Medicine Practitioner with 40 years of clinical experience in gut health, hiatal hernia syndrome, GERD, and digestive root cause medicine. She is the founder of Root Cause Medical Clinic - offering telemedicine consultations nationwide. ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ ⚠️ MEDICAL DISCLAIMER This video is for people whose heart symptoms have already been evaluated by a doctor. New or unexplained palpitations should always be assessed by a healthcare professional first — they can have many causes, including serious heart rhythm disorders. Seek emergency care immediately if palpitations occur with chest pain, fainting, severe shortness of breath, or a rapid heartbeat that won't stop. This content is educational only — not a diagnosis, treatment, or replacement for medical care. #heartpalpitations #hiatalhernia #acidreflux

  6. Aug 5

    5 Signs Your Acid Reflux Is Actually a Hiatal Hernia

    Reflux is a symptom, not a diagnosis. In this video, Dr. Vikki explains the two-part valve that keeps acid where it belongs, what a hiatal hernia does when it pulls that valve apart, and the five signs that point to a mechanical problem instead of an acid problem. If your reflux changes when you change position — that's not an acid clue. That's a gravity clue. ➡️ Book a Consultation: https://rootcausemedicalclinics.com/hiatal-hernia-natural-treatment/ 🔍 WHAT YOU'LL LEARN ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ ✔️ Why reflux is a symptom, not a diagnosis—and what that changes about your treatment ✔️ The two-part valve that keeps acid down—and why it was never one valve ✔️ What a sliding hiatal hernia does to that valve mechanically ✔️ The numbers: 20% → 30% → 70% → 96%—how hernia rates climb with reflux severity ✔️ Why reflux that follows your position—lying down, bending over, after meals—is a gravity clue, not an acid clue ✔️ Regurgitation vs. heartburn—and the bile your acid blocker doesn't touch ✔️ Why acid-reducing medications don't repair the lower esophageal sphincter (LES) ✔️ What it actually means when years of pills never fixed the problem ✔️ Why bloating, burping, and getting full fast are one problem—not two ✔️ How increased abdominal pressure drives symptoms—and why it's not just about weight ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ ⚠️ Please read → Don't stop any reflux medication because of a video. Rebound acid can be worse than the original symptoms — taper only with your doctor. → Get evaluated right away for: trouble swallowing, food getting stuck, vomiting blood, black or tarry stools, unexplained weight loss, or chest pain. → This video is education, not medical advice, and doesn't create a doctor-patient relationship. ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ 🎥 Watch next → Misdiagnosed? 5 Signs it's your Hiatal Hernia — https://youtu.be/scR4FKAajh8 → Acid Reflux Pill Is Hurting You? — https://youtu.be/LBKcTXjDhKw → 5 Signs Your Anxiety Is Actually Your Hiatal Hernia — https://youtu.be/-nrA9ttzKfQ ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ 🩺  Work with us We treat the root cause of hiatal hernia symptoms - not just the symptoms. Root Cause Medical Clinic offers telemedicine nationwide. ➡️ Book a Consultation: https://rootcausemedicalclinics.com/hiatal-hernia-natural-treatment/ ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ 👩‍⚕️  About Dr. Vikki Petersen, DC, FMCP Dr. Vikki Petersen is a Doctor of Chiropractic and Certified Functional Medicine Practitioner with 40 years of clinical experience in gut health, hiatal hernia syndrome, GERD, and digestive root cause medicine. She is the founder of Root Cause Medical Clinic - offering telemedicine consultations nationwide. ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ ⚕️ This video is for educational purposes only and is not a substitute for professional medical advice, diagnosis, or treatment. Always consult your physician or a qualified health provider. Views reflect Dr. Petersen's clinical experience and current scientific understanding as of publication. Individual results may vary. #HiatalHernia #AcidReflux #GERD

  7. Aug 1

    Acid Reflux Pill Hurting You?

    Acid reflux pills like Prilosec, Nexium, and Protonix were designed for about 8 weeks of use — yet millions of people stay on them for years. In this video, Dr. Vikki walks through 5 signs your acid reflux medication may be hurting you, why you feel like you can never stop taking it, and what to look at instead. ➡️ Book a Consultation: https://rootcausemedicalclinics.com/hiatal-hernia-natural-treatment/ ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ ⏱️ What we cover → Fatigue and low iron or B12 → Muscle cramps and heart flutters — the magnesium connection → New food reactions and the gluten link → Why you can't seem to stop — the rebound trap → The hidden long-term cost — bones, kidneys, gut ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ ⚠️ Important Do not stop or change any prescribed medication without your doctor — acid reflux medications need to be tapered, not stopped cold. Reflux medications help real people with real conditions; this video is about the cost of staying on them for years, not a reason to quit yours today. If you have trouble swallowing, unexplained weight loss, or chest pain, seek care. ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ 🩺 Work with us We find and treat the root cause of acid reflux and hiatal hernia symptoms — not just the symptoms. Root Cause Medical Clinic offers telemedicine nationwide. ➡️ Book a Consultation: https://rootcausemedicalclinics.com/hiatal-hernia-natural-treatment/ 📞 727-335-0400 ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ 👩‍⚕️ About Dr. Vikki Petersen, DC, FMCP Dr. Vikki Petersen is a Doctor of Chiropractic and Certified Functional Medicine Practitioner with 40 years of clinical experience in gut health, hiatal hernia syndrome, GERD, and digestive root cause medicine. She is the founder of Root Cause Medical Clinic - offering telemedicine consultations nationwide. ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ ⚕️ This video is for educational purposes only and is not a substitute for professional medical advice, diagnosis, or treatment. Always consult your physician or a qualified health provider. Views reflect Dr. Petersen's clinical experience and current scientific understanding as of publication. Individual results may vary. #acidreflux #ppi #hiatalhernia

  8. Jul 30

    Misdiagnosed? 5 Signs it's your Hiatal Hernia

    Have you been told you have GERD, asthma, anxiety, IBS, or heart palpitations—but treatment isn't solving the problem? Your diagnosis may not be wrong... it may be incomplete. In this video, Dr. Vikki explains 5 common symptoms that are frequently blamed on other conditions when a hiatal hernia is actually causing them—or making them worse. You'll learn how a sliding hiatal hernia can affect digestion, breathing, the vagus nerve, and reflux, and why so many people continue to suffer despite normal test results. ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ 🔍 WHAT YOU'LL LEARN ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ ✔️ What a hiatal hernia is—and why 95% are sliding hiatal hernias ✔️ Why bloating, constipation, diarrhea, and trapped gas can affect your diaphragm ✔️ Why acid reflux medications don't repair the lower esophageal sphincter (LES) ✔️ How hiatal hernias can contribute to shortness of breath ✔️ The connection between chronic cough, throat clearing, hoarseness, and silent reflux ✔️ How vagus nerve irritation may contribute to heart palpitations and chest pressure ✔️ Why endoscopy can miss many sliding hiatal hernias ✔️ The truth behind the phrase, "Your hernia is too small to cause symptoms" ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ 📚 FEATURED TOPICS ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ • Hiatal Hernia • Sliding Hiatal Hernia • Acid Reflux & GERD • Silent Reflux (LPR) • Heartburn • Vagus Nerve • Heart Palpitations • Chest Pressure • Shortness of Breath • Chronic Cough • IBS Symptoms • Bloating & Gas • Constipation & Diarrhea ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ ⚠️ MEDICAL DISCLAIMER ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ This video is for educational purposes only and is not medical advice. Never stop prescribed medications without speaking with your healthcare provider. Chest pain, severe shortness of breath, progressive difficulty swallowing, or persistent heart palpitations should always be evaluated by a qualified medical professional. ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ 🩺 WORK WITH DR. VIKKI ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ If you're struggling with hiatal hernia symptoms and want to address the root cause, our team at Root Cause Medical Clinic provides comprehensive evaluations and telemedicine consultations for patients across the United States. 📅 Book a Consultation: https://rootcausemedicalclinics.com/hiatal-hernia-natural-treatment/ 📞 Call us: 727-335-0400 ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ 🎥 WATCH NEXT ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ ▶️ 5 Signs Your Anxiety Is Actually Your Hiatal Hernia: https://youtu.be/-nrA9ttzKfQ ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ 👩‍⚕️ ABOUT DR. VIKKI ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ Dr. Vikki Petersen is a Doctor of Chiropractic, Certified Functional Medicine Practitioner (FMCP) and founder of Root Cause Medical Clinic. She has helped thousands of patients uncover the underlying causes of chronic digestive disorders, acid reflux, hiatal hernia syndrome, autoimmune conditions, and complex health issues through a root-cause, evidence-informed approach. #HiatalHernia #AcidReflux #GERD #SilentReflux #Heartburn #VagusNerve #DigestiveHealth #RootCauseMedicine #DrVikkiPetersen

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"What's the Root Cause?" is brought to you by Root Cause Medical Clinic, featuring Dr. Vikki Petersen—renowned doctor, functional medicine expert, author of "Hiatal Hernia Syndrome" and host of a highly popular YouTube channel. Dr. Vikki Petersen and her team of clinicians provide cutting-edge solutions in gut health, hiatal hernia syndrome, nutrition, food, hormones, genetics, lifestyle, and more. You don’t have to accept feeling unwell or struggling with chronic health issues. Your body has the power to heal, and with the right approach, reversing many health conditions is possible. We're here to help you do just that. Have questions about your health? Contact us today at 727-335-0400 or visit RootCauseMedicalClinics.com.

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