You read right, a new diagnosis has hit the block and it's called Gastroparesis.
Never heard of it? Me neither. But apparently about 125 000 Australians have it (about 25 000 Australians live with Multiple Sclerosis). Causes? Can be Diabetes, post-surgery or idiopathic (meaning 'fuck knows'). Guess which category I fall into? Yup, the last one. Though there are connections to certain nervous system and autoimmune conditions...MS. BOO!!!
So what does Gastroparesis mean? It means a paralysed or partially paralysed stomach. Food takes a long time to enter the small intestines because the muscle mechanisms are being lazy pricks. The result is a bunch of fun stuff like nausea, early satiety (feeling full quickly), vomiting (which can lead to dehydration, malnutrition, unintentional weight loss), bloating, upper abdominal pain, reduced appetite (which can lead to unintentional weight loss, malnutrition) and general feeling awful because your guts hate you.
For me...as you know, I have been feeling sick from food for a good 10 months, probably more now I understand the symptoms of Gastroparesis. I was diagnosed with reflux/GORD (which I didn't even realise I had) after an endoscopy in October last year. Reflux can be a secondary pain in the gut because that stomach isn't doing much with the food...so it's like just sitting there being a right old pain. More to come on this...
How is this fucker diagnosed? Well...I had to eat some radioactive stuff for a Gastric Emptying Study (GES). They usually use egg but I let them know I only eat egg in cake. And I was not allowed to have cake. The 'alternative' was soy textured protein or something. It was ugly and brown and not nice to eat (but way better than having to eat egg). I had to eat it in a 'sandwich', so it was representative of a 'normal' size meal. I had gloves on and a small glass of water to get it down. Once I ate it, I had to lay under a scanner and it would show up the radioactive particles on a screen. This would be 'filmed' for 1 minute, every 15 minutes over a 2 hour period. So even though the chick couldn't tell me anything, I could see it for myself...the 'food' was taking a LONG time to exit my stomach. Later that day the report came back and BOOM "Comment: Severe Gastroparesis". Round of applause.
Before the GES, I had already convinced myself I had it. Everything I read about the symptoms matched so well with how I was feeling. Yeah, it's not the C word but it's a huge inconvenience on the lifestyle I like (i.e Food eating). People who have severe symptoms, like vomiting, live a life of a liquid diet and are tube or peg fed. It sounds dire, right? How would I be able to travel with this? How can we 'go out' and eat at a restaurant or cafe? Well we don't. I no longer drink alcohol. It's not good for motility and it's not good for the GORD either. H2O for me! Even then, I cant even have fancy water with bubbles because that irritates it.
I have read diet is one way to manage this beast. I have been 'trying' that, blindly, because you get this information about what's up and then no one helps you until you live through the excruciating wait to see the specialist. I see the gastroenterologist in a few weeks.
I got this med to try. Domperidone...sounds like the champagne...I fucking wish. I got the script weeeeeeks ago but had been reluctant to try it because it can mess witch you heart. I had to get an ECG to get a baseline because of something to do with QT interval progression (does that make sense to anyone?). I also can't take the PPI I am on for the reflux within 2 hours of the Domperidone because it needs a certain stomach acid to absorb properly. I don't even know if my PPI is helping my relfux. Urgh.
C H R O N I C A N Y T H I N G R E A L L Y S U C K S ! ! !
Anyway, that is that. I also turned 40. I also have a gallstone. I also had my two Pfizer doses. I also have been doing an exec role at work. I also hate the length of 'winter' in this place, and fucking waiting. Waiting for specialists, waiting for pain to go, waiting for holidays to come, waiting for something bad to happen, waiting for something good to happen, waiting for COVID to fuck off.
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