My Gut Feeling...

My Gut Feeling... 




I lost my appetite in February 2019, and has not returned it. I ate ramen for a while. I went through stages of several things, and am currently surviving on Ritz crackers, cream cheese – by the slab OR on a cracker, cream of chicken or ‘Loaded potato soup, and my daily repast of poached eggs and mashed potatoes.

I have GERD. Regularly. Whether i eat or not. Whenever i eat ANYTHING! And i take Omeprazole twice a day. Supplemented with Gaviscon. (I crush it up and gulp it down).

I dropped 25-30 pounds in about 6 weeks.

I had the last of my useless teeth extracted in April of ’17. I still get phantom tooth feelings, and my gums will pulse to my heartbeat. Not in pain, but just a ‘sensation’. My dentures FIT fine all through the adjustments. For some reason, right after my last adjustment, i just cannot adapt to them. They fit perfectly. The doctor cannot thin them any ore without affecting the ‘structural intergrity’. He said the WOULD break if he took them down further.

It’s been a year and a half of tests to determine chest pain and no appetite.

I had an angiogram. And follow-up visits with the cardiologist have been yielded the consistent comment, ‘You have a good heart. Your circulation is good’. We did learn that the flow in my left leg is a bit slower than my right, but not by enough to warrant compromising an artery.

Thoracic CT scan showed nada. The respiratory doctor was amazed that with a childhood in the ‘industrial north east, and an adult life in a dust bowl, there was NOTHING  in my lungs. Yes, even after years of puffing pot, NOT A SPOT, DOT, or anything else.

First esophageal scope showed nothing abnormal.

Thyroid ultrasound revealed a node, apparently benign. Likely a hemangioma - a benign (noncancerous) tumor made up of blood vessels. ‘Check back with us in a year.’

A barium swallow showed nothing amiss there. All valves operating, and a ‘speech test’ affirmed i could la-la-la, ma-ma-ma, pa-pa-pa, and repeat ‘Buttercup’ 3 times. (When I also iterated Beetlejuice, but only elicited a chuckle).

A second esophageal exam, testing the strength and synchronization of the squeeze factor FINALLY revealed a ‘stricture’. A ‘bottleneck’ or narrowing of my tube as a result of scar tissue from a life with GERD.

A normal eso is a tube. It is open at the top. The valve shuts off the TRACHEA, during swallowing, and leaves the gullet open. At the other end is a sphincter muscle that opens and closes allowing passage into the stomach. Imagine a tall 16 oz. tumbler for a tube. When inverted, everything rushes out immediately. Now take your 16 oz water bottle, that constricts just prior to emptying, and invert it. Glug, glug, glug, bubble, bubble, burp! THAT was food going down MY tube. And that was the gas and other stuff attempting to GERD out!

On top of that, i’ve a condition called ‘achalasia’ - a condition in which the muscles of the lower part of the esophagus fail to relax, preventing food from passing into the stomach. My trap door doesn’t know when to let food through, so it backs up in my tube.

Just after discovering the issue, i was hit with a stomach bug. I had dry heaves for a week to the point of evidence of hemorrhaging – black clot in one’s defecation.

I called to advance our ‘zoom’ initial interview schedule but affected nothing.

For two months i was in chronic agony! I really wanted (needed) to LEAVE THE PAIN BEHIND, and i didn’t really care much about how. I ate NOTHING and lost another 10 pounds.

I FINALLY had my ‘procedure’, and was still in agony another few days.

On the way out, the doctor said, ‘Oh, BTW – the REST of your eso isn’t in great shape either. Be sure to sip something liquid after each swallow of things like bread.’

I still have no appetite and no interest in food or eating. I still don’t do the external teeth.

But the pressure and pain in my chest has GREATLY subsided. 

And when i DO emit gas, it comes much more freely. I sound like a semi truck coming down a hill with its ‘Jake’s Brakes’ on. A deep rumble, rumble rumble, rumble.

Twisting, bending, or turning from the waist are no-nos. Anything that contorts or jiggles my stomach is like shaking a soda bottle.

I am getting better at detecting when i am building up pressure and what to do to relieve it. I have learned that i cannot sit up straight. For some reason THAT builds EXTREME pressure and after only a few minutes can result in extreme near nonstop burping for a good minute or more. Though it feels good to get it out, sometimes the few minute process leaves me exhausted, and unable to continue whatever i was doing.

So, though my ‘issue’ has been resolved, like with my teeth, the end result is little or no change, other than ‘the pain is gone…’

I continue to be unable and uninterested in food.
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