Saturday, March 1, 2014

To make a long story short(ish)

Since my sinus surgery on January 7, I've been in the ER twice and the hospital for three days.  Chronic nausea and vomiting that led to the natural conclusion of severe dehydration and electrolyte imbalance.  I've got prescriptions for four different anti-nausea meds.  I've been tested from stem to stern and back again.  I've finally stopped looking like a junkie from IVs and repeated blood draws, including one just above my ankle.  Little tip:  If they ever want to put an IV in the underside of your wrist, beg them to find another spot.  It not only hurts like hell, visually it's creepy as all get out.

My primary care physician is fabulous -- she spent an hour with me going over everything, immediately scheduled two more tests to rule out a couple more things they had yet to test for, and when that came back normal immediately got me in for a GI consult.  He was fabulous too -- not only went over the novel that my medical history is by this point, but went back two years in my medical history, then immediately scheduled me for an upper GI endoscopy.  That's where they put a camera down your throat to see what your stomach is up to.  Kind of like a colonoscopy, but from the other end.  This was Monday.

By the end of it, I finally had what they think is the answer.  The fancy name is gastroparesis.  The layman's term is lazy stomach.  Basically, my stomach is not emptying as fast as it should.  For example, after you eat your stomach muscles should be processing then pushing out everything in like an hour or so.  I had last eaten about 12 hours before they did the endoscopy and last drank some water close to five hours prior.  During the scope, my stomach was still about half full of water plus I still had parts of last night's dinner in there.

In doing research -- which I'm still doing, and I'm going to write down questions for follow up with my GI -- it seems that thankfully I may have a mild case, at least now that the attacks seem to have stopped.  Knock on wood.  (Knock on lots of wood!  Twenty four hours of straight nausea sucks rocks, let's me tell you.)  But I also think I've had a very mild case for at least two years or so.  That was about the time my appetite changed, that I got full fairly quickly while eating, and random bouts of nausea with rare instances of vomiting.  By the way, I hope nobody is eating while reading this.  They took some biopsies during the endoscopy which showed inflammation.  So I really need to make some diet changes to manage this and prevent future attacks.  And strong memories of constant nausea and vomiting really inspire you to make changes in your life.  Ironically, it needs to be a low fat, low fiber diet.  Meaning, very few raw veggies.  I was treating this without even knowing it!  Cooked veggies, little or no peels on fruit or veg, lean protein.  Sounds to me like paleo/primal with a few adjustments in how things are prepared.  At least I know how to do that!

And how is your 2014 going?

Cheers,
the CilleyGirl


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