Endoscopy/dilation yesterday

March 8, 2011

Hi all,

Haven't posted much in quite a while, but am feeling pretty down today due to

yesterday's endoscopy/dilation. Talking to you guys always helps me not feel so

alone.

Quick historical summary - Diagnosed around 2000, 1 unsuccessful dilation, then

a myotomy in 2001 or 2002. Pretty good relief of worst symptoms until about

2009. In 2009 had a dilation that helped some, but recently have been having

worse symptoms again.

So, lately have been having a lot of heaviness in chest feeling, with

regurgitation of saliva and foam mostly. Food gets stuck and sometimes I can't

tell, then when I drink something, everything is suddenly really blocked up and

I feel like my esophagus is compressing my windpipe and making it feel like I

can't get air (its actually kind of scary). I usually then am able to

regurgitate a lot of saliva and foam (strangely, actual food doesn't come up

very much - mostly saliva), and eventually stuff feels like it goes down, and

then things are a bit better.

I went in yesterday for an endoscopy and hoping to get another dilation to help.

Sunday afternoon/evening I tried to eat really light - whey protein shakes and a

few crackers - to try to make it so that my esophagus would be clear for the

procedure, which was at about 11am on Monday.

The doctor gave me photos of my endoscopy and showed me a bunch of food still in

my esophagus - the crackers were still in there - even after 14+ hours and no

actual constriction of the LES!

He said that he did a dilation, but that there wasn't much actual dilation done

because the LES wasn't constricted - it was already as wide as the dilator

thingy. They had used the biggest dilation thing in 2009 and it still seemed

like the opening is very large.

I still have to sleep half-sitting up, and I have some trouble at nights if I

don't use a CPAP machine (I don't have sleep apnea, which is the usual use of

CPAP, but it really helps prevent me choking and aspirating on saliva/food at

night - I'm so glad that I have this machine!).

I need to make an appointment for an office visit to talk about my " options. "

Which I'm terrified to mean will be an esophagectomy. That scares me so much.

But I've already had a myotomy and dilations don't work for me, and I still have

food sitting in my enormous baggy esophagus for days on end.

Anyway, I'm feeling very scared, alone, and down in the dumps. I try to tell

myself that other people have worse problems, but it doesn't seem to be helping

me much.

Jenn

Recommended Posts