Forgive The Absence

I wanted to apologize for the lack of posts recently. It isn’t for not wanting to, but I have been suffering from a persistent health issue called gastroparesis. I have had this struggle periodically since 2014 when I became very ill. It was a situation I had never experienced before and my life has never been the same since.

In mid 2014, I began to feel a bit off. I wasn’t sure why. I was in my mid-40s and I knew that things start to change about that age with the body. I had my daughter in 2008 and it had been a bit rough on my body. I couldn’t put my finger on it, but it was something I had the back of my mind.

As the months progressed, I felt worse. It took a significant turn in late August. I felt awful. I had a migraine that lasted 3 weeks. I was exhausted, but I couldn’t sleep. When I did sleep, I was having horrific nightmares. I was living on melatonin to sleep and caffeine tablets to wake up. My appetite was gone.

In September, I went to my OB/Gyn for help. At first, he told me that he thought it was psychological and suggested that I see a psychiatrist. Let me tell you, this did not go over well and I was unhappy. He did agree to do extensive bloodwork. Three days later, he called me and apologized for his statements. He said that my TSH was 19 and my estrogen level put me in menopause. This is a significant reason for my symptoms. He put me on Synthroid immediately. I knew that it would only take a few weeks and I would feel better…except that isn’t what happened.

At the same time, I had started vomiting every time I ate. I couldn’t keep any food down. I also had a terrible cough. I would cough until the point that I would throw up. Three days after the vomiting started, diarrhea started. This continued for over two months. I went to my gastroenterologist for help. He started running tests. I had upper and lower endoscopies, both of which were normal. Every test I had came back normal. I then talked my husband into taking me to Emory University to their GI Department.

The day before Thanksgiving 2014 we drove to Atlanta to meet with a doctor in the GI department at Emory. It was not the appointment we expected to have. We met with a young female doctor. She spent the first 30 minutes of the appointment telling me that I needed a psychiatrist because I was depressed. Then, she told me that she recommended a gastric emptying test. I asked about my cough and she told me to see a pulmonologist.

We returned home and I had the gastric emptying test at our local hospital. We finally had a diagnosis…Gastroparesis. By the way, one of the symptoms of gastroparesis is a cough!! I didn’t need a pulmonologist. I was so angry that this woman had wasted my time and money to lecture me about being depressed after being in bed for 2 months, throwing up everything I ate, and gaining 45 lbs in the process, and she did not know that coughing is a symptom of gastroparesis? I wrote a long letter to her supervisor at Emory about her behavior and her lack of knowledge of her own specialization.

So thus began my struggle with a condition that I will have for the rest of my life caused by my thyroid getting so out of whack. The nerves that stimulate the muscles of the stomach to move food out of the stomach are essentially paralyzed. It takes medication to help stimulate the nerves to work. To help, the diet has to be restricted to foods that do not require long digestion time. So, no raw vegetables or fruit and cutting back on red meat (stinks because I love steak).

There are periods that I go through when my stomach works fairly well and I can eat what I want just in much smaller portions. However, like now, there are times when things are not good, and I cannot eat solid food at all. It can get so bad that I throw up everything I eat. This time I have not been throwing up because I have not been eating much in order to not throw up. I have mostly been living on water and very little food. It can take its toll on my energy level and, sometimes, my emotions. I can actually get a bit depressed and frustrated with it. Who wouldn’t?

I find it exceptionally frustrating because I gained a lot of weight in spite of the fact that I wasn’t eating anything, and I still don’t eat a lot, but because of my thyroid disorder I have no metabolism either. This year has been the worst year since 2014 for my gastroparesis, which leads me to believe that it may be getting worse. There are not many medications that help. I have tried several over the years and none of them are great and some have some yucky side effects. I am lucky to not be in a situation like many who have gastroparesis from diabetes and get to a point where they have to have feeding tubes. I hope I never get to that point.

There are some new devices that are coming into the market, but they are expensive. One of these devices is an implanted electronic muscle stimulating device. Electrodes are implanted onto the wall of the stomach and when needed the electrodes can stimulate the stomach muscles to work to aid in digestion. One of these devices runs about $30,000.00 and is not yet FDA approved, so not yet covered by insurance either, though I go to VA for my healthcare now because of the high cost of my conditions and no insurance company wanting to cover me.

So in closing, I apologize for my in ability to post regularly. It is not my intention and I hope that in the next few months I will recover and will get back to a more regular schedule.

Have a great week!