GI Update

Jan 27, 2009

My nausea has continued since my last surgery, it did improve, and I feel like the last surgery did clear up some adhesions that were causing intermittent small bowel obstructions.  I still have the same symptoms (nausea/pain/vomiting), but my pain is in a completely different place, which I took as a positive, maybe a signal that we are getting to the root of the problem.  My surgeon at U of C referred me to the GI doctor at U of C.  I met with her on Friday for the first time, she is very nice and very knowledgeable.  They are thinking that I may have a Sphincter of Oddi dysfunction (which by the way, is weird enough to have been on that show Mystery Diagnosis), it has to do with the bile duct/sphincter being too tight, and allowing fluid to back up, which causes the symptoms I am having, but the symptoms could also be from some other things, so they took some labs to rule some other things out, and I am going tomorrow for a special MRI called an MRCP, it will allow her to get a good view of my anatomy as it stands now, including a view of the bile/pancreatic ducts and the pancreatic duct function as they will inject me with a medicine that will cause the pancreas to excrete Secretin so she can see where the pancreatic duct is, and also verify that I do not have any malignancies (God forbid) and make sure that I have not had a form of Pancreatitis all this time, not likely, but possible.  If all of these tests are still leading in the direction of the Sphincter of Oddi dysfunction, then they will schedule me for a therapeutic ERCP, it is done under endoscopy, and they use the endoscopy tools to reach the bile duct, and they use a cutting tool to splay open the Sphincter of Oddi to relieve the pressure and open the duct so it can function properly...there is a 30% chance of successfully solving my problem, and because I am a woman and I fall into a certain age group, there is also a significant risk of my developing Pancreatitis right after the procedure.  She has already told me that because of this, she will reserve a room for me for observation overnight, but I will only have to stay if I wake up in any pain at all after the procedure.  She advised me of all of the risks vs benefits, and even though a 30% chance of fixing me is not much of a chance, I have to do it because I can't keep on like this,  I need to improve my quality of life, and life for my family.  It has helped me to write these blogs, and to read the posts of others that are struggling, just a reminder that we are not alone.

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