U...G...H...

**WARNING** PUBLIC SERVICE ANNOUNCEMENT: Do not read the following if you have any issues reading about gastric issues (even though I think this would be good information to have in my back pocket if I were you, I understand that some people just don't think this kind of talk is appropriate)

I am miserable, and I mean it in the worst way.  For two weeks now I have been battling some pretty severe gastro issues, and by gastro I really mean esophageal-ish.  Like I was saying in my previous post, I've been trying to come up with some different recipes that are higher in protein and lower in fat.  I've really been hitting http://www.epicurious.com/ and http://www.allrecipes.com/ pretty hard for things such as: Mustard-Herbed Butter Salmon with couscous, Morrocan Sea Scallops (with the left over couscous), Mustard Crusted Pork Loin with (thyme and garlic) roasted carrots...and this wonderful tasting soup...Italian (turkey) Sausage Lentil Spinach (was supposed to use escarole, but i had no clue what that was...).

It was a disaster waiting to happen.  The recipe (for the soup) said it would take 30 minutes to make.  We had gotten home late, and i was in a hurry.  I made kelby's dinner and then started on the soup.  By the time the soup was done, it was time for kelby's bath, so i scarfed down a bowl...now that we're sleeping through the night, I'm not screwing up the routine until I'm sure this is for real!

The first bite was a sausage bite, and yes it was steaming, and yes I blew on it...but it burnt my tongue, my whole tongue, badly...and my reaction wasn't to spit it out, it was to chew faster and swallow (for some stupid reason)...so it kept burning my tongue and i'm pretty sure it burned my throat about halfway down (funny story...I didn't notice that until after my swim training a few days later).

But it was after 7 and time for bath so I ate the steaming bowl of wonderfully tasting soup in less than 10 minutes, got her in the bath and in bed just about on time.  My belly was full!  I slept terribly that night.  The next day I had terrible gas pains...but no passing of the gas...so my next great idea was to take some fiber pills to get everything moving.  well, that didn't work either. the next day there was finally some movement, but for what it was, I didn't feel any better...and usually after something like that I feel 10 pounds lighter.

Well, I had 3 bowls of that soup left, so I took it to work and had a bowl for lunch and gave the other 2 bowls away.  Still super tasty.  It had wonderful aromatic root vegetables, fantastic broth, and tasty sausage in it.  The flavor combination of this soup is very awesome (although next time i think i might use smoked turkey sausage instead). Then I noticed it was really hurting in a very bad way...like my esophagous was going to disconnect from my stomach. I figured I was backed up and I needed to keep drinking water...plus the water was helping my tongue to feel better.  But all it did was give me uncontrollable cravings for salty food...and for once, my brain was screaming don't put that in your mouth because it's going to hurt your stomach...and i watched my hands grabbing food and sticking it in my mouth.  Normally, I'm very good about seeing things and not eating them.  I mean, I have a huge candy bowl on my desk, filled with the good stuff (because I use it to bribe people to help me at work) and I rarely eat out of it...maybe one piece every few days.

The first week has passed and despite my efforts, I'm not getting rid of the food as fast as I'm eating it, so I decided to really help it along.  Laxatives, from both directions.  It's not pretty, but I got really scared.  All that effort and all I got was tiny black rabbit pellets.  It shouldn't be black, and it shouldn't be rock hard (even though I was drinking about 2L of water...too much more than that and I'll be back in overstretch bladder land...).  So then I really went after it.  I went back to town for a home enema and magnesium citrate.  Drank the magnesium (couldn't bring myself to "enema" myself...oh well, it was only $2) and 2 hours later it seemed to be working, but still not like what I had expected.  I was expecting watery rush, but it was still pretty much together.  Could I really be that full?  Then it got watery, but as I looked (I was hoping to see more of the black stuff come out)...there were little dollops of floating fat on top of the water, like an oil spill (turns out this is vital information for the doc...she said that's a sign of your gallbladder not working properly).  But everytime I went I looked and it looked like what I had for lunch was what was coming out...not a weeks worth of storage...so maybe it wasn't that the undercooked lentils swelled and fermented inside me. (The lentils were a little crunchy, despite cooking them for the recommended 12 minutes...which I've now found out means they're not quite done).

So, it was off to the doctor.  Repeated this whole story and ended up with an appointment for an upper GI and gallbladder ultrasound.  The ultrasound was great, nothing wrong with pancreas, liver, right kidney, or gallbladder.  The UGI showed signs of a hiatal hernia and reflux.  Hiatal hernia, is where your stomach migrates upward into your chest cavity.  Most people never know they have one, because the biggest symptom is heartburn and is usually controlled by medication.  There's a little muscle around the area where your esophagous connects to your stomach, to allow your esophagous to come down into your stomach cavity and then connect to your stomach.  Reflux can weaken and scar this area, which allows for the stomach to migrate north and get "caught"...in bad cases surgery is required to bring it back down, because it can become strangulated.  They have assured me that mine isn't that bad...but i'm still in horrible pain every time I eat, and it's getting harder and harder to keep food from coming back up...it literally can't get through the little intersection between my esophagous and my stomach.

The next day I called for the results..."ma'am you just need to take your nexium and you'll be fine"...whatever! I told them, no this isn't normal.  It hurts to breathe, I'm having chest pains, my stomach, my actual stomach is distended, my skin is stretching, i'm not having bowel movements...

"Ma'am what you're describing sounds like a major hiatal hernia, but the scan says it's minor...so let's get you an EGD". Fine, when? Next week. Are you kidding, will my stomach stay intact until next week?  By the way, what are you looking for in an EGD (scope) that you can't see from the barium swallow?  Silly me thought with those newfangled devices like flouroscopes and xrays...especially when your innards are covered in barium... could see shapes and dimensions of things...like a narrowed esophagous, but it can't.

The doctor is currently thinking that the reflux has caused scarring, which has caused a stricture, and that's why the food is getting caught.  Makes sense to me, except for the part where this was a sudden extreme onset of symptoms.  I've had reflux for 15 years, and been on meds since I can remember (granted I don't take them religiously)...seems as though this would be a gradual problem, not a one day i'm on the verge of severing my esophagous from my stomach turn of events.

I have an appointment on tuesday to get scoped.  I hope it's a stricture.  I hope it can be dilated.  I don't want to be on a liquid diet for the rest of my life.  I don't want to give up tomatoes, potatoes, or high fiber foods.

One weird but comforting experiment was a bowl of pureed soup 2 days ago.  I was starving, but my stomach was hurting, so I took a bowl of ham and bean soup (2C to be exact), put it in the blender, added another 1/2C of water, and really made it smooth.  I didn't microwave it (so it was still cold from the fridge)...it went down amazingly well.  It didn't hurt, in fact it actually kinda soothed my esophagous.  I was able to eat the whole thing.  About an hour later, I tried to eat some cheese-it's and they got stuck.  Yesterday morning (after the soup), I was able to eat 2 mashed eggs, cottage cheese, and pinapple without much trouble.  I was able to eat a morning snack without much trouble, but lunch was a little difficult (salad and soup).  Dinner from the fish fry went down easily, but got caught right away.  When I got home, I got on the scale.  I had gained 5 pounds...just in one day...and it's all in my stomach area between my belly button and my rib cage.  All in all, I have gained 10 pounds in about 2 weeks worth of time, despite continuing to train for my triathlon...there goes all that weight I've lost since thanksgiving :(

There's something wrong, and hopefully this EGD will be the next diagnostic that will come to a reasonable conclusion.

After a good long talk with my mother-in-law...I'm thinking maybe the EGD will show signs of burn.  I'm betting I do have scarring from years of reflux, but eating that boiling hot soup might have burned my esophagous (causing swelling / stricture)...this seems like a more plausible explanation for the sudden onset of symptoms.  Coupled by the fact that cold pureed soup made my symptoms go away for a few hours, kinda seals the deal for me.  I just hope that it's still obvious by the time I get the scope.