I went on Monday for my testing. They did an endoscopy along with the colonoscopy. Most of you should know what a colonoscopy is but for those of you who don't know what and endoscopy is. They put a scope/camera down my throat and esophagus. I like to refer to Monday as a "Full Body Cavity Check". For those of you just tuning in.. One of my major issues since being diagnosed with MS is Intestinal Shut Down. Basically what that is is your severe constipation due to the nerves not working correctly from Multiple Sclerosis. I really don't like to talk about this subject so I will make this part short and sweet. Apparently I get so extremely constipated that my intestines become very slugish and then just stop working. According to the Gastro Intestinal Specialist, this is common with people with MS maybe not to this severity but is common. He explained that your intestines and colon are run buy hundreds of nerves working together to make your intestinges and colon work properly. Multiple sclerosis affects your nerves and how they work or damages them to the point that they don't work at all. Hence the reason I am in this situation.
He decided to do this test since the small intestine test came back normal.
Prepping for a colonoscopy is not fun and is really not fun at all when you have intestines and a colon that don't work properly. For most people the prepping is bad enough but for me my stomach expanded to the size of a 19 month pregnant person. I hope I never have to go through that again or at least not until they get my intestinal tract working.
The GI Doc did the tests and said that nothing was abnormal in either direction. He did do biopsies and sent them off to run for all sorts of tests but still believes it will come back confirming that it is the MS causing the problems. He did explain that one test is for a bacteria in the stomach that can cause some of the same problems. If that is the case then it can be treated with an antibiotic. He also said they would test for Celiac's disease along with a bunch more. He doesn't expect to get all the results until the end of this week or the beginning of next week.
If the results all come back fine then he will send me to the bigger hospital in Chicago for any input but he said that the colon which is your large intestine is not a super important part of the intestinal tract to have. ( The Colon is basically the area that does the hardening of the stools) OK. Yuck... Don't like to think of that but he said that they have found in some people in my condition that removing 80-90% of the colon/large intestine has worked great and still allows for a normal functioning of the intestinal system. Basically it just shortens the length that the stool has to go through. Leaving people like me to no go through the extreme issues I go through daily. He also said that by removing that amount still leaves you with enough that you do not have to have a colostomy bag. Yeah!!!
To sum this up.. No results til next week and neither the GI Doc nor myself are expecting there to be anything that shows up. If that is true then I will be going to talk to another specialist to see if there is any other tests or treatments and if not then the surgery will happen. I know this sounds weird but I am ready to just do the surgery and allow me to have some sort of normal life when it comes to that problem.
I will keep you all posted on the results and then what the conclusion is. Basically I will just be writing the book from start to finish of "Tara's Intestinal Issues, Treatments and results" STAY TUNED!!!
7 comments:
I'm so glad those tests are over for you. No fun. Hoping you get some answers soon. I'll keep checking in!
I have a lot of constipation issues as well...but I don't say anything about it because I'm really nervous about the tests that they do to find out what's wrong.
I hope you get some answers soon!
Tests are so not fun. Im not familiar with the throat test - are you awake when they do that? Isn't it painful? Or is there something they do to prevent the gag reflex?
That was the best part of all. Apparently when a normal colonoscopy is done you are in sort of a twilight. Because of my MS meds they had to use a different anesthesia and they said it would pretty much put me to sleep. In reality it knocked me out real fast. Actually faster then they wanted because apparently for the Endoscopy they spray something into the throat to relax it so you won't gag. I fell asleep to fast to even know if they sprayed my throat like they told me they were going to do. The prepping for the tests were the worst part. Especially for anyone that has to take ant inflammatory meds because you have to stop those a week in advance so you feel the pain for a week before the test even happens. That part Sucks!!
Tinycandi,
I don't have an answer weather it is better to wait like I did or to talk to someone right away. I didn't because of fear and it has gotten so bad that now I could be looking at losing 80-90% of the colon. Oddly enough I am ready for it but maybe if I would have talked to them a long time ago maybe it wouldn't have gotten so bad or better put maybe I wouldn't have dealt with this for so long.
Now that you have these issues I guess you can wait and hear what happens with me and you can base your decisions on that????
I will definitely be keeping up with you to see how you are doing. :hugs:
liked your analysis of the emotional issues. Thank you.
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