I have been diagnosed in the past few years with Achalasia and went from 14.7 stone/weight down to 5.8 stone/weight before being saved by a feeding tube. I also have end stage sigmoid esophageus. I also have aspirated 18 times and one of them caused me to get lung cancer. I have survived them all and even recovered enough weight to get my Heller Myotomy surgery and able to eat by mouth again after 4 years of living with a G-Tube. But shortly after the G-Tube removal I realized I was having difficulty drinking water. I can get milk down because of its heavy weight but even sometimes it fails and I become severely dehydrated. 6 months after the G-Tube removal I was diagnosed with acute gastritis and NEVER been good since then. I sometimes become so dehydrated that I collapse from physical exhaustion. Barley able to walk..near coma conditions..and my only solution has been to check into the E.R Hospital to be injected with Ativan and Fluids which keep me going for a month or 2 at the max. The Doctors in the U.S. are not much help. When I have anxiety attacks..they are so severe they tell me I am suffering from depression and need to see a psychiatrist. I also have blood in my stool and in my saliva. I do not help myself very much because I fire the doctors quite often when they try to tell me to see a psychiatrist. I have seen a psychiatrist and was told this is not psychological and a physical illness. I have been denied a EGD enodscopy for the past year and am unable to allow the Dr's to see me in my collapse conditions because it scares them away.
Is there ANYONE else out there with similar conditions that can help me explain to the Dr's that all patients with Acute Gatritis and anxiety attacks are NOT insane?
Hi Corvette007,
I have fatty liver (non-alcoholic) hiatial hernia, ulcers, and a slew of other problems. I understand about the frustration with doctors. My only conclusion is that A. They refuse do proper testing because of costs, they know what they can do to get paid. B. They also know if they give you a diagnosis, they can't bring you in every two-weeks to rob you. And C, they really don't know what's wrong with you, so they label you crazy and log it into your file, so everyone in the medical field thinks your crazy and prevents any possibility of any future treatments or cures.
My advice, try and do what you can to be healthy. Drink pedialight and ginger ale. Find something or someway to survive because the doctors don't know what's wrong with you and if they can't diagnose, they look stupid, which most are, you could always try a disease pathologist, immunologist and possibly epidemiologist. But the G. I. Doctors I deal with give different diagnosis and so I give up, I lost so much weight because I can't eat, I throw up, or have explosive diarrhea. I have pain in my liver that prevents me from walking or sleeping, the list goes on. All I can do is try to drink water and live on potassium pills to keep my heart rhythm normal. Good luck and try to survive. But I understand your frustration.
You are doing the right thing to change doctors if they tell you that your symptoms are in your head. I would do the same. Even your psychiatrist told you that your symptoms have a physical cause. The next time a doctor fobs you off like that, make a complaint! I have had doctors and nurses laughing at me. I reported the nurse and she got moved on.
Thanks for caring and sharing your personal battles danielle61048. Please do NOT give up EVER!!
That is when you will lose the most weight and your body will begin to give up to.
I have found the real problem to be C.
These doctors are trained only one way to diagnose and think. Therefore, they are told to classify ALL anxiety attacks as a mental condition.
Even though everyone with acute gastritis and eating disorders suffer from anxiety attacks.
I have documented for the past year everytime I check into the E.R. that I am suffering from extreme dehydration and malnutrition.
I am going to stick with this Doctor who insulted me last week. Because I will prove to her and maybe she can help others.
It was like when I was telling them I was aspirating and they refused to acknowledge it. Except to say..if you aspirate."How did you live?".
I even filmed my #13 aspirate which was liquid because my sphincetr opened up for the first time in 4 years. So I drank myself to death from 6am till 12pm that night..even in an upright position the liquids came bubbling up..so I started the computer camera. Next morning I was covered in sweat and it took me 3 weeks to be able to walk again. When I reviewed the footage. I had my back to the camera. But when I was diagnosed with an abcess 3 months later. They finally had to admit I aspirate and have a trick for surviving aspirate. The trick is you must die to stay alive. When your nostrils close up and your lungs are full of food or liquid. You cannot breath until you vommit whats in your lungs. Which is very hard to do when you are out of air. But after you vommit..the body allows you to inhale..and you repeat that. Then you collapse on the ground and go into hypothermia conditions for 20 mins almost shattering your teeth from the chills. Aspirating is the cruelest form of punishment for ANY human being. But if you do NOT make yourself vommit when you have no air in your body..you will die. P.S. Sometimes you pass out. you have 30 seconds to continue clearing or else you will double aspirate. Which there is no trick to survive that.
Hope others who aspirate use this trick if they need to.