I went for (o)esophagogastroduodenoscopy (EGD) and ileoscopy yesterday.
Both
without anaesthesia except for a bit of Benzocaine spray to locally numb
the
mouth, throat and upper oesophagus (you have to swallow after application
of
the spray). The great thing was that they did both ends in a matter of
minutes and I could follow the ileoscopy on the screen because I was on my
back. The not so great thing was the m***** of air that were pumped into
my
small intestine, which caused me great pain and I ended up panting as
though
I was about to give birth, which probably surprised the doctor. I think
that
the pain was more than I expected because it expanded the possibly
Crohn's'd, but definitely painful and stenosed resection site from 2005,
which was beyond the 35-40 cm of ileum that he managed to look at and
biopsy. The EGD was also not that amusing and one nurse was positioned
behind me, holding me and she pinioned my right arm to my body as I lay on
my LHS (my right arm was wedged underneath my body) probably to prevent me
from trying to grab the scope, pull it out of my throat and run out of the
room. Another nurse was watching me as the doctor was watching the screen.
I
couldn't follow the EGD because I had my back to the screen - the doctor
was
feeding the scope in and obviously had to be able to see the screen
himself.
It was great being able to walk around immediately afterwards with a
relatively clear head and not doing any damage to myself because of my
usual
reaction to full anaesthetics. I just had to wait 20 minutes prior to
eating, otherwise food would have ended up stuck in my oesophagus.
Both ends were clear except that my stoma was stenosed (I have been
telling
the docs that since 2005) and there were signs of inflammation and what
looked to me like ulceration, but the gastroenterologist said that it was
just part of the localised inflammation. It is probably due to the short
bowel syndrome and the never ending diarrhoea irritating the tissue as
partially digested bits ac***ulate there. The main re****t including the
biopsy results will arrive in 10-days or so and then I want to go to see
my
surgeon to prepare for emergency surgery due to the subileus at the end of
April.
http://www.google.de/search?as_q=subileus&hl=de&num=10&btnG=Google-Suche&as_epq=&as_oq=&as_eq=&lr=lang_en&cr=&as_ft=i&as_filetype=&as_qdr=all&as_occt=any&as_dt=i&as_sitesearch=&as_rights=&safe=images
The part of my intestine that was giving me pain before the procedure is
giving me more pain, but it is receeding somewhat 24 hours after the event
and, despite it, I did manage to sleep well last night. With any luck I
won't have to do that for another 3 years. It helped that I spoke to a
friend with UC the night before last and she told me that she has been
having routine colonoscopies since she was 19 and has never had a full
anaesthetic. So there was no backing down! (Or, perhaps, forwarding down
would be more appropriate in our case).
I did not take any of my medication prior to the morning procedure and I
was
told in no uncertain terms not to take the Tincture of Opium. I could have
taken the other meds, but chose not to. It would probably have been a
waste
because the Moviprep taken on the morning of and 3 hours prior to the
procedure would just have washed everything through.
By the way, I would not advise anyone who has active disease to go without
full anaesthetic unless you are particularly masochistic. I only did it
because I was fairly certain that I did not have active disease for the
extent of the gut that he was going to invade and I wanted to avoid the
side-effects of the full anaesthetic that makes me feel even sicker
afterwards. I am sure that I would not have been able to do the EGD
without
the Benzocaine spray. I did also have the option of an injection at any
time. If I had not had a full anaesthetic in 1992 when they diagnosed me
with Crohn's colitis I would most certainly have screamed the house down.
Vanny
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