I’m going for an upper gastrointestinal endoscopy this afternoon at 3:30 and haven’t been able to eat since last night at 6:00. I keep thinking “oh I’m hungry, I’ll get something to eat” then “oh yeah, I can’t”. Then a few seconds later “oh I’ll get something to eat, oh yeah, I can’t”.
Hungry!
Know the feeling well! What’s the endoscopy for?
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Miso Hungry
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From a local Phoenix artist that I know. 
I keep throwing up in my sleep which is actually a bit terrifying because sometimes I breath it in as I’m waking up. Also there’s a little geyser of acid shooting up the back of my throat unless I’m on progressively stronger meds.
Either of those will work!
FloatyGimpy, I’m reluctant to share this because I don’t wish to frighten you - if I am out of line, please know I mean the best. As I said, I don’t tell you this to frighten you - but mean it to help arm you with knowledge.
I am not a doctor, but I suspect they will find a hiatal hernia - but be sure to ask them about what I am going to relate.
I had this problem most of my adult life. I would wake up each night choking on my own vomit.
If I emptied my stomach, I could sleep, otherwise, I would be up all night.
In 2003 I was operated on for a hiatal hernia.
In my case, the esophagus was too short. Since they did not spot this, they did not operate correctly. In my case, the operation made things much worse. In the first two days the sutures burst and they operated again.
After I was released (24 days in ICU) the hernia came back almost immediately and even emptying my stomach would not permit me to sleep.
Several operations followed trying to fix the first operation. Eventually my stomach perforated. (I begged God to take me home, it hurt so bad!)
Emergency surgery that lasted 10 1/2 hours and I came close to passing on more than once.
They took the stomach out of the pipeline and now my esophagus is attached directly to the small intestine.
I hope this is not what you have - and hope your process goes much better. The surgeon who eventually fixed me up said that my case is not so common, so many surgeons won’t know to look for it.
Also, ask them about Barrett’s.
Please forgive me if I have caused you undue stress before your procedure.
No I appreciate your experience. I have already accepted that something is not working right and they’ll find something that needs to be fixed.
Isn’t it horrible making sure you have nothing in your stomach when you go to bed and still wake up vomiting?! And my back is chronically sore because I can only lay on my left side. If I ever turn over, the stomach acid just starts squirting up my throat.
Sounds like you had a really horrible experience with your operations though! Who knows, maybe mine will end up being a quick fix. crosses fingers
Ugh! Why the HELL did they (or, well, you) schedule it for so late in the day???
And yes, as Khadaji mentions, they’ll be on the lookout for Barrett’s if you’ve got long-standing reflux. I went through a period last year of having a horrible time sleeping due to severe night-time coughing. Sometimes I’d feel things refluxing, mostly not, sometimes it seemed tied to a full stomach, sometimes it was even after I’d not eaten for 5 hours before bedtime. The night I had strawberry shortcake and lemonade for dessert wasn’t a whole lot of fun…
In short, it was behaving a LOT like reflux-induced coughing.
That got me a ticket to a gastroenterologist, and scopes both north and south (I’m at That Age where a screening colonoscopy is recommended).
Actually by the time I saw the gastro, I’d stopped taking a new blood pressure medication - which has coughing as a known side effect… and the timing was suspicious but not perfect… and when I finally stopped it, the coughing stopped… but dayum, it sure BEHAVED like reflux and I was all set to PLEAD for a fundoplication because at that point I hadn’t slept well for something like 5 months.
Anyway - in my case, the daily tablet of Prilosec I’d been on for years was doing the job well enough that they found no Barrett’s (tho they did find a precancerous polyp :eek:). I made Typo Knig do the same routine later in the year and they found Barrett’s which will require routine monitoring.
While they’re deciding what to do: sleeping with a lot of pillows (including a wedge pillow) helped somewhat, though it was tough to sleep on my side like that and I have a hell of a time falling asleep on my back.
Hopefully they can get you sorted out - you have my sympathies.
Are you back yet? Here I wouldn’t get results for like two weeks - but maybe it will be quicker for you - when will you hear?
He’ll report in as soon as he’s finished scarfin’ down all the all you can eat Chinese buffets in town. 
Well I am indeed back. It was less than enjoyable as I woke up during the procedure gagging and heaving and hearing the doctor saying “Just relax!” I heaved and gagged and heaved and gagged some more. My throat feels like someone shoved a baseball bat down it. I have icecream.
She found some abdominal swelling and took a biopsy to rule out something that sounded like helicopter priority. I can call in a couple weeks to find out what she says.
Helicobacter pylori. Hope the ice cream helps! I haven’t found anything it doesn’t help with.
Sheesh - sounds like they screwed up on the amount of sedation. Sorry you woke up during!!
Too bad you had a tube in your mouth, so you couldn’t scream “YOU TRY TO RELAX WHEN YOU HAVE A 6 INCH PIPE DOWN YOUR GULLET, ASSHOLE!”.
It is common for them to only put me half-under when they do an endoscopy on me. Most of the time it isn’t a problem, but every once it a while it makes me gag and choke and then the just pump up the sedation.
I’m due for an endoscopy soon, to see if my Barretts has gone away or gotten worse - but I don’t have anyone to pick me up and take me home and I hate the idea of staying overnight just for a damn test. (Why won’t they let me take a taxi home?)
Yeah, that.
Yeah it kind of sucked. Even in my semi-stoned state I could hear myself retching super loud. It was impressive. The obviously then gave me some more sedation because I went back to sleep and when I woke up in the recovery area, my pillow and gown were all wet and stinky, I think I must have barfed a bit.
I took a taxi home from mine but that’s because I told them “my friend” was coming to pick me up with the full intention of taking a cab home. I’m pretty new to the city and only know my coworkers and I didn’t really feel comfortable asking any of them to pick me up, but they won’t do the procedure unless you have someone to come pick you up.
I just sat there with a book till eventually one of the nurses said “why don’t you take a cab home” so I said “ok!” and left.
Ugh, I had one of those about a year and a half ago. I’m really sensitive to the knockout drugs… when it was time for me to wake up my mom and a nurse had to shake me pretty hard to get me to come around. They tested me for Barrett’s and H. pylori, but all they found was that the opening to my esophagus is not shaped normally. The doctor told me all I could do was try different medicines until I found one that worked for me. Thanks… :mad: