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How Is Gastroparesis Treated ?
Question: 24 year old black female with systems of pancreatitis but the doctors say that the pancreatis is ok...has gastritis...can not keep anything down...this is going on 8 weeks...in the hospital for 3 weeks...mri's catscans...scope...one thing they said that her food was slow to digest...tube down her throat to stomach to drain off excess gas and bile...they can't find anything wrong...
Hello and thank you for submitting your question.
Got it looks like you're dealing with quite a challenging situation. I will do my best to provide you with some good information and recommendations regarding what is going on.
Pancreatitis is a clinical diagnosis which is generally considered along with multiple laboratory abnormalities and abdominal pain. If she has had extensive imaging and laboratory studies which do not support the pancreatitis. We have to consider other possible factors.
You mentioned that somebody considered the fact that food was moving slowly through her body causing some of this abdominal pain. This is referred to as gastroparesis.
We sometimes see this in patients who are very obese or sometimes impatient to have diabetes. There are some medications which can be used to help food moved through the digestive tract. This includes one medication called Reglan. I am sure that her physicians are considering using this medication.
One other consideration for abdominal pain which is difficult to diagnose would be a vascular problem within the gastrointestinal tract. Sometimes we can do special studies to check bloodflow in the gastrointestinal tract. Her doctors may have considered doing this as well.
I would suggest that if after three weeks there are still no answers that you may request a transfer to a different facility or possibly a university-based hospital system which might have better expertise in handling this type of thing.
I thank you again for submitting your question. I hope you found my response to be helpful and informative. If you have any additional concerns I would be happy to address them.
Sincerely,
Dr. Robert.
Got it looks like you're dealing with quite a challenging situation. I will do my best to provide you with some good information and recommendations regarding what is going on.
Pancreatitis is a clinical diagnosis which is generally considered along with multiple laboratory abnormalities and abdominal pain. If she has had extensive imaging and laboratory studies which do not support the pancreatitis. We have to consider other possible factors.
You mentioned that somebody considered the fact that food was moving slowly through her body causing some of this abdominal pain. This is referred to as gastroparesis.
We sometimes see this in patients who are very obese or sometimes impatient to have diabetes. There are some medications which can be used to help food moved through the digestive tract. This includes one medication called Reglan. I am sure that her physicians are considering using this medication.
One other consideration for abdominal pain which is difficult to diagnose would be a vascular problem within the gastrointestinal tract. Sometimes we can do special studies to check bloodflow in the gastrointestinal tract. Her doctors may have considered doing this as well.
I would suggest that if after three weeks there are still no answers that you may request a transfer to a different facility or possibly a university-based hospital system which might have better expertise in handling this type of thing.
I thank you again for submitting your question. I hope you found my response to be helpful and informative. If you have any additional concerns I would be happy to address them.
Sincerely,
Dr. Robert.
Note: Revert back with your health reports to get further guidance on your gastric problems. Click here.
Above answer was peer-reviewed by :
Dr. Raju A.T
Answered by
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