So I was hoping for some answers and I finally received some.
I went in for my upper endoscopy today at Atlanta Gastroenterology Associates and was very impressed with the facility, nurses and doctor. After getting some really good sleep for about half an hour, it was time to wake up. I jokingly asked the nurse if they could give me some of that (anesthesia) to go. It sure would be nice to get a full night's sleep that deep.
Anyway...when I got up, the doc told me that I had scar tissue in the lower part of my esophagus due to reflux which was causing the difficulty swallowing and he did a procedure to dilate it - talk about an instant relief!!!! I have not felt this good (from a being able to swallow standpoint) in a very, very long time. Apparently the damage had been building up over the years and it just reached a point where it got too big.
Below is a picture taken during my procedure of my esophagus:
And the next picture is a "normal" esophagus - you can see mine was a little tight...:
I don't have a picture of what it looked like after he dilated it - that would have been pretty cool though.
They also took three different biopsies based on the following: 1 - Reflux esophagitis, 2 - Acute gastritis and 3 - Acute duodenitis. Now what those all mean....well, it will just be easier to check the links out, but essentially, it means I have acid reflux.
The biopsy results will be back in 2-3 weeks and I have a follow-up in 4 weeks to see how things are going.
So, the good news is I can swallow SO much better now. The bad news is, I still have to wait a few more weeks to make sure there's nothing else going on. In the meantime, now that I've been off the antihistamines for a week (as of Wednesday), I have an appointment with the allergist this Thursday to do the full panel testing to see if I have to cut out shrimp or not...I REALLY hope not.....and one additional procedure next Monday.
That's the latest....
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