Anonymous’ Personal Story: Living with Gastroparesis
Long year before getting diagnosed with gastroparesis. I have had lots of abdominal pain and lots of ER visits and hospital stays. I had countless CT scans of my abdomen which always came back normal. I was in and out of ERs and hospitals so much that I ended up getting fired because I missed so much work, and they felt my medical condition prevented me from working. After one hospital stay of about a week, my primary doctor wanted me to get a gastric emptying test done, which showed I had delayed stomach emptying. Since then, I’ve tried to modify my diet to soft foods, but I don’t eat very much, maybe 1or 2 “meals” (more of just a few bites at each meal) and sometimes I don’t eat anything at all for a few days at a time. Sometimes soft foods will stay down other times it doesn’t. I’ve lost almost 40lbs in just a few long months which I know isn’t too concerning because 40 pounds isn’t that much, but if it continues I will be malnourished very fast. I’m also type 1 diabetic and so the issue of not eating leads to my blood sugar dropping, and I feel I can’t eat anything, so I end up using baqsimi (glucagon) to raise my blood sugar or dependent on glucose shots (I can’t do the tablets). It has been a long difficult journey before getting diagnosed and even after getting diagnosed. Unfortunately to say, I got answers to my persistent nausea, vomiting, and severe abdominal pain, but nothing has changed, nothing has helped, even smaller less frequent meals and soft foods diet doesn’t help much. I hope others have had some better success with medications or diet changes. I do not wish this condition upon anyone and hope others have more support from friends and family than I do.
