I had my top to tail procedures on Friday.  The prep was miserable – the procedure wasn’t that much fun either.  But, meeting with the gastroenterologist was worth it.

As I was prepped to be knocked out, I had the chan e to speak with the Gastroenterologist.  We went over my entire case history.  This most recent episode – foods I can eat, foods that bother me, exactly what happened and when, etc.  The egg allergy idea (which he didn’t seem to buy into). My history of recurrent pregnancy loss and the in-depth analysis I had from Dr. Braverman. My history of drug induced lupus 15 years ago.

While talking he pulled up my 2009 gastroscopy results when I was formally diagnosed with gastritis and commented on how at that time it was microscopic mild gastritis found through a biopsy. And there is no evidence from that report that I had an ulcer – not sure where I got that from.  He pulled up my first and second colonoscopy reports – he commented on how excellent the last GI was in finding a 2mm polyp last year.

Needless to say, the Gastroenterologist was intrigued, and in my experience having an intrigued doctor is a good thing!

Here are the key things I got out of that discussion:

• He does not believe all my stomach pain episodes since 2009 are gastritis related.  The 2009 diagnosis would not cause this level of pain and this frequency.
• He thinks this is all immunological.  In fact, he’s pretty much convinced of it.  He promised to take multiple biopsies and have them test for every single thing, with a focus on rare issues and those related to immunology.  Due to the nature of the testing he’s requesting, it will take multiple weeks to get back the results.
• I will forever get 5 year colonoscopies due to the polyps and family history of colon cancer (I already knew this, but he reconfirmed it).  My next one is in 5 years from now, not 5 years from the last one.  That’s a bonus for me because I get to avoid Colyte for an extra year.
• He is determined to figure this out.  He promised he is not going to send the results to my doctor and wait until my next episode in 1 or 2 years from now.  He promised to see my in his clinic to discuss results and do further testing if necessary.  (In the medical system here a specialist does not have to see me again, they can just send the results to my family doctor, so this promise means the world to me and I plan to hold him to it).
• He agrees with me and fully expects the gastroscopy and colonscopy to appear normal.
• And, he promised to be incredibly thorough.  And he kept his word.
  • A gastroscopy typically takes 5-10 minutes.  Mine was 25 minutes.
  • A colonoscopy topically takes 20-30 minutes.  Mine was over and hour.

They did not give me any additional sedation after the gastroscopy.  So I was one of the fortunate few who was fully conscious for the majority of colonoscopy portion of the procedure.  Fun times (note the sarcasm).

But, there is an upside to this.  I remember a lot!  In fact, I remember him talking with his resident as learned a lot from their conversations about what they were seeing, all of which was normal.  In fact, both the gastroscopy and colonoscopy are perfectly normal.   Also, there was no sign of endometriosis on any of the organs he saw or typical signs of problems caused by endometriosis on the outside of the colon (I’m glad we didn’t do the $30,000+ surgery Dr. Braverman recommended).

Mostly, what I remember is I begged him to see me in his clinic and not let this just continue.  He again, reiterated his promise to see me in his clinic once the results of all the biopsies are in and to search for the answer.

.

So here’s the thing, there is a very possible link between this and whatever this is and our recurrent pregnancy loss.  And all I can think is seriously?!  Maybe this doctor will solve this mystery? And what if this mystery is something that is easily fixable?  I’d never change the path we walked because it brought us Little MPB.  But, I swear, I will be so angry if we get the answer now and it was something that could have been identified if any of our doctors ever took me seriously.  I’ll mostly just be pissed off because there’s potential that we didn’t have to go through the hell of losing 5 babies way too early.

I just want an answer.

And, ideally and easily treatable answer.

If you like this post, please feel free to share and please click the follow button on the side or return to myperfectbreakdown.com to follow.