Awful gastroscopy experience!
Posted , 7 users are following.
Went for my gastroscopy this morning and it was just hurrendous. How anyone can endure it is beyond me. I asked for sedation etc and genuinely thought I'd be asleep almost or so sedated I wouldn't remember anything. Anyway the sedation didn't work at all and I couldn't tolerate the test even after 3 attempts. The staff weren't the nicest either which didn't help, they didn't really tell me what was happening or give me any instructions or anything and the doctor just seemed p*ssed off at me. So annoyed about the whole thing, I could have had the results there and then if it was successfully done. Now I'll have to wait to speak to gp tomorrow and hopefully get it done in a hospital where they can sedate properly x
0 likes, 12 replies
Waffalobill lindsay07120
Posted
My gastros office is in the hospital. I had it done in the GI endoscopy wing down stairs from his office. I was out like a light. My doc and his staff was awesome. I woke up not remembering a thing thanks to meds. Lol. I wasn't given the option of being awake for it. Would have said no thanks anyways.
BettyE lindsay07120
Posted
I think you have been very unfortunate in your experience and, from what you say, the attitude of the staff was less than kind, let alonw professional.
I opted to not have sedation. Before the procedure I was given an illustrated leaflet to read which explaine clearly what would happen. The throat spray tasted a bit like advocaat(!) Had to remove dentures and gum shield was put in. Doctor gave instructions quietly and nurse sat close by me saying encouraging things like " you're doing very well." Althought I knew perfectly well that they say this to everyone, it was still nice to feel treated as an individual.
I swallowed when instructed and it was like a piece of dry bread going down. I think I am lucky that I seem to have a large swallow, so to speak. I was allowed to watch on the monitor which was interesting. Drove myself home an hour later.
Most of this I have written on here previously; I do so again to hopefully reassure future patients that it is not alwasy a horrendous experience. What would have panicked me was being sedated and not knowing what was happening. We are all different.
Do hope your next hospital does a better job.
lily65668 lindsay07120
Posted
Hi Lindsay, Sorry to hear you had such a bad experience. The same thing happened to me. Not only did the sedation not work, it seemed to suppress my upper intellectual centres, which might have helped me to cooperate, putting me into a kind of fight-or-flight mode.
I have to say that going to a hospital won't necessarily make any difference. Mine was done in a major university hospital. Whether or not the sedation is effective depends partly on your particular metabolism, but mainly on your age. If you're over 65 (60 in some areas) you will automatically only receive a half dose. This is because of fears over potential cardio-respiratory depression in the elderly. This is enough for some people but not everyone. There's also more chance in elderly people of a paradoxical reaction to the benzos they administer - which is what clearly happened to me. I fully realise that this wasn't the experience of other posters on here but, as I said, we're all different.
In my own case, I'd never agree to gastroscopy under sedation again. I don't think I could tolerate it with just throat spray either. As well as having a strong gag reflex, I was traumatised for life by my gastroscopy experience. (Unlike you, I was held down by six people and the procedure completed forcibly.) Fortunately, I live in a country where I can insist on paying for a full GA myself, while still getting the rest of the procedure reimbursed by the state health service. Your next move will depend on what's on offer where you live. I hope you end up with a good outcome.
RHGB lindsay07120
Posted
Waffalobill RHGB
Posted
Gave me fentanyl in 2 doses. Your not really out. Your sedated. They give me versed so I didn't remember a thing. Numb my throat, drug me up, next thing I remember is nurse telling me to wake up. It was hard to shake. Stuff kicked my butt.
RHGB Waffalobill
Posted
Depends very much on the dose. I was out completely and I have had my fair share of locals, generals and sedatives over the last three years, so I know how they feel. I'm on holiday, so I don't have my medical records to hand, but I can assure you, I was out of it, I asked for a decent dose because I have a bad gag reflex and I'm a big person and I explained that having me thrashing about gagging was not safe for the medical staff.
My dose was duly increased.
lily65668 Waffalobill
Posted
You were lucky Bill. I don't know exactly what they gave me, but whatever it was I only had a blackout lasting a few minutes - although I believe this was at the worst point of the struggle to dislodge the firmly-embedded denture from my throat.
The nurse gave me just two puffs of throat spray, which I understand is normal if you're having sedation as well. In fact, some places will only let you have one or the other. I'd looked at the clock on the wall in front of me just before they turned me over and put in the mouth gag: 2:32pm. I felt the student pass the endoscope over the back of my tongue, then the nurse said she was putting in the sedation via the IV. Just seconds later I heard the doctor - who was looking at the monitor - shout "Stop stop stop!" (the same in any language) and I knew they'd spotted the denture, and finally believed me that I'd swallowed it. They made multiple attempts to get the denture with the "grabber" on the end of the endoscope - all of which I fully remember - but these failed. They then removed the scope and the mouth guard, flipped me over on my back, where I could see the clock again, and the doctor poked the big, old-fashioned angled forceps down my throat blind. The throat spray had worn off by this time.
At the point I felt the forceps go down the clock was reading 2:45pm. They must have upped the sedation at this point. Next thing, what looked like a huge blood clot with a little white tooth on it was coming out of my mouth on the end of the forceps and the clock was reading 2:49pm, so I must have had a 4-minute blackout. I've never felt so relieved in my life. There was blood spraying about, some of it down the doc's pale blue silk tie and I felt happy about that too. I screamed at them not to throw the denture away, I wanted it back but I could hear my voice gurgling and I was choking a bit. A man forced my mouth open while the nurse shouted at me to shut up while she sucked the blood out.
They kept me in for 24 hours after that on IV antibiotics and regular observations. I didn't even doze in the whole time I was in the noisy observation ward, and was still completely wired when a friend drove me home at 3pm the following day. He went out to get a bit of shopping for me and when he got back he found me up a ladder vacuuming the curtain rails! That was still the effect of the paradoxical reaction to the benzos, of course. I finally went to sleep around 10 that night, having been awake from 5 the previous morning - 41 hours.
So that, dear readers, is the reason I'm never going to have another gastroscopy under anything other than GA - however much it costs me!
Waffalobill RHGB
Posted
Mine was 200 mcg given in 2 doses. I was wasted for 2 days after. I couldn't stay awake. I would get up for a couple hours and go back to bed. I could not shake it.
Waffalobill lily65668
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BLADEBOY lindsay07120
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Guest BLADEBOY
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Hiatal hernia is not a tumore it's your stomach being pushed above the diaphgrama, sometimes it just slides back. This doesn't mean that it won' retrun in that position and slide back again down. This is why it is called the sliding hiatal hernia.
Guest lindsay07120
Posted