Problems with swallowing?
Posted , 3 users are following.
Hi - I got diagnosed with a 10cm strip of Barretts a couple of months ago and I'm due to have a repeat endoscopy soon as part of the ABBA study.
However, I'm having problems swallowing - it's as if the food takes ages to pass through my throat and move down. It was like this before the endoscopy , settled for a while but has now recurred with a vengeance. I take 40mg Omeprazole every day and this largely manages my GERD although sometimes I also take Gaviscon.
The problem swallowing is really stressing me out. I know there isn't anything nasty there as I only just had the endoscopy but it's a really unpleasant sensation. Has anyone else had this too?
0 likes, 4 replies
terry84973 SamJW
Posted
I have had the same problem plus sore throat and losing my voice, i have had my tablets changed 5 times because of many side effects. I for a while had to mash my food with plenty of gravy to be able to swallow and now back to eating more normal with most things..struggle a bit with cheese..so just maybe you need a change of tablets..
Barretts SamJW
Posted
I remember, some years ago now, I was acting head teacher at a school. Expecting the staff for a lunch time meeting, I ate my sandwich quickly. It was a chicken sandwich which stuck!
I was lying on the concrete floor of the office thumping my chest trying to get it to move and hoping the teachers didn't arrive too soon or they'd think I was having a heart attack!
My doctor did prescribe a drug, cisapride, that's no longer available as it can cause heart problems, that may have helped. Your doctor may prescribe domperidone, an anti-emetic, which may help with peristalsis.
Eat small mouthfuls, slowly, chew thoroughly and swallow carefully. And identify any foods that are particularly troublesome.
SamJW
Posted
I got myself in quite a state about it this morning to be honest. The duty doctor rang me back (because I can't get a GP appointment for 6 weeks.....) and he said that it would be nothing to do with my Barratts. But that's not what I found when I looked online. He wasn't terribly helpful to be honest and got himself in a pickle over the omeprazole dosage so I think I'm just going to try the things you suggest and hold out for a GP appointment with my own doctor. The doctor today eventually prescribed me something called Peptac to take 4 times a day with the Omeprazole so we'll see if that helps.
I'm trying to shift a bit of extra weight to help reduce the reflux so a reluctance to eat will help that at least
I'm going to postpone the ABBA trial endoscopy because I don't particularly want to aggravate my throat any more.
Barretts SamJW
Posted
Regards the ABBA study. It was in March 2013 that Dr Pandeep Bhandari asked me to become involved as a patient rep for the trial application. I joined in the conference call that laid out how the study would be carried out. But then i declared I could not support it. I was the only person on the panel who had acttually had an endoscopy and what he was suggesting was that the patients enrolled in the study would have twice as many: one with acetic acid and one without. I felt, representng the 300 members my charity had at that time, I could not support that - especially as I didn't believe it would discover anything new. Acetc acid aiding endoscopic examination has already had numerous trials and has been demonstrated to be efficacious. My charity's senior consultant gastroenterologist actually taught the technique too Dr Bhandari.