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Gastroparesis Treatment


ramakentesh

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Besides meds, there are a few things that have helped me along. Small meals are important, stay away from major sugar and carbs (French fries kill me yet I am known to still get them on occasion with no willpower) . Hard to digest foods can be a problem for me such as lettuce. I wish your cousin well. I also take Promethazine for nausea. Sometimes it helps unless I am too far gone on the nausea scale. But, it also makes me sleepy and seems to calm my central nervous system down.

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  • 2 weeks later...
  • 2 weeks later...

Oh, your poor cousin. My gastroparesis has, thankfully, calmed down over the last year (one of the small mercies of POTS, that gastroparesis associated with it can potentially go into remission), but I remember the misery of near-constant nausea. It would be physically painful for hours after eating. Ugh. My least favorite symptom.

I didn't want to take the Reglan I was prescribed, after reading the black box warning. The possibility of permanent facial ticks didn't seem worth it to me at the time. Instead, I used massive amounts of ginger. I always had crystalized ginger or Chimes ginger chews in my purse, and I kept a few bottles of Reeds Ginger Beer at my desk at work. The key is to make sure whatever you use has real ginger, and that there's a significant amount of it. If it doesn't taste spicy/burn a little, it won't do you much good.

A couple of pieces of Chimes seems to at least take the edge off the nausea and make it bearable. Plus, they're actually not bad tasting, candy-wise. My mom uses them when her chemo makes her nauseous, too. My preference is the ginger beer, as the ginger and carbonation seem to be a good combo, and liquid is easier than solid when you're on the edge of puking. But the Chimes are portable.

Most vegetables will make your cousin miserable. Even in smoothies, even pureeing the heck out of it with my vitamix, it rarely ended well. I juiced my veggies when I could - that helped a lot. Completely fruit smoothies, on the other hand, I didn't have a problem with.

Meat has a tendency to sit in your stomach, even without gastroparesis. I'd avoid it if at all possible. Fat, to a lesser extent than veggies and meat, gave me trouble. Carbs, unfortunately, seem to be the best bet for most people.

It's a frustrating situation of trial and error. And what makes you miserable one day may not the next. My final advice, take it for what you will, is that if your cousin is the type of person to fight and swallow back the nausea, they should consider coming up with a limit where they'll let themself throw up. If the nausea was so bad that I couldn't get out of bed, or if it hurt so much it brought me to tears, or if I had spent over 5 hours on the verge of throwing up, then I would stop fighting it and let it happen. Not a pleasant experience, but so, so much better than those other scenarios. Not something I would recommend often, because of tooth erosion and esophageal irritation, but it has its place.

I hope your cousin figures out what works for them quickly.

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I haven't found anything yet that helps mine and I currently weigh 99 pounds.

However, I met with a new doctor this week and he treats GP. Plus one of the doctors in his group is conducting a study on it.

There are several clinical trials out there for the condition and they are worth looking into if things are bad enough. There is one out of IN that I would really like to do but they don't pay for anything and I can't afford to fly out and my insurance won't cover the surgery.

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Eating the foods that help cause my erythromelagia to flare often eases my gastroparesis. Indeed, eating all my 'wrong foods -- those that I am intolerant to', can make my whole digestive system work almost normally, for a while. Some times I have to choose between hot, red burning skin (that's the erythromelalgia) and a digestive system that works. Usually I 'choose' to have the gut pain, the feeling sick and the constipation over the erythromelalgia. But sometimes my whole gi system is so backed up that I will chose to have my skin burning and eat the foods I normally avoid. It's a **** of a decision to make. And usually I can't let my skin burn too long. Wish I could, because eating all my 'wrong foods' means I have better digestion -- not perfect, but better.

Zofran, while being great for nausea, closes down my whole digestive system, I have realized. When nauseous I try to make do with semi sparkling water and weak tea with sugar. Zofran works much better for nausea but I pay for it the next day and for days after.

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