Faces of GP

I am 22 years old. I started nursing school in June of 2018. Nursing school is hard enough as a healthy person. I got a kidney infection in the end of November of 2018 for which I was hospitalized for. That began a severe struggle with my health. I stopped being able to hold down any food (even water). After multiple hospitalizations, one of them lasting a month. I was officially diagnosed with severe gastroparesis in April of 2019 after I had lost 60 pounds and my gall bladder removed. They couldn’t control my nausea and vomiting with any diet or medication, so I ended up with a surgically placed J tube. I have since been hospitalized 3 more times, not including the ER visits from passing out at clinicals in which I was not admitted. I currently have not kept down anything I have ingested for about a year now, despite the gastric pacemaker I had placed in June. Despite the 4 surgeries I have had this year, the accumulated 2 months of the last year I have spent in a hospital bed because of this

I suffer with Gastroparesis. A debilitating and destructive chronic condition that has ripped me apart. I have lost my sense of self, my ability to have a job, my brain function is slower, my body is in pain every minute of every day, I can’t be spontaneous, I take bouts of medications all day every day, I feed through a tube in my nose into my bowel, I will soon have surgery. The treatment options are abysmal. The motility medications rarely work and often make us worse. The only pain medication available is both addictive and slows down motility but we have no other option. The anti-sickness medications rarely work unless administered through IV but a lot of us do not have access to that. I’m only 25 and therefore my specialist refuses TPN. TPN itself causes a huge amount of issues. There’s no one looking for a cause, and there’s no cure. We are tubed, stuffed with medication and left to rot at home. We see specialists twice a year due to overwhelming lack of funding. There’s no mental health support and none of the therapy treatments

I suffer from gastrointestinal problems and have recently been diagnosed with gastroparesis but after only trying medications that did not work the idea was changed. Based on what sounded like very little knowledge. I am home and struggling because there isn’t enough research out there to help diagnose these things let alone treat and maybe cure. I have suffered since I was a child with the same problems, now age makes it difficult to handle. I have a daughter who just turned 12 years old. I have a life to return to. I’d rather be worrying about my daughter than fighting and getting frustrated and depressed because I am afraid I may pass before she turns 18. I cannot afford a life change life is hard enough without the uncertainty of life.. please raise more awareness, look more into it. Spread all these stories. I’m broken from having to watch my daughter shed tears every time I return from the hospital as if she’s expecting me not to return one day. She’s scared and she’s young. Please. Submitted by:  Zujeily Sanchez  

Since I was a child I’ve had issues with my stomach and bowels.  But in 2012 I was given a diagnosis of gastroparesis. Two years after that I was diagnosed with pre-diabetes. When my stomach is in a fit, my blood sugar goes way up, when it’s having a good day my numbers come down. I’m supposed to only consume liquids or purees for my meals. My stomach doctor said just put your steak, potato and broccoli in a blender. I’m sure there is a way to make that taste okay, but no thanks. Over the years my stomach has gone into “remission” and I could eat what I wanted and be okay. But that doesn’t seem to be the case anymore.  Although I’m overweight, I eat less than a child eats. Everything I consume at this time just makes my stomach hurt, I get severely bloated, I look pregnant, and I’m miserable. I can’t eat fresh veggies or fruits, they have to be canned or cooked to mushy status. No peels either. I can’t eat red meat, even ground anymore. If I eat like a normal person, I feel like my stomach is going to explode. Yet I’m over

I’ve had gastroparesis since 2010. It’s changed my life dramatically. Surgery to remove my gallbladder because my stomach wouldn’t move food. It just sat there. Tons of nausea, weight loss, abdominal pain…daily. I had to change how I eat food to more liquids, smaller meals, which wouldn’t have been as big of a deal by itself but because of comorbidities is highly challenging to nigh impossible. My diet is already limited due to Crohn’s disease and lack of a colon. The only FDA approved medication that worked for me was Reglan and that has a black box warning for tardive dyskinesia, which is unstoppable shaking for the rest of your life. I took reglan for 7 years due to no other options. If I didn’t take it I’d be so nauseated I couldn’t eat and my stomach would take days to empty one meal. My doctors didn’t think reglan worth the risk. I now take a medication from the UK called domperidone that I have to order online because it’s not FDA approved. It works better than nothing. In a country where there are multiple drugs for the same health concern, why is it that there