I met with the transplant surgeon today to discuss a gastric pacemaker. I took notes so I'm going to just copy those. More train of thought than cohesive story, but you'll live. :-)
He said that the pacer won't improve my gastric emptying. It usually helps people with intractable vomiting but thats about it. He thinks I'm a high risk patient for the surgery and that the possible benefits are far outweighed by the risk of coplications. I guess because I've had previous abdominal surgery. I've already had a mini trial as to the success when I was on the domperidone. That helped with my gastric emptying but not the nausea and vomiting. The pacer would do the same thing as the domperidone - make my stomach move - and since the med didnt really help, he doesn't think the pacer would. He said that he is a very conservative surgeon and that he was sure I could find someone to give me a pacer, but his opinion is that I wouldn't benefit from it. I told him my goal was not to get a pacer but to find a solution and/or options to make me feel better. If a pacer isn't the answer, I'm not going to go running around to find someone who will tell me what I want to hear.
He did say that he thinks the gastroparesis is a red herring and he believes that my nausea is probably caused by something else. He just doesn't know what.
He was very impressed that I was looking at every option possible and was proud that I have taken the initiative to control my own medical care. If he only knew, eh?
He did give me the name of someone in Louisville who basically invented the pacer surgery. This dr is now doing a noninvasive temporary pacer that he places endoscopically. If patients respond to that, it's likely that they would benefit from the permanent pacer. It's pretty low risk, so I'll probably investigate that path. It might be worth trying.
That's all for now. I'll post an update once I see the pain guys on Wed.
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