Last year my wife started having mild gastroparesis symptoms, vomiting maybe once a week, always feeling full etc. After alot of tests they discovered that one of her mesenteric(sp?) arteries was 100% blocked , the main artery in each leg 80% blocked. They stented the 2 leg arteries but had to replace the mesenteric. Dr. told her after he did this, she would feel like a million bucks,"all your stomach problems will disappear."
She had the surgery and the GP symptoms became 10 times worse. Now she can't keep anything down,has severe pain in her stomach, dropped thirty lbs. and looks like she is 70yrs old.(she's 47).
I've had her in and out of the hospital all year, about every other month. This last time in her Dr. thinks the GP may be tied to her migraines....?
She has had many auto immune disorders her whole life, endometriosis, Graves disease, interstitial cystitis,fibromyalgia....
It seems every time one of these disorders pops up, the previous one goes away or diminishes....
She had alot of problems with the Graves, eye problems,fatigue,weight. But then her symptoms almost disappeared and she came down with the interstitial cystitis.
Now I find this article, a Dr. says he treated a couple GP patients with steroids and their problems disappeared.Link to the article posted below, the part about steroids is near the end of the article, sorry if I seem to be rambling.... I found this board and have been reading it everyday since... anyway, here is the article:
http://cme.medscape.com/viewarticle/565390?src=rss
We welcome all your thoughts....
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Any connection to auto-immune disorders?
- By jimndi
- Posted October 28, 2009 at 9:27 pm · 5 replies
- In Open discussion
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Explore topics in this discussion:
Autoimmune diseases Surgery Dexamethasone Gastroparesis Interstitial cystitis Pain Metoclopramide Endometriosis Graves' disease Erythromycin Hypothyroidism Nausea and vomiting
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- By debbie2027
- Posted October 29, 2009 at 12:19 pm
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I am aware that GP is connected to an auto immune called-
Ehler's Danlos Syndrome, which is a connective tissue disorder.
But I'm not a DR here is a website my geneticist gave me.
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/bookshelf/br.fcgi?book=gene
In the search engine put in the information of the auto immune disease your looking for.
hope this helps :)
- By momskids193
- Posted October 29, 2009 at 4:10 pm
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I have MS and my doctors believe witout a doubt that the MS is contributing to the severeity of my GP and Dumping. God bless Linda
- By Novagrad
- Posted October 29, 2009 at 6:00 pm
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I have autoimmune autonomic neuropathy and my doctors feel that the GP is a result of this.
Mimi
- By jimndi
- Posted October 29, 2009 at 6:39 pm
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For some reason the link I posted does not take you to the article, here is the part about the steroids I copied from the article:
Steroids. Few treatments are available for patients with acute idiopathic gastroparesis. Traditionally, supportive treatment with dietary modifications, antiemetics, and prokinetic agents (eg, metoclopramide, erythromycin*, domperidone*) has represented the standard of care. Only metoclopramide has been approved by the US Food and Drug Administration; domperidone is available under an investigational new drug protocol program. Botulinum toxin* injection into the pylorus appears ineffective.[13] Steroids have been tried and might have a place in this setting, but no controlled trial data are available. During this year's ACG meeting, Cooper and Barkin[14] reported on a novel treatment observation in 3 patients who presented with nausea and vomiting from gastroparesis refractory to treatment with antiemetics and prokinetics. These patients had recent-onset symptoms (ie, within 2 months) and an extensive diagnostic work-up had been negative. Dexamethasone* 4 mg intravenously twice daily was started in all patients; there was prompt symptom resolution within 72 hours of starting the infusion. Patients were then converted to oral dexamethasone and discharged on a tapering dose over several weeks. All of the patients were asymptomatic by 8 weeks. Whether these patients' symptoms would have resolved regardless is unknown in the absence of a control group, and this study represents only a small case series. However, these observations are striking and deserve replication in an appropriate randomized controlled trial. If high-dose dexamethasone is safe and effective in acute-onset gastroparesis, it would dramatically change the current approach to management
- By gpgirl5
- Posted October 29, 2009 at 9:31 pm
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My GI sent me to a Rheumotologist after I got the GP diagnosis to check for autoimmune diseases, which he says are commonly found in people with GP. He thinks there is a connection. I didn't have any, though - except my Hashimoto's Hypothyroidism, which I've had since I was a teen. My blood did show antibodies for some things, but I do not have any of the symptoms (yet).
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