[tri-med] Re: ATTN. Karen

----- Original Message -----
From: "kelly DeLong"
> I was just wondering what Alex's GI workup consisted of.
> What kind of tests did they do and so on?

From memory they started with a chest x-ray. That led them to suspect a
hiatius hernia. Turned out that he didn't have one, but has a sort of
diaphramatic hernia - causes no real problems

They did a swallow study with delayed pictures. Looking at the hernia and
also looking for reflux, pooling etc etc

Then they did a pH probe. We found that Alex had severe reflux even though
he showed no outward signs.

Then they did a milk scan, that was to check for delayed gastric emptying.
Alex's was borderline slow.

Then they did a osophageal bronchoscopy. That was to look at the internal
structure of his osophagus, stomach and duodenum. Alex had acalachia (sp?) -
it means that his osophegus doesn't move food down with peristaltic
movement - food gets to his stomach by gravity alone. His stomach was
"normal" but his duodenum is smooth instead of being "ribbed" - no one is
sure just what that means........... They also took biospies during this to
check how bad the damage was from the reflux. Those biopsies showed
pre-cancerous changes to his gut, which meant I lost the choice regarding
whether he got a fundo or not. I still wish they had let us try meds first
though in some ways.

Hope that helps.

If you are patient in one moment of anger, you will avoid a hundred days of
sorrow.
- Tibetan proverb

Keep Looking for Rainbows!!!
Karen, Mum to Alex (7, T-18 mosaic)
Sydney, Australia
http://members.optushome.com.au/karens
http://www.trisomyonline.org


                  Building ___ooOOoo__ Rainbows
                       www.trisomyonline.org
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