Zantac and Gastroparesis

[OldFatChick]

My sister has been in and out of the hospital for two months with severe gastroparesis. The doctors would admit her and get her stabilized, then tell her she had to eat solid food before she could go home.  She'd be home for 1-3 days and start vomiting again. She'd go back and the whole dog and pony show would commence all over again. After 2 months of this, we were so frustrated I started researching everything I could find on gastroparesis. I stumbled across a blog written by the wife of a gastroparesis patient.  Their story was eerily similar to my sister's.  After month upon month of frustration, the wife goes and buys hubby some extra strength Zantac and within three hours he was wanting a cheeseburger.  When the doctors came in that afternoon I asked them to give it a try.  After a bit of condescending attitude on the doctor's part, he said, well, it can't hurt her so if that's what you want we will give it a try.  It has now been a week since she was released from the hospital and so far, so good.

The most frustrating part was that the active ingredient in Zantac (ranitidine) used to be used to treat gastroparesis, but now it's available over the counter, so it isn't as sexy as the high priced drugs they are using now.  Besides that, they were keeping her doped up on morphine,  diluadid, and phenergan just to stop the vomiting.

If you know someone suffering from this debilitating condition, please mention this to them.  My sister has no insurance and has racked up hundreds of thousands of dollars in medical bill AND they removed her gall bladder thinking that was the problem.  She most likely did not need the surgery at all.

[OldFatChick]

Just an update. They finally got a gastro guy involved and they'd have her on a drug that soundalike Dom Perignon (and is more expensive) and has not been back in the hospital for months. She is gaining weight and looks and feels better than she has in 3-4 years. We are very excited.

[patient915]

Did they know why she was in pain?  Did she try other types of pain meds before moving to narcotics?  The triggering factor for putting me on a feeding tube was that I waan't able to keep any food down at all and I was nauseous all the time.

[OldFatChick]

What was the triggering factor for putting you on a feeding tube?

[OldFatChick]

She was in quite a bit of pain.  It wasn't the pain meds I really had an issue with, it was that pain meds were just about all they were doing.  She has been out of the hospital for 2 weeks today and has only vomited once since she was released, and she blames that on eating something she shouldn't have.  She looks and sounds better than she has in 2 1/2 years, so we are cautiously optimistic.

She had a "team" of doctors in charge of her care.  Not one was a gastroenterologist.  I do not understand how you can treat a person with a severe case of gastroparesis and not even bother calling a gastro person.

[patient915]

Welcome to the gastroenterology community!  Your sister probably had a bad case of silent reflux which is why the Zantac helped a lot.  This is a good idea for people to try though.  I am very concerned that you said they had your sister on morphine and dilaudid.  Unless she was in severe pain, she should have never been on these medications.  They cause nausea and they slow down motility of the GI system.  I too have bad gastroparesis and now I am 100% tube fed into my small intestine because of this.