I had an appointment with my Gastroenterologist for a Gastrocopy. I spoke with Dr Griffiths about my symptoms and then I went in for the Gastrocopy.
I went into the theatre and there was a team of about 4 nurses present. They seemed surprised that I did not want to be sedated. I wanted to drive after the procedure and I was curious about the thought of having one done to me.. I had wondered what it would feel like to have a tube down my throat into my stomach.. so that is what I chose so that I would remember it.
I was told to lie on this sloping bed and was draped with some medical cloth. They recorded my name and date of birth. They then sprayed a liquid that tasted like banana on the back of my throat but was quite strong tasting. I then had a black mouth guard type thing put into my mouth that had a hole in the middle of it. The Gastroenterologist explained the procedure and that he would be as quick as possible, then put the tube through the mouth guard and asked me to swallow as he fed it down. It was sore at the back of my throat but I seemed to tolerate it ok. It was not a pleasant procedure but also not the worst (That was to come). I had to fight hard to relax and not to keep swallowing like I was choking as a reflex action. He had a look around and took photos as well as a sample of my throat tissue for testing. I felt like I was starting to get to get to the end of my how much I could handle and it must have only been about 50 seconds.. what felt like longer though when he took it back out again. I thought it might have caused trauma to my throat as it hurt so much but I was fine afterwards.
They let me walk to a lazy boy chair and I had club sandwiches to eat afterwards which was my breakfast after fasting from the night before and I relaxed that it was over.
Dr Griffiths came to talk to me afterwards – he told me that everything looked ok though a little red and gave me a picture of my Oesophagus – Yah… It was gross looking. The biopsy for eosinophilia came back as negative.