At 70 I have had an undiagnosed hiatal hernia that is now becoming giant in size. I developed Iron Deficiency anemia and my PCP dismissed my symptoms if I might be anemic. I was experiencing difficulty with my breathing and he prescribed prednisone to treat my asthma which is in my problem list. I didn’t get any improvement from the 2 courses of prednisone and nothing further was done until I presented myself with fatigue and the chills (They’re so focused on Covid) and a chest X-ray on 2/7/24 confirmed a hiatal hernia. I continued to see a cardiologist and my echocardiogram was good and compared to my baseline in May of 2020. Finally when I see the pulmonologist on 2/28/24 she orders a CBC and my hemoglobin was 9.7. Dips down to 8.9 on 3/20/24 which was the date of my first iron infusion. Saw the gastroenterologist on 4/2/24 and wanted to expedite the endoscopy and colonoscopy so a different provider did both procedures. The endoscopy was “technically difficult and complex due to the abnormal anatomy of the upper GI. I was diagnosed with “a somewhat torturous sigmoid colon” in September of 2009 from a CT scan with contrast. I awakened from the anesthesia and tried to hold back from moaning because it hurt so bad. I was very nauseous and dry heaving. The hiatal hernia caused a GI bleed and thus the anemia over time. The stool sample confirmed blood in the stool. I’m feeling very uncomfortable and symptoms that I had experienced during the middle of the night with wretched vomiting weren’t taken into consideration during my routine colonoscopy 5/17/22. I’ve been living with so much abdominal pain compounded by all that I know about my GI tract. Waiting for a surgeon to take me seriously and that’s been an awful experience just going to one. Many of the specialists/providers don’t know how to connect the dots. And now that I have confirmation of GI bleed I’m not going to move forward with the video capsule endoscopy. When is enough diagnostic testing enough ? I desperately need surgery for the GIANT hiatal hernia and the 3 iron infusions corrected the anemia but the GI bleed still is going on