Does this mean I have normal gastric emptying or rapid gastric empty?

Posted by bunnibells @bunnibells, Feb 1 6:15pm

Hello everyone! Im 18 years old and Im a female, I have a long history of vomiting, stomach pain, bloating, and regurgitation. I've had these symptoms since I was a 3 year old, and worsened ever since. I've lost over 60+ pounds in under 3 months and am losing my ability to eat and drink. I have done a numerous blood/urine/fecal samples, barium studys, upper and lower gi and those all came back normal. So my gi doctor ordered a GES, so I went to do it today and seen the results in mychart. My GI doctor wont be able to read them for 2 weeks unforntately so im unable to understand if this is normal or rapid gastric emptying. Also a quick note it was 2 hours and they sent me home. My gastric retention at hour 1 was 36% and at 2 hours it was 10%. So does that mean its normal , barely normal, or rapid? I despertately need help and my doctor seems like he doesnt care because im a girl 🙁

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i have no idea about this. that said. if you honestly believe that your doctor doesn't seem to care because you are a girl. then i say fire him. try to find a different doctor. it's your right to. because he is not helping like he should. 60+ pounds in under 3 months is drastic. that reminds me of me. i did the same thing. i found out i had a Hyperactive Thyroid. i was 16 y.o. at the time. good luck, d

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I'll get a second opinion and go to a different hospital and get a different doctor.

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I'm not a doctor or a nurse but it sounds like there's something wrong with your automatic nervous system .where it goes really fast. I have my is mines the other way where it goes goes very very slow takes a long time for me to digest food and to go poop.takes a long time for me to digest food and to go poop. They have me on different medicines and have me on like a special diet you should ask them if you can have medicines to try medicines to help slow it down and maybe a certain diet

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Obviously, none of us is a doctor or nurse. I have Gastroparesis and have read a lot of gastric emptying scintigraphy results through support groups. You can look online for the normal ranges for each hour of the test. For Hour 1, the range of normal is from 30% to 90%, which means your 36% was within the normal range. I can’t find a normal lower range for hour two because most of the “dumping” (excessively quick emptying) that occurs is within that first hour. That means that emptying (or having 10% or less) after two hours could be within the normal range.

However, it would be up to an individual doctor’s clinical experience to interpret results in weird cases. For example, I had very slow emptying through Hour 3 of my test and then ended up emptying most of my stomach contents before the Hour 4 image. My doctor judged me to have Gastroparesis and some level of dumping. In your case, however, you only emptied 26% in that one hour, so that may not be considered too fast.

As others have mentioned, I’d think about finding a doctor who takes a more proactive approach to getting you answers—not leaving you for two weeks without test results. Unfortunately, I’ve experienced some bad GI doctors myself and suspect you’re going to need to get to a good academic medical center. The Facebook Gastroparesis group is quite active and has lots of people who can recommend doctors across the country.

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@moxieness

Obviously, none of us is a doctor or nurse. I have Gastroparesis and have read a lot of gastric emptying scintigraphy results through support groups. You can look online for the normal ranges for each hour of the test. For Hour 1, the range of normal is from 30% to 90%, which means your 36% was within the normal range. I can’t find a normal lower range for hour two because most of the “dumping” (excessively quick emptying) that occurs is within that first hour. That means that emptying (or having 10% or less) after two hours could be within the normal range.

However, it would be up to an individual doctor’s clinical experience to interpret results in weird cases. For example, I had very slow emptying through Hour 3 of my test and then ended up emptying most of my stomach contents before the Hour 4 image. My doctor judged me to have Gastroparesis and some level of dumping. In your case, however, you only emptied 26% in that one hour, so that may not be considered too fast.

As others have mentioned, I’d think about finding a doctor who takes a more proactive approach to getting you answers—not leaving you for two weeks without test results. Unfortunately, I’ve experienced some bad GI doctors myself and suspect you’re going to need to get to a good academic medical center. The Facebook Gastroparesis group is quite active and has lots of people who can recommend doctors across the country.

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Me too I have gastroparesis I pain I the but .my my doctor took me off the Ragland because of my heart took me off the regular medicine because of my heart problems so now I'm just doing dieting for the gastropriosis is it's a pain I have symptoms from time to time stomach pain and nausea and throwing up I'm on a I try to keep my diet very strict

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Try drinking ginger tea or even buying ginger candy that really helps with nauseated stomachs and throwing up that really helps me when I get nauseated and can't keep down food not really helps me not throw up so much try Ginger. The prayers for you.

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