Monday, December 18, 2006

Endoscopy

After months of waiting for an appointment, I'm finally having an endoscopy tomorrow. They're going to investigate my small intestine and snip out a tiny bit to see whether I have celiac disease. I guess that the procedure is something like this (not for the squeamish!):



Celiac disease is kind of like an allergic reaction to gluten in the small intestine. I've already had a positive blood-test so it's quite likely that I have it. It's important to be sure, however, because a gluten-free diet is so restrictive, thus the endoscopy. After being unwell for years, I'm dying (hmm, bad word choice) to get diagnosed with something and start trying to get better.

3 comments:

tazdog said...

Good Luck..

I was hit with a positive Blood test as well about 1 month ago, but due to a bad GI doctor I had to switch to get more tests done. I go to the new doctor on Wed.. I have had an endoscopy but he was looking for something else, it should be a piece of cake..

Anonymous said...

Hi Joe,
Best of luck with your test, I am sure it will go well. I hope they are gentle with it as it is very uncomfortable.........at least mine was, but it was a government hospital. Have a great Chritmas mate, you deserve it.

Joe said...

Thanks! Uncomfortable is definitely the best word for it. Having that thing in your throat and air pumped into your stomach feels pretty gross!