Gastic Pacemaker: Temporary Setback
One week after having my pacemaker settings adjusted for the first time, I had to head back to the Mayo Clinic because my symptoms had returned with a vengeance.
In the days after the first adjustment, I noticed that I wasn’t feeling as well as I had been prior to my return visit. Not significantly worse, just not as good. That is until I decided to venture outside my comfort zone and go out to dinner with my husband three days post-adjustment. I ate a small piece of thin-crust, pesto pizza. Though I felt fine for the first couple of hours, I got sick that night and my symptoms got increasingly worse thereafter. The daily nausea, vomiting, bloating, and stomach pain were back and I had to cut out the few new things I’d added to my diet, like cream of buckwheat and peanut butter on my toast.
So back to Mayo I went to figure out what was going on. I met with Dr. Fox on Friday afternoon and she checked the settings on my pacemaker. It turns out that the settings were out of balance, which either happened during the first adjustment or very soon afterward based on the onset of the symptoms (worsened by the pizza, I’m sure). Somehow the amps had increased from the default setting but the current had remained the same — apparently they were both supposed to have been increased proportionately.
Once we figured this out, Dr. Fox increased the current to 7.5, the intended setting for the first adjustment. Three days later, the nausea, vomiting and bloating are finally starting to subside. I see Dr. Fox again on Tuesday afternoon to check the settings and possibly have another adjustment.
In the past few days, I’ve done a little more research on the post-surgery aspects of gastric electrical stimulation. According to the Enterra manual, it’s recommended that patients and physicians wait 4-6 weeks to assess symptoms after an adjustment. Everything I’ve read also says that it typically takes 6-12 months to notice the full effect of the pacemaker on symptoms. It seems that immediate resolution of symptoms is a “results not typical” situation. But the improvement that I did have during the first five weeks was significant – and I realize and appreciate that even more after this setback!
Now I’m just looking forward to getting back to where I was pre-adjustment and then continuing to make progress.
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7 Responses to “Gastic Pacemaker: Temporary Setback”
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I am so glad that I found your website! I have had GP for 6 years, and just had the pacer implanted 2 weeks ago. I guess you’re a few weeks ahead of me in treatment! It’s encouraging to see that you are experiencing improvements – I’m still in that recovery phase. If you’re interested in emailing, I would love to be able to talk to someone else with GP. Thanks for your website!
Hi Chelsey,
Welcome! The first two to three weeks after the surgery are definitely the most difficult recovery-wise. Hang in there! I’m so glad you found my site — I’ve been looking for someone to “compare notes” with. I’ll send you an email.
Best,
Crystal
[...] Pacemaker: Back on Track! In Personal Experience on November 9, 2009 at 2:45 pm When I last posted, I was at the Mayo Clinic having my gastric pacemaker settings re-adjusted. After I met with Dr. [...]
Was looking around for info on Iberogast for treatment on IBS, seeing it’s a pro-kinetic I wanted to see if helps with GP as I dealt with Gastroparesis back in 2006. I did recover after dealing with it for about 3 months, which I attribute to Rice Krispie Treats & Vitamin B(but I may be completely off base). It was a very rough experience, so you definitely have my sympathy on dealing with it for so long.
I read about these pacemakers back in 2006, I am glad to hear they are making it out to people & insurance is covering it.
I am not out of the woods as far as digestion issues go, still dealing with IBS, which I had before I dealt with Gastroparesis. I’ll put a link to your blog here on my blog @ DigestionBlog.com – not that I get any traffic right now
, but always good to make some connections out there.
Hopefully the adjustments go well in the future & your wellness continues so you can have that peanut butter & some pizza again
!
Hi Gabriel,
Thanks for the note! I’ll definitely check out your blog. I’m so happy to hear that you recovered from GP, though I’m sorry that you’re still dealing with IBS. Tell me about the rice krispie treats & vitamin B…my curiosity is definitely piqued on that one!
Best,
Crystal
The Rice Krispie Treats became really the only thing I could tolerate very well. I still didn’t feel very good after eating them, but at least I was getting some caloric intake. I lost 65lbs while dealing with these issues. I am Emetophobic(extreme phobia of vomiting), so GP was my worst nightmare & caused me to abstain from trying to eat anything on many days.
My “breakthrough” was after about two weeks of really trying to eat more food & then I mixed in some B-Complex & a multivitamin into some applesauce(another staple). My GP started in July 2006 & I started doing this in Sept 2006. It was surprisingly quick that I noticed an improvement after mixing in the multivitamin & B-complex(which I still take to this day).
My guess is perhaps I had nerve damage to the vagus nerve or somehow the B-Vitamins helped in healing somehow. I was very happy to actually start feeling hungry and hear from stomach grumble, instead of just sit there dormant & give me a fizzling pain. It’s hard to eat with GP of course and not using your stomach can make GP worse as the muscle fatigue, so this may have exacerbated my problems.
I will certainly take my IBS over GP any day, but it’s still a major pain and limits my lifestyle.
[...] know how this particular setting is working for me. Fingers crossed! While I’ve had a few setbacks, I’m confident that I’m finally on my way to realizing the full benefits of the device. [...]