Just Had My Endoscopy...

[Avalon451]

I just had my endoscopy this morning. Interesting experience. It didn't bother my throat; I was really worried about the gag reflex since they weren't putting me totally under, just sedated. But it was ok. I do recall vaguely doing some gagging as they removed the tube, maybe a little vomiting, but of course my recall is pretty muddled.

Got a bit of a headache, nothing serious. I just took some tylenol. Also, I don't care what they say about having no nerve endings there, I can tell they were messing around in my upper GI, it's a little sore. Again, nothing serious, though.

Get this, the doctor took 20 biopsies! I asked him, just before they sedated me, "How many samples do you usually take? and he said "Six, although if things look weird I might take more." Apparently I had a pretty obvious "cobblestone" appearance in the duodenum that is consistent with celiac. The pics are weird looking.

Well, it will be interesting to see what the results are. Meanwhile, on to the gluten-free adventure!

[Chuck1004]

Mind if I butt in with a question? I am slowly waiting for a drip of blood tests come back in and I am doing as much research as possible on celiac's disease and autoimmune disorders of the liver after a high ttg iga count.

Last year I had an upper GI, endoscopy and colonoscopy. Celiac's was not on the radar at that point. I understand that biopsies are taken as part of the celiac diagnosis, but the GI indicated that nothing looked unusual in any of the procedures. Is this consistent with not having done a biopsy, or should he have been able to detect something from the endoscopy if I had celiac's?

Thanks,

[Avalon451]

I'm pretty new at this myself, but from my own research I've read that there are SOME visual things they look for visually, like scalloping on the folds, and a "cobblestone" look to the surface. I had some of those in my endo today; it can be seen it on the pictures.

That said, the biopsy is looked at under a microscope to see what kind of shape the villi are in-- whether they are blunted, completely flattened, or whatever. That can't be seen with the naked eye.

So if you didn't have a biopsy the doc can't know for sure whether or not you have it, just because it didn't "look" like there was a problem. That's my guess.

Good luck!