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Tomorrow morning, I get to drink a nice, thick Barium shake for breakfast. Nothing like heavy metal to start the day! I've been having really bad stomach pains for the past year and the docs can't seem to figure out why. I started this blog six months ago with my gastroscopy experience. This will be the fifth test I've had in the search for the cause of my pain and nausea.
Barium, a heavy metal, is radioopaque, and when x-rayed, allows doctors to see soft tissues that normally wouldn't show up clearly. A barium shake is very thick and chalky and not so tasty despite the addition of a chocolate-like (or sometimes orange-like) substance. Maybe the flavoring is the reason they call it a "shake." Yum. At least you don't have to drink as much barium as you did years ago. I remember having to drink two large "shakes" before an intestinal x-ray a number of years back. "Drinking" might not be the best word as it was so thick I could barely suck it through the straw. My throat actually got sore from the effort. Anyway, now the size of the shakes is more like a medium instead of a large. So that's kinda good. The newest addition to the test is a capful of dry gas pellets that you have to swallow and then they explode in your stomach and expand it. Poprocks are for wimps. Coke and Mentos have nothing on the wild antics that happen in the radiology department!
So, bottoms up and I hope it pays off. Have you ever had a test where you really hope they find something to explain the pain but you also hope that they don't find anything (anything bad, that is)? I'm really sick of not being able to eat and being in so much pain, so I do want something to show up. Something easy to treat, please. With a side of fries.
So, bottoms up and I hope it pays off. Have you ever had a test where you really hope they find something to explain the pain but you also hope that they don't find anything (anything bad, that is)? I'm really sick of not being able to eat and being in so much pain, so I do want something to show up. Something easy to treat, please. With a side of fries.
6 comments:
This one is harder to comment on. I have this thought that I need Barium to figure out the problem in my brain.
notcrazynotcrazynotcrazy.
You describe stuff with such brutal honesty that it has it's own beauty attached to it, even as it as immense pain and distress as well.
Well, the barium didn't show anything amiss in my guts. I don't know what tracers they use for brain scans. I think we need magic wands or something!
Well kind of glad that nothing amiss showed up but I hope they will be able to find out what's causing you so much pain.
Barium meals (as they are called here) are ghastly --- had one years ago -- and, to put it politely, it was even more difficult getting rid of it than getting it into me in the first place ! Maybe if I'd had a nice side salad with the fries it would have been more pleasant. LOL
Thanks, Cusp. I do hope someone cracks the code soon.
Why do they even try to associate barium drinking with any sort of food consumption? Calling it a barium meal seems to be pushing it a bit far! For my test they supersized me: I had to drink two big glasses full this time. Bleh.
Yuck to Barium and yuck to pain.
I think the "please find something" with "please don't find anything" is pretty normal. At least I know I've had that feeling too. But usually it's not finding anything - "Yeah! I don't have x/y/z!! Oh. Then I just have unexplained poopiness and pain?" :(
Sorry to hear there's no answers - glad to hear there's nothing amiss. Sort of.
Thanks, Rachel. I think we probably are not the only ones who have the push-pull of wanting something to show up in tests and also not wanting anything BAD to show up.
Nothing is amiss on their tests... but something, somewhere is definitely amiss! Ah, sweet mystery of life.
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