Eosinophilic Esophagitis

(originally written as an email to family members on Tuesday, October 5, 2010)
...what a mouthful.

Evidently, my son has it.

He called around lunchtime on Sunday, telling me he had taken a bite of lunch and it went down real hard. When he took a sip of tea to help it down, nothing went down. His throat filled up and he ended up spitting it all out (except for the piece of food still stuck in his throat.) He couldn't swallow anything else down and he couldn't cough the food up, so he was on his way to the Urgent Care or the ER. He'd call me back. Luckily, he was still breathing and talking normally. A fraternity brother was with him, driving him.

Next call was from a PA at the ER. They couldn't do anything for him so they were sending him to the Operating room. The Gastroenterologist on call would be there within an hour. We asked Ian if he wanted us to come; he knew we'd want to see him so he didn't tell us not to come.

We hopped in the car for the 3-hour trip to Raleigh and got the call from his Gastro... Ian is a healthy young guy so he didn't expect any problems with the Endoscopy or general anesthesia. He expected the procedure to last about 30 minutes and he'd call us when he was done.

Still en route, the procedure finished and the doc called us back. As expected, the procedure was successful. The doc pulled a couple of bits of pork barbecue from Ian's throat and was able to gently push the rest down into his stomach. However, he noticed signs of Ian having a condition called Eosinophilic Esophagitis; basically, an allergy to something that presents itself in the throat. The gastro took some samples for biopsy.

Gastro doc wants to see Ian back in a week. He'll also need to start with an allergist to find out what it is he's allergic to.

Since Douglas lives in Raleigh, we tried calling and texting him. A little later, when he finally called us back, we found out he was in Raleigh this day (he travels a lot,) so we were able to send him over to the hospital. He was able to check Ian out before we even got to Raleigh.

Liquid diet on Sunday; no driving for 24 hours; soft diet starting on Monday for an entire week. Yesterday morning he texted me and said, "I'm kind of hungry." LOL! Poor kid.

We took him to get his prescribed meds; Prilosec, 40 mg, twice a day. The insurance company denied the Rx because the dosage was more than they would allow. So we just bought boxes of the OTC stuff to supplement what insurance "would" allow. Sheesh!
Later that night, after we took him to the library to study, and picked up his car from where he left it, we took him to the grocery store to buy him soft foods for the week. He'll still be hungry, I'm sure. Yesterday he said he had some sores in his mouth and his neck was sore. I told him he probably had sores in his throat too and that's why he's on soft foods for the week. He understands all this and I'm sure he'll comply.

And he's already called the Gastro and set up his follow-up. What a good kid!!! I love that boy!!! I went online to a local Raleigh forum and found some recommendations for an allergist, so I sent him that info this morning. The kid's such a hypochondriac that I'm sure he's elated that he now has a verified reason to see an allergist. LOL! I expect to hear that he's made that appointment, too!

Anyway, he's doing alright now. Just need to find out what he's allergic to (probably milk. and who knows what else.) And he'll need to either avoid the food or live with the prilosec and a steroid that asthmatics use. Once we see what the culprit is, then we'll decide on the way to deal with it.