this post was submitted on 30 Oct 2023
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[โ€“] Concave1142@lemmy.world 50 points 1 year ago (13 children)

Achalasia. My esophagus does not squeeze food/liquid and it gets stuck in my esophagus. Since the nerves in the esophagus are dead (paraphrasing of course) this then causes the top stomach sphincter to not know food/liquid is coming and to open up. Instead, (pre-surgery) food/liquid piles up on top of the stomach and I would have to hope the sphincter would open up and let food in. I had times where I could not swallow water as it would just sit at the entrance waiting to be let in & would have to force myself to vomit as it started to hurt.

Post-surgery (heller myotomy with fundoplication) my esophagus is effectively a slip & slide and I rely on gravity to be able to get food down my esophagus and into my stomach. The top stomach sphincter has now been cut open and never closes anymore. They then stitch part of the top stomach lobe to the sphincter/ esophagus junction area to prevent stomach acid from backwashing.

Even if space travel for the masses occurred during my lifetime, I will never be able to go to space because I rely on gravity to get food to pass through my esophagus.

[โ€“] tkc@feddit.uk 2 points 1 year ago (1 children)

Do you know if it's possible to have some mild form of this? Me and my brother have been trying to work out our "digestive" issues for a few years with doctors with no success.

I can relate to the feeling of food/drink feeling like its "piling up" because sometimes I throw up last nights dinner when I'm brushing my tongue the next day.

It's something that's gotten worse as I've gotten older. I don't know if that plays into it.

[โ€“] Concave1142@lemmy.world 2 points 1 year ago

Never hurts to get checked. See about having an enscopy performed and they can check it out. Another procedure is called a Esophageal Manometry. They put a thin tube up your nose and down your throat and make you swallow fluids to measure how well your esophagus squeezes or in my case, they said it spasmed and basically doesn't respond as it hood.

I wish you the best.

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