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HELP! G/F is having trouble swallowing foods
1ddqd
Registered User regular
Registered User regular
The main question I have is this: what kind of doctor should she see? Ear/Nose/Throat or GI? Both?
She had her Gall Bladder removed last year due to random inflammation. Earlier this year, she started feeling odd and we got her checked out; she has high CRP levels (indicates inflammation) - on a scale of 1-3, hers is at SIXTEEN. She's had MRI/MRA/CT (all clean), she saw a cardiologist (EKG/Stress Echo/Echocardiogram all clean!). Her OBGYN says her endometriosis is OK for now, so almost everything has been checked and tested and passed.
This is a new symptom, as she saw a endocrinologist today (took 8 vials of blood for tests) because she doesn't make a chemical in her brain that she needs for her cycle. She can't regulate on her own without estrogen, so she's been on birth control since she was 13. That was what we suspect caused her gall bladder to fail (as she was on Yaz! for a while). Recently, she was on progesterone but that did nothing.
This trouble swallowing is really scary - she can barely drink water. I searched around but no one has really said what kind of doctor would be the best.
She had her Gall Bladder removed last year due to random inflammation. Earlier this year, she started feeling odd and we got her checked out; she has high CRP levels (indicates inflammation) - on a scale of 1-3, hers is at SIXTEEN. She's had MRI/MRA/CT (all clean), she saw a cardiologist (EKG/Stress Echo/Echocardiogram all clean!). Her OBGYN says her endometriosis is OK for now, so almost everything has been checked and tested and passed.
This is a new symptom, as she saw a endocrinologist today (took 8 vials of blood for tests) because she doesn't make a chemical in her brain that she needs for her cycle. She can't regulate on her own without estrogen, so she's been on birth control since she was 13. That was what we suspect caused her gall bladder to fail (as she was on Yaz! for a while). Recently, she was on progesterone but that did nothing.
This trouble swallowing is really scary - she can barely drink water. I searched around but no one has really said what kind of doctor would be the best.
1ddqd on
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This has been going on for about a week or so so it's not as if it's all-of-a-sudden
Trouble swallowing is called dysphagia, and there are different kinds, and different kinds have different causes. It would help to know what kind it is. See here for some examples. If it's esophageal, that's one thing. If it's in the throat, that's another.
Her previous issues with inflammation are obviously something to think about. This page indicates that one cause of dysphagia can be inflammation from an autoimmune disorder (many autoimmune disorders cause inflammation). Did they ever find the cause of hers? Has she seen an immunologist? Is she (or has she been) on steroids? (Not the "I'm juicing to get big like Arnold" steroids, but something therapeutic like Prednisone?)
Either way, I would get to a real doctor sooner rather than later.
EDIT: Also, does her insurance company have a hotline you can call where you talk to a nurse or an on-call doc to get a referral based on symptoms? They will have a better symptom tree to walk down than random Internet strangers.
The problem is that you have a lot of potential issues to deal with here. If it's esophageal, you have a GI issue. If the GI issue is caused by an autoimmune problem, then you need to see an immunologist. If it's a muscular thing, then it might be a separate neurological issue, which means you want to see a neurologist and/or an ENT. Oh, and you also know that she has an endocrine thing going on.
Yikes. Get a referral from a professional. If you can't bring yourself to do this, try harder. If you still can't bring yourself to do this, go see a GI doc.
If the inflammation is causing the dysphagia, then I'm still tempted to think autoimmune. This page notes:
The problem is that most of those things have other symptoms that should be obvious. Many of them involve skin problems or a skin rash - anything like that going on? What about joint pain or muscle weakness? Fatigue? Fever?
With arthritis, she'd be having joint pain, and with Sjogren's she'd be having trouble making tears. Lupus SLE might fit, and endometriosis puts her at higher risk for Lupus SLE. But then again, Lupus SLE fits just about any symptom pattern, and has a lot of other symptoms that are more common than dysphagia.
I realise that you're in a tight spot with regards to covering medical, but you still need to see someone to diagnose this properly, even if it's at the ER. Nobody here is a doctor, and even if they are, they can't diagnose symptoms like this over the internet.
Let people trained in this decide who she needs to see.
Who made the other referrals?
She has some joint problems/pain; primarily knees and elbows. She's convinced herself it's Lupus, for what it's worth. I think we shouldn't speculate so I'm undecided. HOWEVER!
The endocrinologist will be the one to refer us in the next right direction. The chain of events so far was OBGYN, Cardiologist, Neurologist, OBGYN, Endocrinologist.
The inflammation's source hasn't been found. Right now, the endocrinologist said, almost off the bat, that she thinks it may be PCOS (Polycystic Ovarian Syndrome). That doesn't explain all of her symptoms so she said that the next doctor may need to be an internist (Dr. House) to figure out how these pieces fit together.
The ER would be an almost unnecessary step in this process; things don't seem to be interfering too much right now, but rest assured, if anything like breathing/choking comes up it's the first place we're going (via ambulance if I can't get to her first).