I’ve been home from my scoping procedure for four hours now. I’m not loopy but I’m forbidden from driving for twelve hours, and I can feel enough grogginess to understand why.
Good news, we have a firm diagnosis and it is a familiar problem to my GI doctor with a range of standard treatments. EOSINOPHILIC ESOPHAGITIS (EOE) Most human throats are 20mm wide and flexible. the base of mine next to the stomach was 8mm wide and stiff. (For reference, 8mm is the size of a drinking straw.) They stretched out the constriction to 12mm which was as far as the doctor felt comfortable without risking a perforation. Now I get to heal up for a few weeks and see what that does for me. It is possible that this will solve my issues. It is also possible that I’ll need additional dilation. Some people with this condition have dilation once per year. Others once every five years or so. Others only once ever.
For right now I’m home, on my couch. My throat is sore, my voice is hoarse, and I’ve got people to take care of me. Everything else can wait a day or two.