Paper Towels Ad Nauseam

A good 25 per cent or so of my reading public — i.e. Cody Bear’s mum – has asked me to write a little more about megaesophagus. Cody Bear suffers from gastroparesis, which shares similarities in definition and symptoms to megaesophagus. Today I’ll just post a quick compare-and-contrast of the two diseases. Tomorrow I’ll go for the human-interest stuff, on how poggles and I have lived with his condition. Someone out there in Blogland has been looking for information on whether megaesophagus can be outgrown. I’ll address our personal experience regarding that question tomorrow.

Caveat: the information here is strictly googlesearch; I’m no expert. I had never heard of megaesophagus before our vet diagnosed it, and never heard of gastroparesis until reading Cody Bear’s mum’s comment yesterday.

But anyway:

Similarities

Both gastroparesis and megaesophagus are a failure of peristalsis (smooth muscle contraction), resulting in food not moving properly through the digestive system.

Both gastroparesis and megaesophagus may be idiopathic (i.e. the cause is unknown), or they may be the result of an underlying disease.

Both g.p. and m.e. mean a lot of barf cleanup.

Both g.p. and m.e. can be diagnosed by barium x-ray.

Management for both g.p. and m.e. may include frequent small meals,  pureed or liquid diet, and in extreme cases, a feeding tube.

Differences

Gastroparesis is the lack of contractions of the stomach muscles, resulting in food remaining in the stomach too long. Megaesophagus is the lack of contractions of the esophagus, resulting in food remaining in the gullet. The esophagus stretches, and the food sits in it as though in a pouch.

Gastroparesis may be helped somewhat by medication. This is no picnic, since the meds produce side effects such as anxiety, depression, and (sigh!) vomiting. Megaesophagus cannot be helped by medication. Meds are available for the underlying disease that causes it, but there is nothing in the case of idiopathic canine megaesophagus.

Paper towels needed for g.p. are used to clean up vomit, meaning stomach contents. Paper towels needed for m.e. are used to clean up regurgitations, meaning food and water that never made it to the stomach in the first place.

The feeding tube in extreme cases will bypass the stomach of a g.p. patient. A patient with m.e. has a functional stomach, so a feeding tube would connect to it.

Okay, time for some ball playing before Mummy goes for more petstore training. Stay tuned for the human-interest segment tomorrow!