MyPoopisGreen

Stop the bus, I’m getting off. For the love of all things… I guess, that’s just it, for the love of all things, people! Just stop talking. Just stop being you! For crying out loud! I again emphasize, NO you are not going to die from doing a clear liquid diet for A DAY, and p.s. the bowel prep for the colonoscopy is SUPPOSED TO make you have diarrhea.

A hiatal hernia…wait, let me give you the medical dictionary explanation, and then I’ll tell you what a patient asked me today. It was the biggest winner in a long time. A hiatal hernia is an anatomical abnormality in which part of the stomach protrudes through the diaphragm and up into the chest. Although hiatal hernias are present in approximately 15% of the population, they are associated with symptoms in only a minority of those afflicted.(from www.medicinenet.com) I think it sounds worse that way, if you ask me. I like to describe it as the sphincter muscle, which is low down where the esophagus joins the stomach and that muscle is a little bit weaker and is open and allows the acid a way up into the esophagus IF you are having symptoms. Some people have symptoms from this abnormality while others don’t and provided that you are taking medication (your PPI or H2 inhibitor) you should be just hunky-dorey. So don’t get yourself all freaked out about a hiatal hernia, NO you cannot do exercises to strengthen the muscle. Are you really listening to yourself speak when you ask that? What are you going to do? Swallow really fast? Hang upside down, hold your breath and try to swallow? Or maybe bungee jump off the Tapenze Bridge in New York, and as you do that and fall really fast you should hold your breath and then on the way back up I want you to do a crunch bringing your chin to your chest and your neck and shoulders rounded in so that you are crunching your abdomen muscles. Sorry, no can do. Although you might get awesome abs if you did that stomach crunch while bungee jumping. Just a thought.

And then there is always THE GERD - if you go basically an entire day without eating because you were too busy to do so, or whatever the excuse is, and then you suck down a hamburger with pickles and onions and ketchup and tomatoes and who the heck knows what else in a matter of five seconds; my best guess…you’re going to get heartburn. And then, because you are a sufferer of acid reflux (and they all just suffer so well) - you are going to be taking your Protonix and then sucking down Maalox every four hours because your stomach hurts SO much. Fine, I’ll grant you that one. You triggered your reflux and now it’s just a little out of control. It happens to the best of us and you need a little guidance. So we talk through it on the phone that this is what happened and this is what you have been doing to treat it. Talking it through seems to put you at ease a little more and then you are all set and you’ll follow through with increasing your Protonix to twice a day for the next few days and you’ll do the Maalox as you need it for your discomfort. But you aren’t finished, because even through that whole long explanation about what you did and what you ate and what you are doing to treat it, you fail to inform me, until you call back and leave a message that YOU haven’t been eating anything since Monday when you ate half a cow in 5 seconds and exacerbated your reflux issue. Your stomach hurts and you want to know why, and you want to know if you are supposed to eat something or just keep yourself going on an empty stomach! Just stop it! Yes! Eat! Please eat! Put something in your stomach for the acid to work on so that it’s not just working on your stomach and esophagus. No wonder you feel nauseous! No wonder your stomach hurts! It has nothing in it! And has had NOTHING in it for the past couple of days! Just stop it!

I don’t know how these people do what they do. Or how they get through a day by themselves. It boggles the mind and gets you two steps closer to drinking heavily and one step closer to going insane when these people ask the questions that they do. It is utter maddness the fact that common sense is a sparse commodity in the world. Sad, sad, sad. So again I say, Stop the Bus! I’m getting off!

Take care all!

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