My Gastro-Duodenoscopy

Note: What follows is a description of a medical procedure from the patient’s point of view. Sensitive readers might prefer not to read this.

Today I had my first endoscopy - trying to figure out what has been giving me this nausea for about a month now.
Doctor Ashwini Kumar Setya from Max Hospital has been very helpful and observant before so I trust him for this procedure. He kept on telling me not to worry. He didn’t explain much about the procedure so I tried to google a little bit. I read many reports of people mentioning that the procedure has improved a lot recently and the patient’s comfort is much better. There were some explanations of people who say they don’t even remember what actually happened. They gave them some sedative which made them so drowsy that they could still interact but afterwards didn’t remember what actually happened.
So I was all ready to go through. Anyways, anything to get rid of the nausea was a good thing. Even if it was annoying for a shorter period of time.
So there I was, the appointment was at 9.30 but I was asked to come at 9.15 so that the procedure could start on schedule. We (me and Sumit, my colleague who has a car) arrived earlier than that and the place looked quite empty. We had to put on these protective shoe covers which look like elf shoes, pointed in the front and in the back). So we waited and waited. Seemed the endoscopy machine was still in the intensive care so we had to wait for it to come. At 11 it finally arrived. All this time I was with my empty stomach being so thirsty!! Luckily I was the first patient. They called me into the endoscopy room, had to wear some hospital dress on top of my own clothes and had to take of my shoes. I had to lie down on the bed and they prepared me. The nurse tried to put a needle in my left hand, didn’t really succeed and started to move it around inside my vein. There was somebody else trying to help but it wasn’t good enough so they took the other hand. Two blue hands now. In the meanwhile they were monitoring the vitals, by pulse oximeter and blood pressure measuring. They made my lie down on my left side (I guess that’s the best position for the stomach to be in). They inserted some sedative in my right hand, but it didn’t make me feel any more drowsy than I was before. They also locally sedated the back of my throat. They immediately put something in my mouth that I was supposed to bite on, through which they were going to put the endoscope. That is exactly what they did. They put that tube in my throat asking my to swallow – I was constantly gagging and tearing and someone (I guess the doctor – I just saw tubes and hands) told me to take a deep breath through my nose which I tried but couldn’t . I felt they had taken over my whole breathing and swallowing system. Every time I swallowed I had to gag again. Then the doctor said: “I have taken out your acid so you won’t be having this again. “ But I guess it was just a natural reflex because of having something in your throat. Then they put something else through that tube, I guess it was something to take a sample with. They kept on saying it was almost finished but it seemed very long. Finally the thing was out of my throat, they asked my to spit, although they was really nothing to spit and I was rolled into the recovery room. By then, it felt like it all never happened.
Although the other patients I had seen before coming out of there were all groggy and sleeping, one even snoring, I just felt normal and was very awake. I guess the dose of the sedative was not big enough for my body. Don’t know. I didn’t feel at any point sedated or groggy, maybe a little calm just before the procedure, don’t really know if it was the sedative.
Anyway I do remember everything and can still imagine the thing in my throat!

So in short, it is not a nice thing to have done on you, it is uncomfortable, but it’s really not that long of a procedure and the only complications afterwards is some pain in your throat which is not even as bad as regular throat pain.

So thank you Doctor Setya for being able to figure out what was wrong with me, and I so hope it will solve the problem!