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8:57am
January 10, 2014
I wouldn’t wish Gastroparesis on the devil. Has anyone tried a medication that actually works? Reglan helps but has very adverse side affects for me.
I can’t take a full dose of Reglan so I take a low dose. Other than that, my meds for nausea are a combination of Marinol, Phenergan, Benadryl, Zofran, and Lorazepam. Out of that list, I use all but Zofran and Lorazepam daily, and Zofran and Lorazepam as needed, which is sometimes daily but sometimes I go long stretches without needing either. Benadryl has some as-needed to it too, but it also take some of it every day. The most important of the meds are Reglan, Phenergan, and Marinol, for awhile I was down to only those three. At my worst, while needing to keep a liquid diet down before that became impossible, I needed all of those meds every day at close to the maximum dose. I literally was put on all but Marinol and couldn’t get out of the hospital, and then Marinol let me go home.
I don’t know if you’re in a place where domperidone is available but it’s related to Reglan but doesn’t cross the blood brain barrier so it has fewer side effects. I have severe motor side effects on a full dose of Reglan but I can take a smaller dose. I wish I had domperidone though.
Of course the nausea meds don’t treat the gastroparesis, they just treat the nausea. Reglan does treat both gastroparesis and nausea, but obviously with side effects you have to either not take it or take a smaller dose than you need.
My other treatments aren’t medications, mostly I use a GJ tube with the dual purpose of feeding outside of the stomach, and draining stomach fluids. (If you’re a feeding tube candidate you should talk to your doctor about GJ tubes because the draining of your stomach can be crucial in gastroparesis treatment, just as crucial as feeding into the intestines. Because even without food in your stomach you can throw up, reflux, or aspirate from bile buildup if you’re not draining it enough.). That has really turned my life around in a huge way, even though I had some pretty awful complications at first.
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