| Re: stomach irritation
My GI told me that they usually know before the endoscope whether a patient is likely to have cancer, because symptoms typically do not present until there are tumors present. They usually can feel them. She assured me there it would be so rare to find cancer on a biopsy unless they suspected it beforehand. Rare.
She also told me when I got the results back that almost everyone who goes in for a scope has redness and irritation. She said it's so common. They did my biopsy and it was normal. Frustrating when you want answers, though. I aksed her, after learning it was normal, whether the irritation could be causing my pain. She said it is very common to have irritation, and when they tell you after the scope that there is redness and irritation, this is almost always what they say to everyone. Usually the doc after the fact will tell you there was a lot of redness, or a lot of irritation, or they could see lesions or ulcers, etc. Of course, I don't know what your doc said, but mine just said on my discharge instructions "gastric mucosal abnormalities characterized by redness (erythema I think is the medical term) and irritation." I asked her about this after the fact and she said that 9 times out of 10 this is what people are told after the scope. That things like aspirin or ibuprophen use will cause this kind of redness, and it typically does not cause intense pain.
So, my point is don't stress. Chances are you'd have an indication if something serious was going on. Did they say anything about the redness? Like, it looked bad? I assumed the worst, that I had bad gastritis or what have you. But she kept telling me that she sees "gastric mucosal abnormalities characterized by redness" in 99 percent of her endoscopy patients, and really most healthy people to be scoped would have some redness too. The key would be HOW MUCH redness and irritation was persent, you know?
I'm not trying to down play your worries, but rather put it into perspective. Of course I have no idea how your results will turn out, but I hope that by knowing what my doctor said, it will help you calm down a little bit to know that many people have the same sort of thing. Keep your chin up.
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