Gastroperis is a disorder of the stomach.
The stomach loses its ability to contract and cannot empty.
People develop symptoms of nausea, vomiting, abdominal bloating.
It's been a difficult condition to treat.
there have been medications called prokinetic agents.
Several of these agents have had severe side effects and have been taken off the market.
For people with gastroperis who can't tolerate medication or medications don't work for them,
it can be an almost crippling disease.
People wind up having to have feeding tubes or frequent admissions to the hospital for
IV fluid.
Sometimes they have what's called a central line, which puts nutrition into their IV.
This is prone to infections and blood clots in their veins.
It can be a crippling disease for people who can't get nutrition any other way.
Enterra therapy is a neuro-simulator of the stomach.
we implant it in the abdominal wall and place the leads in the wall of the stomach.
It provides electrical impulses to the stomach.
What it actually does for the patient is decrease the nausea through the nausea centers in the
brain.
It's fairly effective.
Most people will get about a 70% reduction in symptoms with Enterra Therapy.
It's a fairly easy, safe surgery.
It's done under general anesthesia and we do make two incisions in the abdomen.
The stimulator is about the size of a cardiac pacemaker.
It's placed in the right abdominal wall through an incision that's about 3 inches.
The wires run throught the abdominal wall and are sewn into the edge of the stomach.
This applies electrical stimualtion to the stomach which we can control with a handheld
device.
We just hold it over the stimulator, we can adjust the settings for it.
Most people are in the hospital for 2 days.
I've had some patients leave the next day.
Some patients if they continue to have nausea and vomiting, may have to stay in the hospital
3-4 days.
What it does is provide relief of the nausea which often decreases the vomiting that patients
are having.
it helps them to eat and have a normal life.
It doesn't work perfectly for everybody.
But I've had patients that it's been life-alerting for.
People have come back and been so thankful.
It's been very rewarding for me to be able to help somebody who we couldn't find any
other way to help.
I've had some patients in whom I've implanted the stimulator and have had complete relief.
I wouldn't say that's typical, most patients get about 70% relief of symptoms.
But for someone who's absolutely miserable, 70% can be life-altering in and of itself.
They can eat normal food again.
And allow people to return to activities they had before.
For some people it can literally be a life saver.