Chris is a very nice gentleman and very smart.
He's an engineer who lives here in Baltimore and when I'm with him in clinic
he already has done his homework. He searched the internet.
The condition of Achalasia is very rare. It affects like one out of every hundred
thousand people in the world, so not much, in‪ research and money is spent to look ‪into this disease.
I was reading online that a lot of women that have Achalasia get diagnosed with ‪eating disorders.
The problem with this disease is that it is rare, so it can be misdiagnosed or
under-diagnosed, and this is Chris's case. Chris had Achalasia and it went
undiagnosed for more than a year. First is Eosinophilic Esophagitis, then it
was food allergies, like a yeast infection ‪on my throat. Throughout the year that I had this the
condition got worse and worse to the point where I couldn't eat food in a normal fashion.
It will take me about an hour to complete the meal that I used to be able to eat in‬ ‪five minutes.
So Achalasia is a motility disorder of the esophagus, so it's a swallowing disorder.
The problem is that the lower esophageal sphincter or the sphincter at the bottom
of the esophagus does not relax well. In addition, the wave that propels food
down the esophagus is also the disease.
So these patients present with swallowing problems, chest pain, regurgitation,
which means food instead of going down to the esophagus is actually -- down to the
stomach goes back and regurgitate out‬ ‪their mouth.
These people present with weight loss. I lost about 20 pounds, which I weigh 140
pounds normally, so losing that weight is very significant amount of weight to lose.
There are a lot of things I had to cut out my life that normal people or my
friends wouldn't have to, such as eating ‪in public. You know, going on dates I'd have to
pretty much just avoid food which isn't a situation that's -- you wanna be in when
you're 25 years old.
There are a lot of treatments or there are a lot of treatment modalities for Achalasia.
There are endoscopic and surgical.
There's a new treatment POEM that stands for Per-Oral Endoscopic Myotomy, is the
endoscopic equivalent of the surgical Heller Myotomy, so it's cutting the
muscle, but instead of doing it surgically and now we can do it endoscopically.
Endoscopic means going through the mouth, so you're not opening up the skin,
you're not opening up the abdomen, you're not opening up the chest, you just go with
scope through the mouth and do the treatment in that manner.
The patient wakes up immediately after the procedure, they're observed overnight,
and their stay in the hospital is usually only one to two days, and they go back to
their usual activities.
One of the things I can remember was after the surgery my friends saw me for the
first time and said, hey, man, where are‬ ‪your scars?
And that's one of the benefits of the surgery is there are no incisions made on ‪your skin.
The only incision that's made is in your esophagus which is eventually stapled up.
Yeah, my lifestyles fully returned to how it was before and be able to eat, exercise.
I have plenty of energy. I gained the 20 pounds back in probably
three weeks which is very amazing to be to be able to get back to my normal weigth that fast.
Because it can be done in the endoscopy in it, it can be performed with our usual equipment.
I predict that it's gonna be a commonly done procedure on a daily or weekly basis.
It's very effective.
I'd say in all cases of life as an engineer I like to adopt early technology
as, you know, the first Smartphone that comes out, the new games, [inaudible] computer,
I'm always wanting to get my hands on the newest technology.
So it was interesting in the same sense that this is essentially on cutting edge
of modern medicine that I was almost an early adopter of the surgery as well.
It definitely made my life better 100 percent and not just in the eating
and drinking aspect, but socially being able to eat with friends, just an amazing
feeling, you know, not something I take‬ ‪for granted anymore.