Gastric Emptying Test!

So today I did my gastric emptying test. I know, it sounds gross…but it’s not what you think.

I had to fast for 6 hours before the test. That was fine considering the fact that my test was at 8:30 in the morning so all I really had to do was skip breakfast. When I got there I was seen almost right away which was great. I just had to wait for them to finish cooking my scrambled eggs.

When I went into the room, I saw a neat plate with scrambled eggs in between toasted bread. In the eggs, the put some radioactive chemical called Tc99m, which has a half-life of 6 hours. It is supposed to help them see the path the food I was about to eat is travelling as it enters my body. The speed of the food (whether slow or fast) is also an important element of this test.

When I took my first bite of my egg sandwich, I almost choked! Not because it tasted awful or anything, but because there was no salt/pepper or anything else for that matter on the eggs. The toast was also plain with nothing on it. They only gave me a quarter cup of water to choke down the dry toast and bland eggs. I ate slowly and took sips of water to get the food down.

After eating, they immediately took a picture of my stomach. I stood in betweeen to panel-typed things. The one behind me was moved closer until it touched my back. A piece of tape was placed on my upper chest. The panel in front of me had a black line down the middle. The idea was that I would line the tape up with the black line. Taking the picture took exactly 1 minute. I was told that they would take another picture every half an hour until 4 pictures had been taken. So I finished that test and I suppose now I’ll just wait until they see the results. I hope this test will show why I get stomach aches/cramps all the time.

My dialysis machine came today. Woo hoo! ……so did box upon box of supplies! Ahh! I’ll take pics and post them at a later time. That’s it for now!