What a mouthful. I did not even know there was such a specialty in the medical field. Neurodigestive, neurogastroenterology. Crazy!
Basically, the neurodigestive (referred to as ND from here on out) doctor looks at the nerves in the digestive tract. Makes sense, right? A GI doc looks more at the potential surface problems in the digestive tract, such as physical development, allergies, abnormal cells, etc.
GI has scheduled a motility test. LE will eat something (usually scrambled eggs) that contain a (harmless) dye of some sort that will show up on xrays. LN had this test done years ago. LE will be in a comfy chair, probably watch a movie, while periodic xrays are taken to see how slow or quickly the glowing dots (from the eggs) move from her stomach to her upper GI tract. This will tell us if there is an issue there more severe than delayed gastric emptying (which she has already been diagnosed with). We know her system moves slow, we are looking to why and where.
LE’s appointment with ND has led us down another route of more testing. He has ordered an Anorectal-manometry (ARM) test. This will test her muscles and nerves on the lower end of her GI tract.
Ideally, we will start to get some answers from these tests. Keep your fingers crossed!
On a much more entertaining note…
We call her g button an Arc Reactor because a) it glows in the dark and b) we are nerds. When we connect her extension, we always say, “Arc Reactor…activate!” When we disconnect, we say, “Arc Reactor…deactivate!” She has started to catch on.
