bob noble

Before my duplication operation my doctor suggested maybe I was swallowing
air. I said ok, I'll work on that. I went home and did some research on the
internet to find out what I could about this.
What I found was almost nothing of any use on the subject. Mostly what I
found was medical people looking for the same info as they were assigned the
task of helping patients with this problem. So, being the scientific type
person I am, I started trying to determine if it was possible to be
swallowing air. I should mention that I was at the stage of a ball in the
throat problem feeling at the time, which I finally think I understand.
Trying to understand automatic body functions just isn't as easy as one
would think. But after trying to pay close attention to swallowing liquids
and solids, I determined that it wasn't possible to swallow all the air that
was blowing up my stomach proper. I did determine that if I was swallowing
air, it was going to be impossible to stop, as even if I swallowed one
swallow of water, I automatically swallowed about three times more after
each swallow. I did determine that something was causing large amounts of
gas to form in my stomach proper when I ate or drank anything. When this
large amount of gas formed, it put a lot of pressure on my enflamed les
area, which caused the ball feeling. The les area was so inflamed at the
time, I could not burp the gas back up, until after it healed a bit.
Now again, you take one little swallow of something and your whole stomach
proper blows up with gas. Now, I didn't think too much of this at the time.
But I did decide there was no way I would be able to stop swallowing air if
it was the problem, so moved on.

Then I had the funduplication and started my post op recovery.

Gasx pills were recommended if I had a gas problem. They are of no use, at
least not to me.
They did show me something though. Very early on and it's in my post op log
I believe, I chewed up a gasx pill and swallowed it. It popped right back up
and I spit it out in the sink. In other words, it was only down for a split
second. To my amazement, each little piece of the pill was encased in it's
own little bubble of saliva looking stuff, clear and looks just like saliva.
I expected to see all the little pill particles in a mass, mixed with a mass
of saliva.
Not so, how come? It looked like each particle was getting coated on the
way down to protect something?

About the same period, I swallowed about a teaspoon of water, it popped back
up even faster and more violently than the pill parts and filled my whole
mouth with spit type bubbles. I mean my cheeks where blown out from all the
bubbles of this little swallow of water. What gives?

At this time I started to suspect that somehow the esophagus was using mucus
to protect something by coating everything with the mucus, but the real
problem is when this mucus hits the stomach proper, it blows into gas, lot's
of gas, chemical reaction of some kind.

That made me remember about my earlier ball feeling. When the les area is
inflamed it seems to be doing the same thing which causes all the gas and
all the discomfort.

Of course I mentioned this to my Doctor, but doctors have hard heads, almost
as hard as mine. :O)

He says, you can swallow air, or food decomposing can create the gas. I say
there is at least a third way, as I have described.

Now about a week ago, I got a bad cold or flu, don't know yet, but the
result was my mouth was filling up repeatedly with saliva that I was
swallowing and I was having a hell of a time with my stomach proper being
blown up with gas, almost causing that ball feeling again. So, of course, I
started spitting a lot of this saliva out instead of swallowing it and it
seemed to help reduce it.

Now, I may have accidentally discovered something else that air swallowing
patients might like to know.
I use dates as one of my snack foods. When my stomach proper was blown up
with gas and my intestines weren't letting it though well, I ate about six
dates. The gas almost immediately subsisted and started moving though my
intestines vigorously. Humm. I ate some other kind of food, gas and
stoppage came back. Ate a couple dates and it went away. Tried this a few
times and it seem to repeat.

I haven't researched air swallowing lately, so maybe there is more info on
it, but I doubt it, as the number of people visiting my site looking for
info on air swallowing is increasing.
Now, I can only give you the patients prospective on this. What does a
doctor with an open mind think and when are you guys going to get this
right? :O)

Oh, here's a couple more things. Before the op, I started having a slight
problem with saliva running out to the corners of my mouth. Now, I'm pushing
sixty and thought, maybe it was just he age at the time.
After the op, both I, my dental hygienist and dentist at different times
noted that my saliva had a lot of bubbles in it, more than normal says my
dentist. It doesn't run out of the corners of my mouth as much.
I feel that the same thing that causes bubbles to form in saliva in the
mouth is the same thing that is causing the bubbles to form and burst into
gas when they hit the stomach proper. Or at least a very similar thing. So,
what do you have on this, or do you think I'm just fool of it? :O)
Thanks again for any info from anyone on this.
Bob

--
Bob Noble
http://www.sonic.net/bnoble