Oesophageal stent

[Manita136]

Hi

My mum has just has a stent fitted, it’s been 8 days now and she has terrible pains and nausea so bad that she can’t eat, she had to be admitted to hospital for an IV. She is back home now but is still suffering from the same conditions, I was wondering if anybody had any advise or has had this treatment, thank you

[Mauser1905]

has her chemo started?

[Manita136 in reply to Mauser1905]

hi, thanks for replying, no she starts chemo next week .

[Glenn124]

it is the syent

[DanJon]

Hi Manita,

I've had a similar experience with my oesophageal stent (they don't suit everyone). The idea behind mine was to support eating and maintain weight during chemo as my dysphagia had got quite bad. It had quite the opposite impact. I was in a lot of pain beyond the 72hr settling in period. I was concerned that it may have displaced as I had some violent vomitting within 24hrs of insertion. I had a barium swallow and this suggested (albeit not by the doctor that inserted it) that it had slipped. On the back of that I had an attempt to remove it (unsuccessful) and was then referred back to the doctor who inserted it for attempted removal. He didnt agree that it was displaced so there was some professional tussling between the two parties (none of which helped the patient). Eventually the doc who inserted it agreed to attempt removal - again this was unsuccessful and he actually ended up inserting another stent (stent in stent is a technique which can be used to remove embedded stents).

I then waited another couple of weeks all the while in pain (morphine prescribed so not insignificant) and struggling to eat and maintain weight. In the final attempt (again by the doc who inserted it) they removed the inner stent but couldn't remove the original one. So basically I'm stuck with it for now. This forced a mindset shift for me ... if its here to stay certainly for the short to medium term then I need to somehow find a way to cope. It took alot of will power but I found eating although extremely painful and often through nausea actually eased the overall situation. Basically eating through the pain (assisted by the medication) I think started to stretch my stomach again. I'm sure as I lost weight up to this point my stomach had contracted and was interfering with the end of the stent (thats my personal view) and possibly causing the pain and associated nausea.

So that's basically where I am up to now. Going through the chemo cycles, managing to eat OK (without significant pain) and stabilising my weight. Managing the reflux and sleeping upright has been a big adjustment but not insurmountable.

To cut a long story short, I'd encourage your Mum to insist that her medical team review the positioning of the stent to confirm that its inserted correctly i.e. its not displaced. If its good, then get the pain meds and buckle up for some disciplined eating boosted with calorie complete drinks. Its not pretty and anything you can do to make meal options straight forward for her will be extremely helpful (by chance we went on all inclusive holiday which did the job for me although with the pain I was in it nearly didn't happen).

I wish your Mum and you all the best with it. There is hope in these situations but it can be extremely testing even for the most positive of minds x