Achalasia

For the past year or so, I've been misdiagnosed and mistreated by doctors. I knew I didn't have your normal textbook definition of acid reflux. I have lost close to 60lbs in less than a year, and right now my health is in very bad shape despite eating healthy and staying active. I was hospitalized recently because I was severely dehydrated and couldn't keep food or liquids in my body. When I decided to take a hiatus on my blog, I went to go seek doctors who could find out what I really had.

I was only formally diagnosed with Achalasia last week on 5/22/12. It is a rare condition that only affects 1 in 100,000 people with no known cause and no cure. The symptoms include difficulty in swallowing, regurgitation of undigested food, chest pains, and weight loss. I am peaking at my severity right now, and am on a self-imposed liquid diet because I can barely take that in as it is. So, what's my solution?

I'm scheduling to help alleviate the problem this week and will be undergoing surgery within the next few weeks. Luckily the surgery isn't too invasive and will have a quick recovery time, just in time for me to be able to work at OBEY's Sample Sale and go to summer school.

It's hard to be ambitious and do what I want to do with this holding me back. Before this disease took a strong hold of me, I signed up for summer school because I only had to take a few classes to graduate in December 2012. If you find the right people to treat you and let them know your schedule for the near-future, they'll support you and do what they can to help. I am so grateful for my new doctor in helping to accommodate my needs.

If I had to say one thing good about this disease, I would say is that it helped me get to my weight goal (unfortunately not in a very healthy way) and helped me be able to have more stamina to exercise and learn how to control portions of food and make healthy food.