Found Support

I found a GP support board threw yahoo, although I haven't come across any parents of children with GP yet the people on this board have been amazing sharing their stories with me and letting me know what GP is like.

I was given a web-site that has some amazing information on it..... http://www.digestivedistress.com/main/page.php?page_id=17

I found this and just wanted to share because it made me understand a bit more of what Zach is going threw.

Symptoms:
Imagine being healthy one minute, then terribly ill with stomach flu-like symptoms the next. However, the stomach flu does not go away. You fall chronically ill with these symptoms for years; you are assaulted by bouts of daily nausea—in the most severe cases, unrelenting vomiting.

This is the picture of idiopathic gastroparesis. No one can really explain what happened to make you so sick. The medication to treat this stomach disorder doesn't always seem to help.Regardless of how one develops gastroparesis, the symptoms are similar for all. Listen to the voices of the sufferers. They can describe the symptoms of gastroparesis better than anyone can.

Mid-abdominal discomfort after eating is a frequent complaint. Some have described it as a "large rock sitting in your gut". For others, this is not just discomfort, but actual pain.
"Every time I eat, the abdominal pain is unbearable.""The bloating is horrible, I just 'balloon-up' after eating.""I'm afraid to eat, I feel so sick afterwards."

Nausea, especially in the evening, is also very common, along with acid reflux (the bitter taste of stomach acid washing up into the mouth).
"If only someone could take away this terrible nausea!""I live with this nausea twenty-four hours a day, seven days a week, I can't take it anymore."

Another characteristic symptom of gastroparesis is vomiting of undigested food many hours after eating due to the weakened stomach’s inability to properly churn and mix food.
"I wake up in the middle of the night vomiting."
Unrelenting vomiting may occur in those with severe gastroparesis.Now read what the experts say—those who treat these patients:
"Nausea and abdominal pain are the most common complaints of patients with gastroparesis." "Nausea is a very severe, debilitating symptom, and antiemetics should be used extensively." "Once nausea leads to vomiting, a cycle invariably ensues, resulting in dehydration and hospital admission." "Therapy in gastroparesis should be aggressive and extra antiemetic efforts supplied in addition to the prokinetics..."

In severe cases, people have trouble keeping food down. To stop the dramatic starvation that they are faced with, they may need nutritional support via tubes inserted into their intestines, or total intravenous nutrition. Total parenteral nutrition (TPN) means feeding not by mouth, but by a needle, and in this situation, a catheter line delivering liquid nourishment.For less severe cases of gastroparesis, all the same symptoms are there: nausea, intermittent vomiting, bloating, belching, acid reflux, pain, and loss of appetite.Other vague symptoms can also occur with gastroparesis and may be related to autonomic nerve involvement. Autonomic nerve involvement in idiopathic and diabetic gastroparesis is fairly common.

These symptoms may include:
lightheadedness (especially with body position changes),
sweating abnormalities,
difficulty in urinating,
tingling sensations in the extremities and,
circulatory changes in extremities.

1. Hoogerwerf, V.A., M.D., Pasricha, P.J., M.S., Kalloo, A.N., M.D., and M.M. Schuster, M.M., M.D. Pain: The Overlooked Symptom in Gastroparesis. American Journal of Gastroenterology 1999, 94:1029-322. McCallum, Richard W., M.D., and Sabu, J. George, M.D., Kansas City, Kansas: Clinical Perspectives in Gastroenterology, May/June, 2001