My husband has had a complete stricture of his esophagus for 2-1/2 years. We found an amazing Dr. who now has Dan eating everything! please email me if you need help. The PEG tube is not the way to go. You must swallow no matter how bad it hurts and no matter if the doc's tell you "oh it will get better in a while"

Jenifer,

I am glad that your husband is doing better. Sorry he had to go through this for so long.

The PEG tube is an aid to getting proper nutrition and liquids into the body. NO one has ever said not to swallow. I was told to drink something everyday to keep throat open.

Radiation does cause scare tissues, which can narrow the throat. I recently had a dilation of the esophagus just to widen the scared area. I feel the PEG is very important while going through treatment. It is also very important to keep swallowing as well.

take care,
Diane

DH refused the PEG during his treatment and went into relatively severe malnurition by the time it was over. He also had problems swallowing when it was all over, even though he had been swallowing all along (most days it was just ice water!)They had to do a follow up biospy on him due to a hot spot on the PET scan wehich turned out to be caused by the raidaiton continuing to work even 6 weeks post treatment.

Prior to the biospy, DH told the doc it felt like he had an obsruction in his throat. I was taking his Singulair pills (for allergies) and quartering them, and they were still getting stuck. For the record, these pills were about the size of an aspirin, so when I quartered them they were TINY! Anyway, when they did the biospy, they scoped his esophagus and it had collapsed to the point that he only had a narrow opening about the diameter of a straw. The doc said that the scar tissue from the treatment in his larynx had pushed backwards and caused the esophagus to collapse. They dilated him and he hasn't had any problems at all in 16 months... However, the doc warned that it could happen again and if it did, he should tell the doc down here that he neeeds to have it dilated again.

I have also talked to other survivors who have had similar problems. Some of them just require the one time dilation; others require it on a regular basis.

Mike had a peg and was able to swallow through all the treatment. Even at it's worse, he still managed to swallow water at least to keep those muscles and reflex working.
After treatment he was able to eat more and more, but would choke on food fairly often. He had his throat dilated 10/31 and it worked miracles. He could eat everything.
He is getting it dilated again 12/26.

Ginny
(spouse to Mike)

I am so happy to hear the dialtions worked. I want to say I did post a general post concerning this because I made a mistake in asking people to email me about my husbands treatment instead of just posting generally. Sorry to all.