Hi All!
What is Barrett's Esophagus? Is it dangerous? A friend of mine was just diagnosed with having it and I would like as much info on it as I can get. Her dr said we will just watch it. Is this normal?
Thanks,
Boston
Hey, Boston --
Do a search for
Barrett's (with the apostrophe) or
Barretts (without) in the search box in the upper right corner of this page. There are a number of posts that discuss it.
In one,
Brian Hill describes Barrett's as a response to acid reflux disease, where the stomach overproduces acids that come up and cause "burns" on the esophagus -- it's the cellular changes that are designed to protect the esophageal tissues from the excess acid but that also can turn to cancer, so it needs to be monitored. A regular poster here,
EZJim, has it.
Barrett's does convert eventually to malignancy, usually an andeocarcinoma. I have had it do so, as well as other here. This can be managed with a good gastro doc, and watched VERY ROUTINELY AND CAREFULLY WITH AN ENDOSCOPE PROCEDURE. This person should be on proton pump inhibitors, OTC h blockers as needed and for peak heartburn liquids like Maalox. But long term use of PPI's. like Prilosex, Nexxium etc. is a must to get this under control. There is also a surgical laproscopic procedure to tighten up the pyloric sphincter that I have had that helped some, but also caused new problems.
I have Barretts Espphagus and like Brian says it can yurn to Cancer kind of fast if it isn't checked quite often. In fac I go for my scope, which is supposed to occur every 3 months, on the 13th of this month. I had a surgery called Nissen Fundiplication, in 1996 to ease the reflux it causes. They wrapped 1/3 of my stomache aroung my Esophagus but has done it's job so far. Barretts is not to be taken lightly but watched continously. They put you to sleep and scope your esophagus and take biopsies . You can ask me anything you want and I will do my best to answer them. One good thing about this operation is that you could eat out of a trash can without reflux happening anymore and you also lose the ability to Vomit anymore. But there are times you wish you could. Good luck and keep us posted Boston. I'm at your disposal at anytime.
Barrett's Esophagus is a precancerous condition and needs to be followed and treated very closely by a gastroenterologist.
I Brook MD