Do you need to have a gastroscopy if you have an iron stomach? These tragic cases will tell you whether "iron stomach" really exists.

29-year-old handsome guy had total gastrectomy

The protagonist of this story, Li Qiang (pseudonym), is a 29-year-old handsome young man with dark skin, tall stature, and always smiling. He is a human resources manager of a company, but he is also a young patient with advanced gastric cancer. When I met him, it was the second day after his gastric cancer surgery, and the doctor performed a total gastrectomy on him.

Li Qiang's story is still fresh in my memory, because while he was lying on the hospital bed, he didn't know that his stomach was gone. He thought that only one-third of his stomach had been removed, just as his family had told him.

Because before the operation he had strongly requested the doctor to keep his stomach, he said he was still young and any missing part of his body would affect his future life.

However, because his tumor was discovered too late and grew in a very embarrassing position in the gastric antrum, after consultation with many experts, Li Qiang finally underwent a total gastrectomy. In order not to affect his postoperative recovery, his family chose to keep it secret.

For the next few days, he could only "eat" through intravenous nutrient solution.

"I am an invincible glutton, why did stomach cancer come to me?"

Two months ago, Li Qiang felt bloated in his stomach. After eating, he always felt that the food did not go down but was blocked in the stomach. It lasted for a while and was very uncomfortable, so he had a gastroscopy in his hometown in Jilin. Unexpectedly, the pathological diagnosis showed that he had advanced gastric cancer.

Li Qiang didn't believe the test results at all. He thought the doctor had made a mistake. He clearly had an "invincible iron stomach" and was a well-known big eater in his unit with an extremely good appetite. How could he get stomach cancer?

Moreover, he had rarely felt stomach discomfort in recent years, so he went to Beijing Cancer Hospital for a check-up. He had two gastroscopy operations and was completely dumbfounded when he received the same diagnosis twice...

Li Qiang said that the thing he regrets most now is that he has never had a gastroscopy in the 29 years of his life, because he thinks gastroscopy looks too painful, and that even though his friends and colleagues always have stomach discomfort, they have had gastroscopy and none of them have developed tumors. How could there be anything wrong with his stomach when he usually doesn't feel anything?

Li Qiang is very confident in his stomach and has always believed that he has an iron stomach.

Regarding Li Qiang's experience of illness, we do not want to delve too much into the cause of the disease, but rather want to remind everyone through his story, because through questioning we can find that gastric cancer patients have a very common commonality: most of them have never had a gastroscopy, and most of them, like him, believe that it is impossible for them to get gastric cancer, and that gastric cancer is still far away from them!

If you have a little stomach discomfort, you can drink some hot water and rest for a while, but if you wait until you have stomach pain, bloating, and growing discomfort before going to the hospital, it may be too late. Some patients do not have any obvious symptoms even in the late stage, but at this time, some of them do not even have the opportunity for surgery.

Do you know how important gastroscopy is? So you still need to do it once a year. Don’t be afraid of discomfort. With the development of science and technology, there is already painless gastroscopy, which means gastroscopy under anesthesia. When you wake up, the examination is already done and you don’t feel anything.

If Li Qiang had undergone regular gastroscopy examinations, his stomach might have been preserved now.

This is how a small gastroscope "grows up"

Since we are talking about gastroscope, let's take a look at its "history". In 1805, German doctor Philip Bozzini made the first real endoscope by using the principle of mirror reflection of candle light. The word "endoscope" first appeared in an article in 1853, which was written by French doctor Antoine Desormeaux, who is known as the "father of endoscope".

So, if Philippe Bozzini invented the endoscope, Dr. Desormeaux gave it its true name.

The earliest gastroscope was the Kussmaul tube invented by the German Kussmaul in 1868, which was inspired by the art of sword swallowing. It was actually a long metal tube with a mirror at the end. It was improved based on DeSormo's endoscope. Kussmaul once performed a gastric examination on a street performer.

Although the examination was unsuccessful due to insufficient lighting and the gastroscope was easily punctured in the patient's esophagus and was soon discarded, this action made him the first person in the world to use an endoscope for gastric examination, thus officially starting the evolution of the gastroscope.

Later in 1879, German doctor Nietz and Austrian electrical engineer Joseph Wright jointly developed a cystoscope using electric light, and used this technology in the esophagoscope and gastroscope they later developed.

In the late 19th century, the idea of ​​a "gastric camera" gradually spread in the medical community at the time. It was proposed by two German doctors who connected an ultra-small camera to the front end of a gastroscope, but the image obtained was very blurry, which was not convenient for actual clinical operations.

In 1950, Japanese doctor Tatsuro Uji successfully invented the prototype of flexible gastroscopy - the intragastric camera.

In 1964, Olympus successfully developed and launched its first gastric camera with a fiber endoscope by utilizing the unique physical properties of fiberglass.

In 1985, Olympus replaced the previous fiber optic imaging with micro-image sensing technology and developed an electronic endoscope that is of great significance to all mankind.

In November 2002, Olympus launched the world's first high-definition endoscopy system. By then, gastroscopy technology was already very advanced.

Doctor's Tips

Ordinary gastroscopy is actually not a very comfortable thing, but for the sake of health, sometimes you have to do it. People always pursue happy things, and in order to avoid pain, painless gastroscopy appeared. So how much do you know about painless gastroscopy? Next, let's take a look at the things about painless gastroscopy.

Strictly speaking, painless gastroscopy is a gastroscopy under general anesthesia. Compared with ordinary gastroscopy, it means that before the gastroscopy, the anesthesiologist will first anesthetize the patient so that the patient can complete the gastroscopy without feeling anything.

It has some advantages:

1. No pain: Patients do not feel any discomfort during the examination and treatment.

2. Less trauma: Under painless electronic gastroscopy, a number of minimally invasive treatments can be performed for gastrointestinal bleeding, polyps, ulcer stenosis, saving patients from the pain of surgery. Since patients do not experience nausea and vomiting, the friction between the gastroscope and the pharynx can be reduced, thereby reducing damage to the pharynx.

3. Short time: Excluding the preparation time before the inspection, the inspection can be completed within a few minutes from the start.

4. More accurate: Electronic gastroenteroscopy has advantages that cannot be replaced by other current examination methods, especially some minor lesions and even lesions in the mucus layer can be clearly diagnosed. At the same time, combined with pathological examination, it can provide the most accurate diagnosis.

Painless gastroscopy has advantages that cannot be replaced by ordinary gastroscopy. It does not cause discomfort such as nausea and vomiting, shortens the examination time, and provides a more accurate and humane diagnosis.

For patients with severe vomiting and those who are afraid of gastroscopy, painless gastroscopy is an ideal choice. Although painless gastroscopy solves the pain, you still have to keep in mind the relevant preparations and precautions for gastroscopy. Only by doing the relevant preparations well can you truly complete the gastroscopy painlessly and safely.

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