Northerner
Admin (Retired)
- Relationship to Diabetes
- Type 1
In a first for Port Elizabeth, doctors at Netcare Greenacres Hospital have saved the life of a woman who was starving to death by implanting a pacemaker in her stomach. Specialist physician Dr Moses Jansen said the patient’s stomach could not empty itself anymore due to organ damage.
“She suffers from diabetes and her illness was not well under control,” he said.
“Many people think that diabetes is just about having high blood sugar but it is so much more than that,” he said.
He said one of the complications of diabetes was that the natural pacemaker cells in the stomach which tell the organ when to contract become damaged.
“She was eating but food did not go through to her intestines for absorption,” he said.
The patient was suffering from chronic vomiting and abdominal pain.
“As she was using insulin, her blood sugar would drop.
“This meant that she was essentially starving,” he said.
http://www.heraldlive.co.za/news/2017/08/14/stomach-implant-prevents-woman-starving-death/
Sounds like gastroparesis.
“She suffers from diabetes and her illness was not well under control,” he said.
“Many people think that diabetes is just about having high blood sugar but it is so much more than that,” he said.
He said one of the complications of diabetes was that the natural pacemaker cells in the stomach which tell the organ when to contract become damaged.
“She was eating but food did not go through to her intestines for absorption,” he said.
The patient was suffering from chronic vomiting and abdominal pain.
“As she was using insulin, her blood sugar would drop.
“This meant that she was essentially starving,” he said.
http://www.heraldlive.co.za/news/2017/08/14/stomach-implant-prevents-woman-starving-death/
Sounds like gastroparesis.
