Achalasia Living With Swallowing Problems At A Young Age

A swallowing disorder, achalasia, is not very common in young people however my son was diagnosed with this esophageal motility disorder at the age of thirteen. At first our family doctor thought that his symptoms were caused by stress from school and peer pressure. Not the case.

When you eat or drink anything it goes down your esophagus from your mouth to your stomach. There is a valve (sphincter) between the esophagus and the stomach that opens and closes. When one has Achalasia this valve does not do what it is supposed to. There is a malfunction in the nerves and when it does not open it will cause the food or drink to come back up.

Our family doctor sent my son off to a specialist to have testing done. The first one was a Barium X-ray. You drink a liquid then have your esophagus X-rayed. This will show if your esophagus is dilated meaning enlarged or widened then narrowing on the lower end and if the barium solution stays in the esophagus longer than average before going into the stomach. If so achalasia is present.

The next test was pretty horrific for a thirteen year old to have to endure being an endoscopy. The way in which this is done is a tube with a camera is put down the throat and into the area where there is a valve (sphincter) between the esophagus and stomach. He was given something to help him relax but was fully awake for the procedure. It did not look like a very pleasant experience. 

Then the Esophageal manometry test was doneand is quite similar to the last test.This is to measure and record muscle contractions while you swallow. For someone without achalasia there would be pressure waves recorded.

After the above three test were done it was back to the family doctor to find out that my son did indeed have achalasia. The next step was to go see a gastroenterologist who was a three-hour drive away from our home. After going to the appointment much to our disappointment my son had to go through all the same testing, as the specialist wanted it done in his own hospital.

There are three types of treatment available and my son tried two of the three.

First was Botulinum toxin. A botox injection into the esophagus by an endoscopy is done to weaken the muscle in thesphincter to allow food to enter the stomach. This worked for about one week, then the symptoms returned.

Second was a Balloon dilatation. A balloon is inserted by an endoscopy into the sphincter and blown up to enlarge the opening. In most cases this works and then every few years needs to be repeated. However it did not work for my son.

There was a third option, which was to have surgery done. This is where they go in and cut the sphincter. It was explained to us that if my son was to have this done there could be problems down the road. They told us that if he were to have to much to drink, say at a party, and need to throw up, he might just have to have his stomach pumped. Matthew by this time was seventeen. All of these doctor visits and procedures took almost four years. He decided to live with the achalasia rather than have the surgery done.

He is now twenty-two, still has the same problem but puts up with it. He eats foods that will go down easily, and always has a glass of water in front of him every time he eats.

The treatments do help some people, but there is no cure for achalasia, and normal functions never return.

I wanted to add that I am in no way an expert on any medical conditions. I have tried to explain here in layman terms what achalasia is, and how it affected my son.