Introduction....

Hello!
For those of you who don't know me, my name is Amy and I was diagnosed with EE aka Eosinophilic Esophagitis this last Christmas of 2009. I decided to create this blog mainly to have a place to write about the things I'm going through. I don't know many people who have this rare condition, but hopefully this blog will be able to help others who also have EE or a loved one learning to live with this condition. To get started, I'm just going to post what I posted on my family blog last month that will give an overview of how this journey started for me and how I got to where I am now:

EE
Well, I'm starting to have to face something that I've been in a little bit of denial about. Just after Christmas, I was diagnosed with a condition called Eosinophilic Esophagitis aka EE. This all began in August of 2007. I started to have a really bad pain in my chest that got worse when I would eat or drink anything. At it's worst point, I couldn't even drink water with out horrible sharp shooting pains in my chest. After many doctor appointments and even an ER visit, it was assumed that I had acid reflux and was prescribed a couple medications to help with the symptoms. I thought that it may have been a ulcer, but never went through any testing to determine if that was the case since the medication eliminated most of my symptoms and I felt so much better.

This past October, the pain started to get really bad again. I went back into the doctor and they doubled my medication doses, but it didn't help much. So, a few days before Christmas I went in for an endoscopy where they took some pictures and some biopsies of my esophagus. Well, the diagnosis was officially EE. This is what it all means:

Eosinophilic Esophagitis: Eosinophils are white blood cells that regulate inflammation and play a key role in allergic reactions. Eosinophilic esophagitis occurs with a high concentration of these white blood cells in the esophagus, most likely in response to an allergy causing agent.

Symptoms:
*Difficulty Swallowing
*Painful Swallowing
*Chest pain behind the breastbone
*Swallowed food becoming stuck in the esophagus
*Nausea
*Stomach Pain
*Vomiting

Honestly, I'm not sure what this all means for me yet. I'm a little nervous to find out what I am allergic to, but at the same time it will be nice to see what is causing all of the symptoms and it would be nice to not feel so sick all the time. I see a specialist in a few weeks, so I'll update when I know more :) Keep your fingers crossed that I'm not allergic to everything that I am used to eating.........