Maybe my wife needs Geritol?

[chrisinhouston]

My wife began to notice in mid November that she was just very out of breath and easily tired. She had been doing some trips for work to Salt Lake City and felt like her body didn't reset when she came back to Houston. And when we were in Aruba I found myself having to stop and let her rest a bit as we were out shopping or walking around.

When she got back she went to her GP who did blood work and discovered her hemoglobin was dangerously low at only 5.7 and also her hematacrit. He told us to head to the ER and after they ran blood tests to confirm it they admitted her and gave her 2 units of blood.

No sign of any obvious bleeding and after a day in the hospital and the blood here hemoglobin was at 8 so they let her go home, this was just 2 days before Christmas. After New Years Day she had an appointment with a new Gastro doctor who ordered a endoscopy and a colonoscopy. My wife has had GERD and digestive issues for years and takes meds for that. He wanted to see if she was bleeding internally so a few days later after the fast and purge she had the procedures done. No obvious signs of blood loss, colon was fine and her stomach had some usual polyps that come from long term reflux.

Now he wants her to take a "pill cam". Quite literally a pill camera that will photograph the inside of her small intestines and transmit the images. Sort of like that movie, Fantastic Voyage!

It may just be that for some reason her body no longer is producing enough red blood cells and she may just need an iron supplement but it's a bit unnerving.

[glatt]

I hope it's nothing and she just needs some iron.

[Clodfobble]

Pill cams are awesome and saved both my kids. Try to get your wife's doctor to hand over the series of images when it's done, they are very cool.

[sexobon]

Sunshine in Aruba made her weak, she's low on blood, and she's been making trips to Salt Lake City!

Sorry man, she may have something going on the side. Better check her neck for fang marks.

[chrisinhouston]

She took the pill cam this morning. The doctor had to go to bat for her with our insurance, BCBSTX as they wanted to review and do a pre-authorization. The doctor pointed out her red blood cell count has dropped again and she might end up back in the hospital for a transfusion which will cost a whole lot more than the pill cam.

The doctor told us the camera will take about 7 hour to pass through and we don't need to recover it or return it. He said he had one patient with a very fast digestive track who saw it pass out and the LED was still flashing so she fished it out of the toilet, washed it off and swallowed it a second time!

This whole idea of a camera inside you reminded me of that movie "Fantastic Voyage" so we watched it last night on TV. Pretty cool special effects for the time it was made.

[xoxoxoBruce]

So you didn't find any lost jewelry or misplaced items in there.
I wonder if they give those to suspected drug mules?