Endoscopy procedure for Eosinophilic Oesophagitis

An endoscopy is when a doctor looks inside your body with an endoscope, a thin flexible tube with a camera on the end. This helps the doctor diagnose and treat a range of digestive conditions. There are two main types of endoscopy, gastroscopy, and colonoscopy. A gastroscopy takes about five to 10 minutes. The camera passes through your mouth, down your oesophagus to look inside your stomach and the top of your small intestine. You can choose to have a local anaesthetic to numb your throat or a sedative to make you sleepy, or both. A gastroscopy is needed to diagnose eosinophilic oesophagitis, EOE, an inflammatory condition that causes food to pass slowly or get stuck in your oesophagus. Gastroscopy is not painful, but can be unpleasant. Therefore we generally commend sedation for comfort. Sedation will make you very sleepy and relaxed, so most patients don't even remember having the procedure. During gastroscopy, six tissue samples are obtained. This is not painful. Tissue samples are then examined under the microscope to look for eosinophil cells. This is the only way that doctors can correctly diagnose eosinophilic oesophagitis.