Bionic Stomach Pacemaker – A Promising Cure To Stomach Paralysis

Falling sick umpteen times during the day, having a failing gut could be a dreadful situation for those who go through it on a regular basis. This form of disorder is known as gastroparesis or delayed gastric emptying wherein there is a major delay in the stomach emptying its contents. The most prevalent reason behind gastroparesis is diabetes. This condition has serious repercussions leading to a host of digestive issues.

Usually the contractions in the stomach cause the food to travel into the small intestine for getting digested. The vagus nerve is responsible for controlling food movement from the stomach via the digestive tract.

However, when there is damage to the vagus nerve, gastroparesis occurs, leading to major impediment in the normal functioning of the stomach and intestinal muscles. The flow of food through the digestive tract then either slows down or halts. In case the food stays in the stomach for longer spans of time, it could lead to bacterial overgrowths arising from the fermenting food. There could even be hardening of food turning into hard masses known as bezoars that makes the person nauseous and feel like puking.

Even treatments involving anti emetic s medicines and feeding tubes fail to help in such situations. However, the ground-breaking treatment involving a specialised bionic stomach pacemaker could help effectually resolve this problem. The stomach pacemaker is embedded underneath the stomach skin, with fine wiring travelling into the muscle walls of the stomach.

When the patient starts ingesting food, the gastric activity elicits the pacemaker to transmit small electric impulses to the muscle walls of the stomach leading to contractions in the gut. This assists the stomach to pass the food matter along the gut.

The operative procedure for implanting the pacemaker last for nearly an hour’s time and is conducted under general anesthesia. A 5-inch slit is done above the navel, subsequent to which further incisions are made via the fat, muscle and the stomach wall till the pacemaker (about the size of plastic money) is correctly embedded directly above the abdomen.

This is followed by electrodes being implanted into the abdominal wall in varied spots in order to facilitate easy passage of electrical impulses and effectively lead to stomach contractions.

The preliminary testing into this form of treatment were conducted in the United States, however now they are obtainable in the United Kingdom too.

The procedure costs about ten thousand pounds and has had proven success rates.

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