The upper gastrointestinal system includes the mouth, the stomach, the esophagus (the long pipe that connects the mouth to the stomach), and the inferior esophageal sphincter (the muscle at the base of the esophagus that helps keep food and stomach acid in the stomach once it gets there). A variety of disorders in this system can cause discomfort, pain, nausea, and vomiting.
Dyspepsia is pain or an uncomfortable feeling in the upper middle part of your stomach. (The stomach is actually well above the belly button, not below it.) The feeling can include a sense of bloating or fullness, burping, gnawing or burning pain, nausea, heartburn (with small amounts of your stomach contents coming back up into your throat), and major vomiting.
Commonly Prescribed (On-Label) Drugs: None
Off-Label Prescription Drugs Breakthrough Options: Amitriptyline
The esophagus is a muscular tube. When you swallow, coordinated muscular contractions of the esophagus propel the food or fluid from the throat to the stomach. If those contractions become discoordinated or weak, interfering with movement of food down the esophagus, this condition is called a motility disorder. Motility disorders cause difficulty in swallowing (dysphagia), regurgitation of food, and, in some people, a spasm-type pain.
Commonly Prescribed (On-Label) Drugs: None
Off-Label Prescription Drugs Breakthrough Options: Diltiazem, Sildenafil
Esophagitis is inflammation of the muscular tube that connects the throat to the stomach. Esophagitis can make it painful to swallow or may make it feel as if you have angina. It may be caused by gastroesophageal reflux disease, not swallowing pills properly, or many other disorders.
Commonly Prescribed (On-Label) Drugs: Esomeprazole, Famotidine (Pepcid), Lansoprazole (Prevacid), Omeprazole, Rabeprazole, Ranitidine
Off-Label Prescription Drug Breakthrough Option: Sucralfate
At the bottom of the esophagus is a muscular ring called the lower esophageal sphincter (LES), which is supposed to open to let food down into the stomach and then immediately close to keep digesting food and stomach acids from going into the esophagus. If it fails and reflux touches the esophagus, it causes a burning sensation; when this occurs more than once or twice a week, it causes inflammation called reflux esophagitis or gastroesophageal reflux disease, or GERD.
Commonly Prescribed (On-Label) Drugs: Cimetidine, Famotidine, Lansoprazole, Metoclopramide, Nizatidine, Omeprazole, Pantoprazole
Off-Label Prescription Drug Breakthrough Option: Tegaserod
Cisplatin is used in cancer chemotherapy, given by intravenous infusion. The agonies of treatment for cancer are widely known, and nausea and vomiting after each bout of chemotherapy is perhaps one of the most feared. Nausea and vomiting may begin a few hours after the treatment is given and last for a few days. Indeed, the fear of such a side effect may become so severe that nausea can begin on the way to the hospital for treatment.
Commonly Prescribed (On-Label) Drugs: Ondansetron
Off-Label Prescription Drugs Breakthrough Options: Dexamethasone, Lorazepam
Nausea and vomiting — the regurgitation of stomach contents — are common gastrointestinal complaints. When they persist in a person who has no other diagnosable disorder, it is called functional chronic nausea and vomiting. If the problem comes and goes, it is called cyclic.
Commonly Prescribed (On-Label) Drugs: None
Off-Label Prescription Drugs Breakthrough Options: Amitriptyline, Desipramine, Doxepin, Imipramine, Nortriptyline
One out of three people who has had surgery with general anesthesia will remember the experience because of the most troubling side effects of that anesthesia: nausea and vomiting. Despite decades of advances in surgical technique and improved anesthetic agents, postoperative nausea and vomiting continues to be a problem that prolongs patient recovery, lengthens hospital stays, and can even have a negative effect on the surgery itself.
Commonly Prescribed (On-Label) Drugs: Cyclizine, Dolasetron, Metoclopramide, Scopolamine
Off-Label Prescription Drugs Breakthrough Options: Dexamethasone, Haloperidol
More than half of the U.S. population is overweight. But being obese is different from being overweight. An individual is considered obese when weight is 20% (25% in women) or more over the maximum desirable for his or her height. An adult who is more than 100 pounds overweight is considered morbidly obese. Obesity is also defined as a body mass index (BMI) over 30. Patients with a BMI between 25 and 29.9 are considered overweight, but not obese.
Commonly Prescribed (On-Label) Drugs: Rimonabant, Orlistat, Alli
Off-Label Prescription Drugs Breakthrough Options: Topiramate, Zonisamide
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