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Pill Esophagitis (Medicine related food pipe ulcer)

A 70-year-old patient came to my clinic 2 months back. He said ‘he had burning, pain in chest and difficulty in swallowing solids’. He was also getting hiccups.

This was all started just 20 days before showing to me when he was admitted with dengue fever in the hospital at Pandharpur. There were no other complaints.

He had taken many medicines and syrup but was not getting better. By now he had shown to two MD doctors. 1 general physician and cardiologist also.

As this was an acute onset problem I suspected drug-related injury of the food pipe. To diagnose this we need to do an endoscopy. As was contemplated he had large ulcers in the middle of the food pipe. The biopsy was negative for cancer. With 8 weeks of medicines, he is now better.

This is an easily preventable problem. Many patients consider tablets and capsules as chocolates. They swallow them without 1 glass of water. This is mostly done by children and old age people. These tablets/ Capsules stuck in the food pipe and a chemical released from them cause inflammatory ulcers. These ulcers can be very deep. They can cause as in above patients pain, burning. Apart from these symptoms they may have bloody vomiting, black stools and rarely perforation of the food pipe.

So much anxiety, money, family disturbances, travel expenses were completely avoidable with just 1 glass of water.
Please consume an adequate amount of water with tablets and Capsules.