Thankyou MrsD and kmeb for your responses.

I woke up this morning (it's now Friday 23rd here in Australia) and sort of thought, well this is the start to another way of thinking - what do I have for breakfast?

Serendipitously for the past seven weeks I have been on a liquid diet because it was thought that I had a paraoesophageal hernia and needed surgery. As a precaution I was put on Optifast while I waited for the surgery and for me to lose a few extra kilos - which has now all been cancelled for the moment!

Prior to going on the liquid diet I was vomiting on occasions, as well as many other symptoms - which precipitated me asking for a Gastroscopy hence when they 'found' the 'now elusive' paraoesophageal hernia!!

I get slammed by nausea usually as soon as I eat or rather drink anything. The surgeon who told me the not-so-good news yesterday gave me quite a bit of information on diet for gastroparesis. In that info, it does suggest trying to eat solid food at the beginning of the day then assess how that goes as the day goes by - otherwise he basically recommended cooking and blending foods to achieve what the stomach would normally do!

It seems that my liquid gastric emptying is better than my solid food emptying which is almost non-existent. Unlike my usual form, I didn't ask for a copy of the report but I am going back to see him so will ask then for copies of all the tests he has done.

It will be a steep learning curve I am sure and I will be more than happy for any helpful hints regarding food and supplements/medications! I will look up those sites, kmeb!

KMEB I have a question! I was first diagnosed with PN (which has proved idiopathic at this stage) in August 2007 with burning paraesthesias etc etc. plus I was quite ill at that stage with severe nausea for eleven weeks along with epigastric fullness and early satiety etc. When I went to see the first Neuro she basically put it down to a somatoform illness when all the tests came back ok. The second Neuro was better and when I mentioned about the stomach issues, which had settled somewhat by the December when I saw him, he ordered a couple of autonomic tests - the sweat test and a heart test but they both came back normal.

I have often puzzled about this and wondered why if I was complaining about the stomach didn't he do a gastric emptying study then, but instead he did these other tests. Is the heart one related to the Vagus nerve also? Can Gastroparesis be the only manifestation of Autonomic Neuropathy or does it extend to the cardiac eventually? Not that I'd wish Gastroparesis alone on anyone - it's awful!

Kmeb, it must be very boring for you being on the same food all these years. Do you ever deviate and have some soup or something else finely blended or sieved for variety? I'm going out to an Italian restaurant tonight with my niece who was 21 yesterday and her family and am wondering what I'll have! Minestrone may even be too thick! Gelati not nutritious enough! Oh yikes!