Local man trying to bring awareness to gastroparesis with challenge
Just as he started Middle School, Andrew Belliveau came down with what seemed a stomach bug. Only it never went away.
“I couldn’t eat, was throwing up and wasn’t really feeling well,” Belliveau said. “And things just got progressively worse.”
Belliveau said he would throw up ten to fifteen times a day and suffered from almost permanent nausea.
“It was constant from the moment I woke up to the moment I went to bed,” he said.
Within weeks, Belliveau began the long medical journey to a diagnosis -- one which came four months after the symptoms started: gastroparesis.
“Gastroparesis is the paralyzation of the stomach,” he said. “Meaning you can’t eat, digest or absorb nutrients.”
By some estimates, about six million Americans have gastroparesis. And there is no cure -- though doctors tried a number of medications on Belliveau, including metoclopramide, a drug that induces gastric motility. Nothing really worked.
Belliveau wound up missing most of Middle School and his weight plummeted to 70 pounds.
“I really never had an appetite,” he said. “No matter if I ate or didn’t eat, I would just feel this constant nausea.”
And when Belliveau did eat, he was restricted to a bland list of foods that included crackers, pretzels and, on occasion, soup.
“I would say the vomiting, for me, was the most difficult of the symptoms,” he said. “Just because it takes so much out of you.”
But in 2012, when Belliveau was a high school sophomore, something miraculous happened. Doctors implanted a gastric stimulator just under his ribs.
“It basically works like a pacemaker for your stomach,” he said. “The sad part is, it doesn’t always work for everybody.”
But it DID work for Belliveau -- and incredibly well.
“I immediately felt the effects,” he said. “It was so great to eat again. The results were instantaneous. Since then, my symptoms have been under control. It’s really allowed me to function as a normal person, able to eat without restrictions.”
In fact, days after getting the gastric stimulator, Belliveau said he went to a restaurant with his parents and enjoyed an Alfredo dish without any problems.
Belliveau said it’s important to find a cure for gastroparesis -- but, perhaps even more important, to raise its profile.
“Gastroparesis tends to get misdiagnosed or not even diagnosed,” Belliveau said. “A lot of the symptoms overlap with Crohn’s Disease and Irritable Bowel Syndrome.” Some doctors even dismiss gastroparesis patients as head cases, he said.
In 2016, Belliveau learned August is Gastroparesis Awareness Month. At the time, the Ice Bucket Challenge, made famous by the late Pete Frates, had become a popular fundraising mechanism for ALS -- and Belliveau thought he could do something similar.
And thus, the Pie Face Challenge was born.
“You’re smashing a pie in your face, challenging three others and making a one-dollar donation to GPACT (Gastroparesis Patient Association for Cures and Treatments),” Belliveau said.
The Pie Face Challenge didn’t really take off until Belliveau took the suggestion of a local newspaper reporter and solicited local professional athletes. The first to say ‘yes’: Red Sox Pitcher David Price.
“And then, a few days later, he took the challenge and passed it on to several of his Red Sox teammates at the time,” Belliveau said. “And since then it’s really taken off.
To date, participants in 40 of the 50 states have taken up the Pie Face Challenge as well as people on four continents. Belliveau said that so far it’s raised more than $14,000.
Belliveau may have missed most of Middle School growing up -- but he’s immersed in it now. He’s a sixth grade special needs teacher at the Thurgood Marshall Middle School in Lynn. “I wanted to bridge that gap for kids that were like me,” he said. “Last year, I actually got the opportunity to work with a kid who was stuck in the hospital for a heart condition.”
The most rewarding part of his job?
“Working with students that maybe don’t believe in themselves but then, by the end of the year, their confidence rises.”
For more information on how to take part in the challenge, visit Gastroparesis Pie Face Challenge on Facebook or gppieface on Instagram or Twitter.
Download the FREE Boston 25 News app for breaking news alerts.
Follow Boston 25 News on Facebook and Twitter. | Watch Boston 25 News NOW
