I am Samantha and I’m here to talk about my journey with EoE and EOHILIA.

In my free time I usually am watching sports, playing sports or baking.

I’m really into um making things that are allergy friendly because I do have a lot of food allergies.

My main goal in sharing this journey that I've been on is to make sure other people don’t feel so alone, and to show them that they can overcome anything.

I don't remember a lot about the time when my journey with EoE started. I was very young, but I was first diagnosed around four years old. And that's when everything really started for me.

My mom told me mainly that I was always throwing up. I never kept any food down. She often tells me that my main issue was with acidic foods. So ketchup. I couldn't put ketchup on things or I would throw up, and I was doing it for years, and she had been trying to find the answer.

Growing up, other than dealing with EoE, I also have severe asthma and food allergies. And I deal with eczema as well. So for asthma, I know my parents were very concerned that I wasn't breathing properly, and I had an episode that took me to the hospital, and that's where that all started for me.

And then for food allergy, starting at around three years old, I believe I had a reaction to peanuts and I had a reaction to lentils. And that started with my journey with food allergies, which has become an exhaustive list.

In terms of diagnosis and procedures we went through a lot of doctors trying to find the right one, especially like with insurance coverage and all of that . . . but we stuck with one main one.

I do remember for a while I was having pretty frequent endoscopies every other year, just to check the eosinophil count.

When I first started telling people about the diagnosis, I was obviously old enough to understand it a little bit better . . . I had a lot of friends that kind of were like, oh, what is that like? That's a hard name to pronounce. And, and people just didn't really know what it was or what to think about it.

So I always gave them like a little short, like snippet answer. Because no one really knew what it was or why I was missing school or stuff like that.

Before I started medication, I was a lot younger. So, I just remember my mom telling me that I was throwing up all the time and certain foods made it worse . . .

And when I'm off medication, I often feel like wake up in the morning thinking I'm going to throw up because I feel stuff stuck in my throat. Or I just, I can feel something light coming up, but it's not actually there.

And for a while, when I was not on medicine, I made a clicking sound with my throat, and I kind of do it involuntarily now.

I had a lot of friends that unfortunately I lost because of EoE. They didn't really believe me . . . and thought I was making excuses to not hang out with them. And because I always woke up thinking I was going to throw up there, there went the brunch dates and going out early mornings with friends for coffees.

No one wants to hang out with someone that thinks they're sick all the time.

Before I was on EOHILIA I had a bunch of different ways of taking my medication, a bunch of different medications that we tried. I for a while mixed a liquid steroid with xanthan gum and stevia to make a slurry. I did it with chocolate sauce, which I was very happy with, but apparently my throat was not.

I mixed it with applesauce. Eventually I added a pill to the mix. But I couldn't take pills. I just… they freaked me out. So I opened it up and called it sprinkles on applesauce. And that's how I would take it. And it was really just a lot of me lugging things and little cups to camp and sleepovers.

And sometimes it would lead to me not taking my medicine because I couldn't take all the stuff with me. So that was a big hassle and prevented me from doing a lot of things. And camp was always… they were very confused at the method of my madness.

When I was on medication, I definitely was late to school a lot. Just the hassle of mixing the liquid steroid with whatever I was mixing it with at the time… of carrying it everywhere. So on school trips, especially when we went abroad and there were certain things I couldn't bring, like a bottle of chocolate sauce. And so that was always a really big hassle for me.

My mom brought up EOHILIA to me as one of three options. I could continue doing what I was doing, mixing the liquid steroid with whatever concoction I had at the moment. I could have an injection, or I could take EOHILIA as a packet that was pre-mixed. And I am terrified of needles, so that was an easy no for me, personally, but I just knew that I couldn't keep mixing and lugging everything along with me all the time, and I knew I needed something new, especially going into college.

My GI explained that EOHILIA is a 12-week oral treatment for EOE for people 11 years and older. She said EOHILIA is a liquid like form of the steroid budesonide specifically formulated for the esophagus, and that it comes in a pre-mixed packet.

She also discussed the risks with me, such as high levels of corticosteroid medicine in the blood. And educated me about the more common side effects, including respiratory tract infections. And she emphasized letting her know about any side effect that bothered me or didn't go away.

After I started taking EOHILIA I definitely started feeling better a lot sooner than I expected and so I was really determined not to miss a dose of those 12 weeks and really stick to it and feel better for longer.

The switch to EOHILIA was definitely for me about convenience. Especially going into college, I knew I wasn't going to remember or be able to mix everything together before class every day. So it was big on the fact that I didn't have to mix things together, and I didn't have to be late to school or take time, take an excessive amount of time out of my day to mix multiple components together.

After I started EOHILIA, I started to notice that I wasn't having as much pain up here in my throat. And I wasn't waking up every morning thinking I was going to throw up.

Since I'm going off to college so soon, I feel confident that EOHILIA will fit the life of a very busy college student.

My mom and some of my healthcare providers and I have spent a lot of time and research finding someone who specializes in EoE that happens to be in my college town.

This is my own personal experience with EOHILIA. Everyone is different. That's why it's important to talk to your health care provider about what's right for you.

As I look into the future, I have hope that now, I can focus on the things that are really important to me, not just on my, the medical side of my life. And I can study and go to college and meet new people and travel the world and do all the things I could ever dream to do.

I am sharing my story about my journey with EoE so that other people can learn from my experiences and know that there are answers out there, even if sometimes they require a little extra digging.