Gastroparesis Treatments In Brandon, FL

Endoscopic pyloromyotomy, also called G-POEM or POP, cuts the pyloric muscle from inside the stomach using a flexible endoscope passed through the mouth. There are no abdominal incisions. The pylorus is the muscular valve between the stomach and the small intestine, and in many patients with gastroparesis it fails to relax, so cutting it lets food pass more freely.

The durability question matters more than the procedure description, and it has real answers. A 2025 meta-analysis of 23 studies covering 871 patients found clinical response rates that stayed above 70 percent through the first year, reached 79 percent at 24 months, and reached 81 percent at 60 months, with adverse events in 7 percent of cases. A separate pooled analysis put technical success at 98.6 percent and three-year clinical success at 75 percent.

The same analysis identified four factors that predicted lasting benefit: idiopathic rather than diabetic cause, shorter disease duration, a previous response to botulinum toxin injection, and higher baseline symptom severity. Those predictors are part of the candidacy conversation here.

One caution belongs alongside those numbers. Procedures for gastroparesis are aimed at improving symptoms, not at curing the underlying disease. Dr. Grandhige is one of a small number of physicians performing endoscopic pyloromyotomy in the Tampa Bay area, and he also performs robotic and laparoscopic pyloroplasty. For patients with severe weight loss or malnutrition, procedures that vent the stomach or allow feeding directly into the intestine come first, so that nutrition is stable before any definitive procedure is considered.

Delayed emptying often sits next to another foregut problem, and treating the pylorus alone can leave the real driver untouched. This is the most common reason a patient gets a procedure and still feels unwell.

Gastroparesis produces reflux-like symptoms, and it frequently coexists with gastroesophageal reflux disease. A hiatal hernia larger than three centimeters almost always contributes mechanically, and the larger the hernia, the more likely an atonic stomach develops, which may or may not improve after the hernia is repaired. Achalasia and other motility disorders can present with chest discomfort, regurgitation, and early fullness that look like gastroparesis until manometry separates them. Throat clearing, hoarseness, and chronic cough may point to laryngopharyngeal reflux rather than to the stomach. Rumination, esophageal hypersensitivity, and functional disorders can mimic all of it and are not surgically correctable.

Because Dr. Grandhige treats the full range of benign esophagus, diaphragm, and stomach conditions, these are sorted out in one evaluation rather than across four referrals.

He is also direct about the outcome patients like least. The patients he declines to operate on are often the most frustrated people who leave the office. They are also the patients who would be far more frustrated after an operation that did not change their symptoms.

Gopal Grandhige, MD is a board-certified general surgeon with fellowship training in foregut and minimally invasive surgery. He completed a Bachelor of Science in Biology at Johns Hopkins University, his medical degree at the University of Michigan, and his general surgery residency at Yale-New Haven Hospital, followed by fellowships in burn and critical care and in foregut and minimally invasive surgery, also at Yale-New Haven. He is a Fellow of the American College of Surgeons, a member of the Society of American Gastrointestinal and Endoscopic Surgeons, and a founding member of the American Foregut Society. More detail is on the about the practice page.

He founded Tampa Bay Reflux Center in 2009 and Tampa Bay Reflux Institute in 2022, and he has held surgical privileges at HCA Brandon Hospital along with three other area hospitals. All foregut procedures are performed at HCA South Tampa Hospital, with the same operating room team and the same anesthesiologists on every case.

His physician assistant assists in every procedure, knows each patient’s anatomy and operative details, and is reachable during recovery. Several of the office medical assistants have worked with him for more than a decade. After hours, patients can reach Dr. Grandhige directly.

You can confirm his active Florida medical license and any disciplinary history through the Florida Department of Health license verification portal.

The office is at 1315 South Howard Avenue, Suite 101, Tampa, Florida 33606, a 20 to 40 minute drive from Brandon depending on traffic. It occupies a yellow brick building next to Sally O’Neill’s Pizza, and parking is behind the restaurant.

Office hours are 9 a.m. to 6 p.m., Monday through Friday. The phone number is 813.922.2920.