“They Never Did That Test”: The Gastric Emptying Study the Court Now Requires

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The Test the Stomach-Injury Court Now Requires

If you had a gastric emptying study — or aren't sure what your testing was — find out in minutes where you stand.

No Ozempic or other GLP-1 lawsuit has been settled, and no court or jury has found that these medications caused anyone's injury — the litigation is ongoing, with major expert-evidence rulings still ahead. Whether any individual has a claim depends on their own medical records and the law of their state.

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No Ozempic or other GLP-1 lawsuit has been settled, and no court or jury has found that these medications caused anyone's injury — the litigation is ongoing, with major expert-evidence rulings still ahead. Whether any individual has a claim depends on their own medical records and the law of their state. Do not stop, start, or change any prescribed medication because of anything on this page. Those decisions belong with your prescriber. Attorney Advertising.

On August 15, 2025, the federal judge overseeing the GLP-1 stomach-injury litigation ruled that any plaintiff claiming gastroparesis must show that the diagnosis is based on a properly performed gastric emptying study — scintigraphy, a breath test, or a wireless motility capsule. Most people who have been told they have gastroparesis never had one of those tests, because American medicine routinely diagnoses this condition on symptoms. If that is you, it does not mean you were wrong about being ill. It means there is a documentation step to complete, and this page explains what it is.

First, the thing worth saying out loud

If you are here because someone mentioned a test you have never heard of, and your stomach dropped a little — this is not another institution deciding whether to believe you.

People with this condition have usually spent months or years being told it was anxiety, or nothing at all. The requirement described here is not a judgment about whether you are ill. It is a rule about what a court will accept as proof, and it applies to everyone equally. Your diagnosis is between you and your doctor. What follows is about paperwork.

What a gastric emptying study actually is

A gastric emptying study measures how fast food leaves your stomach. Instead of inferring slow emptying from symptoms, it observes it. There are three accepted methods:

• Scintigraphy — the standard version. You eat a small standardized meal, usually eggs and toast, containing a trace amount of a radioactive marker, and a scanner images your abdomen at intervals to measure how much is still in your stomach. The protocol that matters is the four-hour one. Shorter versions exist and are less sensitive.
• Gastric emptying breath test — you eat a meal containing a non-radioactive carbon isotope, and breath samples over several hours show how quickly it left the stomach. No radiation.
• Wireless motility capsule — sometimes called a smart pill. You swallow a capsule that records pressure, pH and temperature as it travels, measuring how long it takes to leave the stomach.

All three are outpatient tests. None involves surgery or sedation. The court’s order names all three as acceptable.

Why the court requires it

The judge managing MDL 3094 structured the litigation around a few “cross-cutting issues” to be decided before anything else, and the first was how gastroparesis can reliably be diagnosed — because over 95% of the cases were expected to allege that condition.

The parties fought it with competing expert witnesses. On August 15, 2025, the court excluded the plaintiffs’ two diagnosis experts and declined to exclude the defense expert, concluding that any plaintiff claiming to suffer, or to have suffered, from gastroparesis must show that their diagnosis is based on a properly performed gastric emptying study — scintigraphy, breath test, or WMC. Diagnosing the condition from clinical presentation alone, the court held, was a symptoms-based methodology at odds with the medical consensus.

The court acknowledged the requirement may bar some claims, and concluded that allowing unreliable diagnoses would be more unjust to the defendants. You are entitled to think that is a hard result. It is, however, the rule, and any firm telling you otherwise is not being straight with you.

Why so many people were never given it

This is the part most pages leave out, and it matters most if you are sitting there feeling like you did something wrong.

The test is well established and under-used. Cleveland Clinic’s published discussion reports that only about 58% of institutions performing gastric emptying scintigraphy follow the standardized four-hour protocol, and that roughly half of patients referred there with a gastroparesis diagnosis have been mislabeled. Their motility specialists put it bluntly: too often patients are diagnosed on symptoms alone. The four-hour protocol also detects gastroparesis about 30% more often than shorter versions — so even some people who were tested had a study the court might not accept.

So a very large share of people told by a real physician that they have gastroparesis do not have the documentation this court requires. They are not lying, not mistaken about being sick, and not disqualified through any fault of their own. They were diagnosed the way this condition is ordinarily diagnosed in the United States, and a federal court decided the ordinary way was not enough for a courtroom. That is a gap in normal practice — not a reflection on you, and not on your doctor.

What to do if you were diagnosed without one

1. Don’t assume you never had it. Many people did have testing and don’t recognize the name. Look for “gastric emptying scintigraphy,” “solid-phase gastric emptying,” “GES,” “gastric emptying breath test,” or “SmartPill” in gastroenterology, nuclear medicine, or hospital records. If it was done, there is a result giving percentages of the meal retained at set times.
2. Request your records. You are entitled to them. The most useful sources are your gastroenterologist, the hospital where you were seen, and your primary care office, which often has reports filed even when the test was done elsewhere.
3. Ask your treating doctor about testing now. Whether a study today is appropriate — and what it would show if you stopped the medication long ago — is a medical question for your physician, not a law firm. We can tell you what the litigation requires; we will not advise you on treatment.
4. Tell us either way. “I’m not sure what tests I had” is the most common honest answer, and it leads somewhere useful rather than to a dead end.

Who may qualify today

• Brand-name Ozempic, Wegovy, or Rybelsus. Compounded or generic semaglutide, and Mounjaro, Zepbound or Trulicity, don’t fit today’s stomach-injury criteria — tell us anyway; criteria differ by track.
• Gastroparesis confirmed by a gastric emptying study, or gastric obstruction confirmed by other objective testing — the testing order is directed at gastroparesis claims; obstruction is documented differently.
• Diagnosed while taking the medication, or within about 30 days of stopping, and before December 31, 2024.
• An emergency room visit or hospital admission connected to the injury.
• Age 75 or under at intake, and not already represented by another lawyer for this issue.
• No study yet, or not sure? That is a review path, not a rejection. We will tell you plainly where you stand.

You are not suing your doctor

This is a claim against the companies that made and labeled the medication — Novo Nordisk and Eli Lilly. Nothing about the testing requirement is a criticism of your physician, and nothing about a claim is directed at them. The doctor who diagnosed you followed ordinary practice, and their records are usually the most valuable thing a claimant has.

Common questions

Related stomach-injury topics: bowel obstruction & ileus, feeding tubes, constant vomiting & ER visits, and stomach paralysis (gastroparesis).