Apparently many people have experienced or are experiencing the same problems I have, but a diagnosis takes forever and there’s not much helpful information out there. You may have come to notice, like I have, that doctors often act like the patient is an idiot or hypochondriac, and tests/hypotheses/diagnoses only come after multiple office visits, a number of inconvenient procedures, and kabillions of dollars.
The problem with watching the TV show House is that I have this expectation of a doctor figuring me out in a few days. Instead, you schedule an office visit (hopefully within a week if you’re lucky), they order a test (again, hopefully within a week) for which you have to take off work and fast, you wait a week for the results (in another office visit) – which are negative – warranting another test, and maybe after this process for a millennium they find what’s actually wrong with you. Okay, so I’m a little cynical, but that has felt like my experience, except that the doctor wanted me to wait 4 weeks between each visit to see if this general drug (Nexium) helps me out. What the heck?
So here are my symptoms:
Upper abdominal pain, right under my lower ribs, all the way across my front. It seems that this is where the diaphragm should be, maybe liver (who knew these things reached this high?). Pain and discomfort throughout the day, strongest about an hour after meals, but can come and go seemingly at random. Pain seams more severe after eating fatty foods or wheat products, and I think coffee might trigger it too. Also I’ve had a lot of strange, deep burping (sorry so gross). No nausea, though, thank goodness!
Tests and other fun things:
The pain first started a few weeks after shoulder surgery. I originally thought the stomach pain was a symptom of an ovarian cyst that was causing other problems, but that cyst burst (not fun) and the stomach pain continued. Since the gyno saw an overgrowth in yeast, I went on the candida diet (blog post) to see if it’d also help my stomach. On a sans-sugar/yeast/wheat diet, my symptoms weren’t as bad, but they were definitely still there, so I went the GI.
The GI ordered an EGD (scope down the esophagus, through the stomach, into the small intestine), which was clean – nothing that the doctor wanted to biopsy or anything. So then she ordered an abdominal ultrasound, which was also clean – no gallstones. I then had the GI draw blood to check for Celiac disease (since wheat seems to aggravate some problems), and she also ordered a CCK Pipida scan, which I did on Friday. In the Pipida scan, you are injected with dye that lights up your gall bladder while you lie on the table with the CT scan over you and wait for what can take anywhere from 5 minutes to an hour. When your gall bladder lights up, then the tech injects you with CCK, a chemical that makes your gall bladder contract, just like it does when your body digests food. This scan takes 30-45 minutes, and the machine takes a lot of pictures while your gall bladder is working. The tech said that you may or may not experience the same symptoms that you normally do with digestion (I did), but usually not more than usual (contrary to what I feared from online research). So the Pipida scan can take anywhere from an hour to two hours, given how long it takes for the gall bladder to light up.
Even though the GI said I’d have to wait 10-14 days for my results, the tech at Diagnostic Images said I’d be able to call my doc for the results in two business days (which will be tomorrow). I can’t wait, since I’ll get both the celiac test results and the Pipida scan results tomorrow! At this point, I’m totally prepared for the “negative” findings and the you-must-be-crazy look from the doctor because that’s all I’ve gotten thus far. However, many people (several more than I thought) have gone through this, and the Pipida scan was the deciding factor for them, even after having all negatives up to that point. Not that I’m hoping for something to be wrong, but I know there is something wrong (why else would I all-of-a-sudden feel this way, and keep feeling this way for months?), and I want an answer so we can fix/treat it. Hopefully that answer comes Monday! :)
