Irritable Bowel Syndrome Message Boards

Hey everyone, it's been a while since I posted here, but here's where I'm at. Be warned, it's long.

So those of you that remember me probably remember I had a colon resection in August 06. It took me a while to recover from the surgery, but by the end of October my doctor told me that the issues with my colon probably created the IBS-like symptoms and I could revert to a normal diet. This was all very well and good until I had an attack in November and was forced to miss a friend's wedding. The doctors, however, called it a case of gastroenteritis and let me go.

We now go into the beginning of 07. I'd been having some pain around my lower abdomen but my doctor said that it was likely nerve damage from the surgery and that it would go away after a while. (That specific one has, for the most part).

Now we jump to the first week of May 07. It's the last week of my junior year and the day before my last final. And I wake up in the middle of the night with insane abdominal pain. I try to make it to the bathroom but the pain is too much for me to have a BM. My roommates called an EMT from one floor above us to check on me, and after one look, he says to call an ambulance. Apparently, I'm so pale, he's concerned that my blood pressure has dropped dangerously (he's right. I couldn't stand and was hugging the wall in an attempt to stand upright). At the hospital, it takes a few hours and various painkillers to get me to a point where I can finally use the bathroom and relieve my pain. They discharged me the next morning while my roommate (who works for the department I'm majoring in) takes care of letting my professor know why I missed the exam.

I was in school for the summer, so I was away from home. On July 3rd, I was hit with abdominal pain, temperature fluctuations (hot then cold, etc), chills, and nausea. I got my roommates to drive me over to the hospital where I sat for four hours in the waiting room trying not to throw up. Eventually, they took me back around 2am, gave me painkillers and discharged me. At no point did they ever take a scan of my stomach or the like. Afterwards, I went back home to get scanned for gallstones but it was too late, since it was 5 days after the attack and nothing could be found.

Now flash forward to September. I'm still having abdominal pain, but now it's located below my sternum. My GI back home says that I've got acid reflux. He gives me some meds, but they run out just before I go out to Massachusetts for Rosh Hashana. And while there, I have another major attack.

It's around this time that I'm told I can no longer take ibuprofen because I've been taking so much of it during the summer, any more and I might rip a hole in my stomach. Yippee.

So now here I am, frequently in pain and occasional bowel backups and no one really knows why. I'm downing more Tylenol on a daily basis then is probably safe, but there's so little options now. The one thing I can "hope" for is to have another attack so I can go to the hospital for a scan.

Other than all of that, my senior year is going great! I can only hope that I can make it to graduation in May without needing excessive medical attention.

Sigh.

This means I'll probably be back through here a bit more often because I'm running out of patience and am in desperate need of somewhere to vent.

Thanks for reading, and I hope that my future posts are a lot more positive than this one.

-Avidan

--------------------
Why'd you have to go and make me so constipated?
--'Weird' Al Yankovic, "A Complicated Song"

Print Remind Me Notify Moderator