Side and back pain ruining sleep.

Hello Everyone,

This is my first post online related to my on going pain issues. I have gone through various testing with doctors (will detail below) and no solution has been found. Not sure where to go from here. I am a 31 year old male (not sure if this information is relevant to the topic but may as well add it in there).

For about a year and a half now I have nightly pain that disrupts my sleep. The location of the pain oddly shifts from time to time. The only constant is that sleep is awful and I honestly somewhat fear going to bed every night as I know that it will not be a good nights rest.

Currently the pain is being experienced beginning only a few hours after initially falling asleep. As an example, i go to sleep around 11pm, I am awake tossing and turning by 2am. The pain experienced is relative to the position I sleep in. Lay on my right side, wake up with right side in pain. Turn to left side to change positions, fall asleep, wake up 20-60 minutes later with pain on that side. All of this adding up to my lower/mid back in pain. So there is no option but to just toss and turn between various positions relieving pain for small amounts of time in each position.

I also notice that my stomach is somewhat disturbed in these times. Once I finally pull myself up to go to start my day, I always have to relieve my stomach with a bowel movement. Once I have done this, showered and moved around (from apt to car, to office), the pain simmers down. Though can still be present throughout the day, just nowhere near the level it is in bed.

I have had numerous blood tests for what I perceive is every issue imaginable, not one thing was off here. As a matter of fact the doctors (have seen three) all come back saying the results show that I am very healthy and have no indication of disease causing the issues. A gastrointestinal doctor performed a colonoscopy and found nothing. I have had an MRI for lumbar and thoracic areas of the spine which came back completely clean. Ultrasound resulting in no findings. CT scan also came back fine.

I apologize for the lengthy post. I am lost right now and have no solutions to get any better. I just want to have a normal nights sleep for once!

Thank you in advance for taking the time to read.

HD

Post Edited (HWerd) : 11/13/2014 11:29:10 AM (GMT-7)

Hi HW & welcome to the chronic pain forum. I admit what you have going on is a little strange but regardless you need some answers for what is going on. Other than the gastro what other type of specialists have you seen?

If this were me, I would try to get into one of the big teaching hospitals & see of they could give me some answers. They see everything coming & going, much more than our main stream drs do. If you will look in CP101 at the top you will find a list of teaching hospitals & perhaps one is close to where you live.

Also, Sherrine suggested looking at the Fibro forum here at Healing Well. Keep us posted.

For side and back pain, I think my first visit would be to an orthopedist or sports medicine DR. Honestly, pain when you are lying down might be due to a bad mattress and nothing else, or maybe you need some PT to increase core strength and relieve back strain.