Bumps in my stomach? Help would be appreciated.

Okay, I've been having a lot of stomach trouble recently which makes me very sad as I thought I finally had it somewhat under control. And I need help because the doctors simply are not helping me. I don't know what to do and I can only go to certain ones because of my 'insurance.'
It started when I was 16. Well I'd always had bad stomach pains, ever since I was a small child, but lets just say it started when I was 16. I was waking up nauseous every morning very early, unable to get back to sleep. I'd throw up. It had no effect. Around 1PM the symptoms would disappear like magic. After two months of this one of my parents took me to the hospital where they stuck their finger in my butt for some reason. After that they scheduled an endoscopy. During the endoscopy the doctor found that my stomach had "bumps" in it. He said that of all the thousands of stomachs he'd done he'd never seen them and didn't know what they were. They were not polyps really but he didn't know what so he called them bumps and did a biopsy which came back fine. I was put on Acifex which helped a bit. In a few months I came back and they did another one to see if there was any change. There was none and he said he would take the pictures to an upcoming seminar to get the advise of his colleagues. But then my insurance ran out and his interest in my case suddenly did too. The past ten years have been spent switching from one over the counter acid reducer to another and experiencing bouts of intense illness.
A year ago Celiacs disease was suggested and I cut wheat out of my diet and consequently some other things like most fast food etc... It seemed to work! Mostly. But most medication, any form of capsule, many gluten free flour substitutes, popcorn, icecream, and a number of other seemingly random things will set it off again. Sometimes it just decides to go off for no reason at all. These days I try to eat good. No caffeine, fruits, vegetables that I can digest occasionally. Bland tacos my stomach seems to love recently (its all I can eat!). And red meat. Oddly. Meat is one of few things I could eat pounds of and not be sick. But I can't afford it. This seems strange to me because others say to cut meat out of your diet for a healthy stomach.
My symptoms are thus: Nausea (lasting until noon or all day), stomach pain (like a hollow feeling above my navel), diarrhea and a flaky lose stool that floats a little, gas occasionally, extreme hunger or no appetite at all.

The doctors I have seen keep running the same tests to see if I'm absorbing vitamins and apparently I am, which means I am perfectly fine and it's all in my head! However, I feel like crap. I own ever over the counter nausea medication there is and nothing helps. I have phenergen too, eat ginger, drink chamomile and do everything short of smoke illegal substances which I've been assured would help nicely and darnit I'm about ready to try. Diarrhea medication makes my stomach feel like it's on fire for days so I can do nothing but... drain. I keep losing weight and can't get it back (I'm a skeleton of a girl and it's not pretty. People keep asking me if I'm anorexic). And I don't know what is safe to eat because everything in my fridge is a hand grenade!

Does anyone know what's wrong with me? I've been doing research for years. I've been seeking help for years. I'm hungry. I'm sick of looking and feeling sick. Anyone got any ideas?

Has any of your doctor's prescribed a pill camera endoscopy?? That is going to give the best look at your small intestine which is unreachable by almost any other method.

Second choice would be a Magnetic Resonance Endoscopy Imaging which would give the next best look at your intestinal tract.

Have you tried eating six small meals a day? Small amounts of meat at each of the six meals wouldn't be all that cost prohibitive. One small ground meat patty split for two meals. One chicken drumstick split for another two. One split pork chop for yet two others. How do you do w/fish? How do you do w/dairy? W/cheese and w/eggs? Eating non-gluten can be as expensive as eating meat.

Ground beef to make a meat loaf, one slice at each of the six meals. Inexpensive cuts of beef to roast until tender cut into small portions for several meals. (By the way, bland tacos do really well for my tummy as well). I don't have a problem w/gluten and am over 50 so one Nacho Supreme w/o sour cream and a senior Pepsi are a $2.32 "safe" treat for me at Taco Bell that sit well on my tummy and fills me up.

The morning nausea brings silent reflux/GERD to mind. Try sleeping in a recliner. Sleep apnea w/aerophagia come to mind. Has anyone suggested an overnight oximetry? Mild sleep apnea can respond well to sleeping in a recliner as well.

Did they take any still pictures of those "bumps" found in your stomach during endoscopy? You should be able to get copies of those on CD from the generating facility to submit to some of the research groups to see if they would have an interest in your case.

Thank you all! Yeah my biggest problem is finding foods that don't set whatever this is off. The older I get the more I seem to react to just about anything. I used to be able to eat dairy but now it gives me problems. Anything artificial or too tampered with by crazed food scientists makes me sick. Salad as well as many vegetables are inedible to be. If I could eat everything partially digested and chewed like a baby bird then I might be able to take it but otherwise... And yes, there were pictures taken of the inside of my stomach. I don't know how to go about getting them or my records as I have been doing battle with the hospitals around here for years but I could try. I do often sleep sitting up and am sadly allergic to predisone. But an antispasmatic might be a good thing to ask about if I can get a stupid doctor to believe me.

I was given liquid carafate and donnatol before eating..I was on nexium, and I was on a antichoelergenic drug at bedtime..The severity would come and go but never go away..I had a whole cabinet with babyfood in it!! I still am baffled at bumps though?? Is there lymph glands or gastric producing glands that might be inflammed and swollen??

I have some kind of bumps too. Have always been wondering what this could be. My bumps are visible and I can feel them under the skin, or a bit deeper than that, and these bumps are increasing in numbers when I am flaring. The bumps are as big as a thumb nail and easy to feel around my navel area during a flare. When I am well the bumps are gone. They are sore and painful. A few GP's have looked at them and one of the GP's wanted to do a surgery and send them to a lab to analyze them. I denied. Because they didn't know what it could be, they hadn't seen anything like that. I felt uncomfortable letting them take the bumps if this is something Crohns wise. I still don't know what this is. (May be lymphs that swells during increased inflammation?)

I agree that you may want to ask for: xray with barium to find out if you have some kind of trouble down in your small intestines. A colonoscopy or endoscopy is not able to look at the small intestines. I had a gastroscopy and a colonoscopy myself, and my doctors told me nothing was wrong. But I didn't give up, and insisted that they had to have a look at all my small intestines.

Long story short. They did. And they found out that I have Crohns further up in my small intestines. I wouldn't know if I've listened to them.

Post Edited (BeeSting) : 5/23/2012 1:05:47 PM (GMT-6)