seperating the symptoms ?

A little back ground. I have not been diagnosed with anything yet nor am I taking any meds right now........I am currently working my way through the diagnosis process. So many symptoms can be the same for so many things so right now it is wide open on what the diagnosis will end up being. However I felt this board was the best place for this

Always had bowel issues from childhood(till now in my mid 40's ). Some severe enough to end up in the ER. However they (the ER and family Dr) always just said wait and see , probably get better in a few days etc........ Mid teens I basically collapsed from appendicitis ( by then I had learned it was no use to complain about my stomach no matter how bad it got) In fact the ER almost sent me home as the blood work/ body temp / physical exam led them to once again believe it was nothing serious! They finally did decide to operate and found gangrene.
I had no complications from the surgery except some odd discomfort in my right side over the years since then ,and what I describe as some internal tightness but was never any thing remotely sever or constant.

Two years ago there was a change in that side of my abdomen that started out with that same sensation( best way to describe it) becoming more noticeable along with loss of skin sensation in that part of my abdomen and upper thigh. That increased to internal pain and a severe increase in my irritable bowel symptoms. As of today still lots of issues but much better than what transpired over the last couple of years. But still that constant pain in my right side.....

Now to wrap up my long story. A couple months ago (was feeling much better already) I developed a abscessed tooth. I was on antibodies for about a month ( one stronger than the other as the first didn't work) During that time the irritable bowel symptoms basically cleared up( Talking about the non stop diarrhea , bloating ,nausea.....) However that pain in my right side did not change at all. All symptoms are now back (minus the eye and joint problems) but what I consider manageable at present. I feel this is a big clue in all this and curious as to what others think.

You are describing symptoms of Crohn's disease in your ileum, but you need testing to confirm it. A colonoscopy will be useful unless your disease is higher in your small intestine than the colonoscopy can reach. A GI can also order a small bowel follow through test or a pill cam. There is also a blood test called Serology 7 that can look for IBD markers, as well as a stool test called fecal calprotectin that can look for inflammation markers in your stool. You can't possible know what is wrong with you without proper testing. You can contact ccfa.org if you are in the US to get recommendations of good GI docs who know about IBD, or if you tell us where you live someone may have some suggestions here. Good luck with everything

Here's the problem - you can have a scope done and all that, but if the DR doing it is "clueless," as you say, then you are wasting your time and money. Go see a GI who has experience with inflammatory bowel disease (not all do).

The problem on your right side could be adhesions left over from your appendectomy. I will also say that I have right sided pain when my bowels are a few days behind - there is no pathology associated with this, but I use psyllium every day to keep things moving and that seems to help.

Here's the problem - you can have a scope done and all that, but if the DR doing it is "clueless," as you say, then you are wasting your time and money

Somebody said...



The Dr just orders the tests. The procedures are all done in a totally different facility by someone that specializes in doing them and then interpreted by some one specializing in doing that. That will be the same regardless of what Dr orders the tests.

visibility, I haven't ever figured out how to use the quote function either. Nice try tho! I'm glad you thought the adhesions comment was relevant.

You know, doing a scope is not a simple thing, and medicine is not something that really lends itself to standard procedures. There is a lot of judgment involved on the part of the person performing the procedure, and on the part of the person reading the report. I don't know what kind of medical system you're a part of where one person orders a test, another person does the test and a third person reads the results, but that sounds like a very inefficient way to get through a medical diagnosis. Please reconsider how you are approaching this.

The bowel is very complicated and it often takes many months to get through all the differential diagnostics involved. I'm concerned that you are doing procedures with an ineffective team and that all of this will have to be repeated by other experts to really figure out what's going on.

Like I said before, visibility, I have had plenty of right sided pain in recent years and I have no pathology there. Inflammation in the distal colon can cause a lot of the diarrhea, upper GI upset, etc.