Posted 10/16/2012 8:47 PM (GMT 0)
Hi all,
I am a 32 year old male living in Brooklyn, New York, and I am originally from the UK. For the last 14 years I have had an off/on condition mostly related to abdominal pain, and often with vomiting. I very rarely have D, and about as rare is a bout of C also, very seldom, and even more rarely during an attack. This leads me to think this may not be IBS, but does anyone have an opinion on that?
My attack frequency is all over the place, sometimes i can go 8 months, sometimes its once every 2 weeks for a few months. I see no pattern in terms of stress, or anxiety. My mother is bipolar, but I do not feel I exhibit these symptoms, and am generally a happy individual (despite my nagging problem of course).
My attacks start with a feint feeling in the stomach, sometimes this goes away, sometimes it grows. Often this will be a couple of hours after eating, but not always. (I do keep a food diary and there is absolutely no pattern with food intake versus attacks, I am also not gluten intolerant). Often at the start of an attack I will feel both a moderate ache in both legs, and a slight sensitivity in my testicles.
Usually 6-8 hours after the initial feeling the stomach pain will become worse, and I will know for sure this is an attack day. Pain will increase, and with it salivation, I will salivate excessively for most of the attack time. As pain increases, if I have eaten within a few hours of the attack onset, then I will slowly become more nauseous, and often times the pain will escalate to high levels, followed by vomiting. Vomiting is very labored, very exhausting, and very loud. It is very hard to produce anything, though my body wants to. Often times I will bring up a little stomach acid, nothing more. During the whole attack obviously I cannot eat, or even drink. Drinking water causes immediate throw up. I naturally become quite dehydrated and a severe migraine will often present itself at this time. The migraines are sometimes incredibly powerful. Vomiting however doesn't always occur, usually only 50% of the time I will vomit, which leads me to feel my diagnosis of CVS is not accurate. I am taking antidepressants for the CVS, this has really not had any effect though, other than helping me sleep a little better.
Between attacks I am totally healthy, right now I do little exercise, and work many hours, but there have been many times in my life when I have been very active, and have had less stressful employment, and attack frequency is pretty much the same.
Like many of us I have seen countless doctors, have given up on them, restarted down the road, given up again, and so on. I have had 2 barium xrays, 2 endoscopies, colonoscopy, a few ultrasounds, urologist visits, blood work taken constantly of course (at the very beginning of my attacks I had a heightened white blood cell count, and enlarged spleen, but this died down quite soon after and has not resurfaced). ZERO tests indicated anything out of the ordinary, other than an unrelated diagnosis of varicocele.
Is anyone in the same boat as me? It would be awesome to hear from someone with similar experiences. Does anyone have any suggestions? Any paths to go down? I would dearly welcome any and all comments.
Tom