Slightly OT, symptoms but probably not UC?

My UC is doing okay right now, Rowasa enemas every other night, my colazal, and VSL3. 

In 2004 I had an egd that diagnosed a hiatal hernia, not huge or anything, after having weird back/chest-ish pains.

Then, in 2007, suddenly one morning I had a sharp pain shoot straight up my throat from my chest/upper abdomen.  This continued on/off occasionally for a couple of years.  Had an ultrasound, everything was normal.  Doctor thought it could be gallbladder, but put me on nexium for gerd.  Antacids definitely helped, and even pepto.  This resolved and hasn't really bothered me in the last few years.

Until now.  Same pain is back, chest, right sided mostly, upper abdomen, again right sided, also in back, shoulder, under arm.  It started again after a workout (first in a long time).  Food seems to bug me, but the type of food doesn't seem to matter.  It goes away when I sleep at night.  No vomiting or fever or anything like that.  Today, I would get the chest-back pain any time I swallowed, for just a brief moment.  I took some pepto just to see if it would help, ate lunch, and then it was totally gone.  Weird.  I had been having chest pains on the LEFT side back in August and got freaked out and went to the ER.  They checked my heart--ekg, stress test, chest xray, blood work, and it was fine.  I've had a couple of CT scans in the past couple of years of the abdomen/pelvis, and these have always been normal (except for diverticulitis.)

I'm going to the doctor tomorrow about it, but I was wondering if anyone has experienced similar symptoms.  I have a ton of anxiety/stress now as well...hubby out of work for past 18 months, a kid struggling w/ some stress and such...you get the picture.

Any thoughts?  I think partly I just needed to vent.  I don't want to feel like this, it's just always something.  I want to WANT to go down and do Just Dance 3 with my kids.  Sorry this is so long.

Chinamom

Sounds very uncomfortable and painful! I'd day it's the hiatal hernia that's the main culprit...depending on how much is slipping up into the chest area.

Have you had an upper x-ray with you standing and laying down?

Don't know much about the repair aspect of it, but maybe that's something you should look into?

q

Thanks for the input. Went to my gp since I needed him to refer me to my gi; she basically said that it could be reflux/gerd/hernia, could be stress, who knows, referred me back to my gi.   It's so odd.  It went away yesterday afternoon, I slept fine, zero pain, woke up, zero pain, took prevacid with a drink of water and slowly it started.  Bugged me all morning, then just stopped.  I have little twinges in other places, left sided or center chest when bending over, etc.  She told me I could take zantac on top of the prevacid to see if that helps.  She was hesitant to do much else and really seemed to want me to go to my gi guy.  So I guess that's what I'll do.  Funny, whenever I have an "issue" in my body, it overtakes and the other "issues" go away.  My UC is not even noticable, nor am I having migraines.  It's like my stress or whatever focuses in one spot at a time.

Chinamom