- Joined
- Aug 6, 2013
- Messages
- 2
I'm going to call my GI today try to get an appointment (big step for a 19 year old with panic attacks), but I can never seem to get him to take me seriously or diagnose me with anything. I was wondering if anyone could give me some advice on this matter?
My backstory:
I've had stomach problems as long as I can remember. The first time I acknowledged it as more than "tummy pain", however, was when I was twelve and had been diagnosed with mesenteric adenitis six times in as many months. My PCP was concerned with the size of my lymph nodes in the abdomen. At the time, I was having chronic constipation on and off, nausea, and severe pain in my LRQ. I was also generally ill extremely frequently. I had symptoms associated with Celiac, so she referred me to a GI, but told me to go gluten free in the mean time.
I didn't get in to see the GI for several months. In the mean time, going GF did help immensely. To this day, I'm GF, and even if I'm cross contaminated I get extremely ill. Being GF (on the doctor's advice!) before I saw the GI began our relationship of him not taking me seriously though, because there was no evidence of gluten damage when he did an endoscopy/colonoscopy and therefore told me I should be fine eating gluten. What he did find however, were several sores and ulcers from my throat all the way down to my anus. He biopsied these and had me tested for food allergies. I'm allergic to egg, crab, orange and pineapple.
I'm now 19 (it's been seven years). Since then, I'm mostly okay except for my "episodes". The episodes themselves have intensified in severity. In these episodes, I'll have severe cramping in my lower abdomen with the sharpest pain being in my LRQ. I'll have nausea, absolutely no appetite and an inability to keep food down anyway, diarrhea with some blood in the stool and a lot of blood in the toilet bowl, fever, fatigue, chills, etc. This most recent time, I lost 10 pounds in 3 days and that is fairly normal for these episodes. It's really, really miserable. Worse than kidney stones I've had that I needed surgery for. I've given up going every time this happens, but I did go to the ER for the pain last night. The ER doc was concerned with how swollen my lymph nodes in the abdomen were, but was very busy so didn't pursue it further. He gave me antibiotics, 600m ibuprofen, and zofran with instructions to follow up with the GI.
Here's why I think testing for crohn's is important:
-I have all of the symptoms: severe abdominal pain (usually cramping) that "flares" up, fever, fatigue, loss of appetite, diarrhea, blood stool, weight loss.
-My aunt and grandmother have crohn's. In my aunt's case, all tests for crohn's came back negative MULTIPLE times before she had one come back positive. Afterwards, the GI who diagnosed her was surprised how much damage had gone undetected.
-My symptoms closely mimic my aunt's
-Mesenteric adenitis is not supposed to happen as frequently at my age, let alone happening on a near bi-monthly basis
I just don't want the GI to think I'm jumping to conclusions, trying to diagnose myself, etc. On the other hand, I've lost 50 pounds in 4 months and am a bit concerned by that and the pain level. Help please?
My backstory:
I've had stomach problems as long as I can remember. The first time I acknowledged it as more than "tummy pain", however, was when I was twelve and had been diagnosed with mesenteric adenitis six times in as many months. My PCP was concerned with the size of my lymph nodes in the abdomen. At the time, I was having chronic constipation on and off, nausea, and severe pain in my LRQ. I was also generally ill extremely frequently. I had symptoms associated with Celiac, so she referred me to a GI, but told me to go gluten free in the mean time.
I didn't get in to see the GI for several months. In the mean time, going GF did help immensely. To this day, I'm GF, and even if I'm cross contaminated I get extremely ill. Being GF (on the doctor's advice!) before I saw the GI began our relationship of him not taking me seriously though, because there was no evidence of gluten damage when he did an endoscopy/colonoscopy and therefore told me I should be fine eating gluten. What he did find however, were several sores and ulcers from my throat all the way down to my anus. He biopsied these and had me tested for food allergies. I'm allergic to egg, crab, orange and pineapple.
I'm now 19 (it's been seven years). Since then, I'm mostly okay except for my "episodes". The episodes themselves have intensified in severity. In these episodes, I'll have severe cramping in my lower abdomen with the sharpest pain being in my LRQ. I'll have nausea, absolutely no appetite and an inability to keep food down anyway, diarrhea with some blood in the stool and a lot of blood in the toilet bowl, fever, fatigue, chills, etc. This most recent time, I lost 10 pounds in 3 days and that is fairly normal for these episodes. It's really, really miserable. Worse than kidney stones I've had that I needed surgery for. I've given up going every time this happens, but I did go to the ER for the pain last night. The ER doc was concerned with how swollen my lymph nodes in the abdomen were, but was very busy so didn't pursue it further. He gave me antibiotics, 600m ibuprofen, and zofran with instructions to follow up with the GI.
Here's why I think testing for crohn's is important:
-I have all of the symptoms: severe abdominal pain (usually cramping) that "flares" up, fever, fatigue, loss of appetite, diarrhea, blood stool, weight loss.
-My aunt and grandmother have crohn's. In my aunt's case, all tests for crohn's came back negative MULTIPLE times before she had one come back positive. Afterwards, the GI who diagnosed her was surprised how much damage had gone undetected.
-My symptoms closely mimic my aunt's
-Mesenteric adenitis is not supposed to happen as frequently at my age, let alone happening on a near bi-monthly basis
I just don't want the GI to think I'm jumping to conclusions, trying to diagnose myself, etc. On the other hand, I've lost 50 pounds in 4 months and am a bit concerned by that and the pain level. Help please?
