Scared and looking for answers...

[Everly]

Hello everyone! It's nice to meet all of you.
Ever since the 14th of January I've had a chronic pain in my left side, underneath my ribs that travels around to my back. It's tolerable, such as a 5-6 pain...but it's constant.

A little history about me is that I'm 18, and have had acid reflux since I was a kid. I used to get horrible pains in my stomach in the mornings that would cause me to fall to my knees in tears. I took acid reducers, everything became better. Eventually I stopped taking the medication, and haven't had the pains return since.

So, anyways. The pain in my left side starts when I walk, laugh, burp, or twist my body in certain ways. At night time it seems worse, and I've been having odd bowel movements as well. It'll rotate between constipation and diarrhea, and almost always I'll see a good amount of mucus in my stool. Mostly clear, but sometimes it's yellow. The night the pain started, I had horrible diarrhea.

I also felt nauseated and wasn't eating much two days before the pain started.
I've seen a doctor and she put me on omeprazole...it seems to dull the pain, but when it wears off, the pain returns and it's just as bad. The doctor at first thought it had been a kidney stone and tested me, but it came back negative. The next step was for me to have a CT-scan.

Everything was fine with the scan, no abnormalities anywhere. At a loss, the doctor ordered blood work. My blood work was fine, yet my lipase levels were slightly elevated.

Lately, the pain has eased up, but has also spread to my right side and my abdomen is sore to the touch. If I push on the back of my ribs I feel a jolt of pain throughout my chest. I've also felt strong jolts of pain that run from my left pelvic area to my left breast. And when I try to have a bowel movement, I feel a pinching pain in my pelvic area...it rotates, as sometimes it's on the left side, and sometimes on the right side.

I'm scheduled for an endoscopy this Thursday, but I've hardly been getting any sleep at night and it's hard to find a comfortable position to lay down in. My mom's boss was suggesting it might be a hernia, but...do hernia's cause pains below the ribcage? The doctors are at a loss...I'm just really scared and searching everywhere for answers...Does anyone have any idea what it might be?

Thank you to those who take the time to read this, I really appreciate it.

 

[Cat-a-Tonic]

Hi Everly, welcome to the forum and the club. Good luck with the endoscopy and make sure they take biopsies! If it doesn't find anything, you might want to ask for the pill cam. Given where your pain is, I would suspect something's going on in the small intestine. The endoscopy can only see the very beginning of the small intestine, and colonoscopy can only see the very end. The pill cam is literally a tiny camera that you swallow and it takes pictures throughout the digestive tract, and it can see the entirety of the small intestine. Just a thought for you.

Do you have any other symptoms that may not seem to be related? Things like migraines, joint pain, mouth sores, skin or eye issues, etc? Also, do you know what blood work you've had done? ESR and CRP would be good ones to have done if you haven't already, they are inflammatory markers. However, about 10% of people with IBD (Crohn's/colitis) will have normal CRP and ESR even when in a bad flare, so those aren't totally accurate tests unfortunately. I would also get your B12, iron, and vitamin d levels checked (those are often low in people with IBD). And, you may also want to ask about getting your ANA checked just to rule out something like Lupus, as Lupus can sometimes mimic Crohn's-like symptoms.

Good luck and keep us posted on how you're doing and how the tests go! And of course feel free to ask any questions about the tests or if you just need to vent. And again, welcome!

 

[Everly]

Hi Everly, welcome to the forum and the club. Good luck with the endoscopy and make sure they take biopsies! If it doesn't find anything, you might want to ask for the pill cam. Given where your pain is, I would suspect something's going on in the small intestine. The endoscopy can only see the very beginning of the small intestine, and colonoscopy can only see the very end. The pill cam is literally a tiny camera that you swallow and it takes pictures throughout the digestive tract, and it can see the entirety of the small intestine. Just a thought for you.

Do you have any other symptoms that may not seem to be related? Things like migraines, joint pain, mouth sores, skin or eye issues, etc? Also, do you know what blood work you've had done? ESR and CRP would be good ones to have done if you haven't already, they are inflammatory markers. However, about 10% of people with IBD (Crohn's/colitis) will have normal CRP and ESR even when in a bad flare, so those aren't totally accurate tests unfortunately. I would also get your B12, iron, and vitamin d levels checked (those are often low in people with IBD). And, you may also want to ask about getting your ANA checked just to rule out something like Lupus, as Lupus can sometimes mimic Crohn's-like symptoms.

Good luck and keep us posted on how you're doing and how the tests go! And of course feel free to ask any questions about the tests or if you just need to vent. And again, welcome!

Thank you so much. :hug: I really, really appreciate it! I'm hoping it's something as small of an ulcer, but with the chronic pain and the location...I'm really starting to think it's something more serious. Thanks for the pillcam suggestion, once we get the endoscopy over with we're planning on visiting a specialist in a hospital. I'll for sure mention the pillcam to them.

I've had chronic migraines since I was younger, and occasionally get them from time to time. Unrelated, but my urine also has had an odd odor to it since the pains have started...But other then that, nothing out of the ordinary other then the pains.

They did another blood test on me yesterday and the doctor was going to check those levels you mentioned, so hopefully he's able to detect what's going on...It's just so stressful.

Right now the doctor is just thinking it's an ulcer. I mentioned other things to him, yet he gave me and my mom an odd look and said it was very unlikely. I don't feel confident with the clinic I'm currently going to, they don't seem to listen to me very well or seem the least bit concerned...

Thank you again, and I'll keep you all updated!

 

[Hope345]

Welcome to the forum
sorry to hear you are having so much trouble. I hope you find out soon what it is.
One red flag is the smell in the urine. Did they do a urine culture?
stool culture? Have they checked your pancreas? Kidneys?

let us know how you are doing

 

[Everly]

Welcome to the forum
sorry to hear you are having so much trouble. I hope you find out soon what it is.
One red flag is the smell in the urine. Did they do a urine culture?
stool culture? Have they checked your pancreas? Kidneys?

let us know how you are doing

Thank you! :hug:
And I'm hoping that as well.

They did and they found some protein in it, but no blood or anything. Not a stool culture yet, but they checked my pancreas levels last time they did blood work and the only thing elevated was my lipase. Everything to do with my pancreas and kidneys seemed normal as well in the CT-scan...

Really hoping the endoscopy gives me some answers...

 

[bozzylozzy]

hi Everly - and welcome to the forum!
you have definitely come to the right place if you want to ask any questions or just have moan about things in general - we are all here for you

cat and julie have pretty much covered everything i would have suggested. and i am glad that your doctor has ordered an endoscopy...

is there any family history of anything like this?
when is your endoscopy scheduled for?

 

[Everly]

hi Everly - and welcome to the forum!
you have definitely come to the right place if you want to ask any questions or just have moan about things in general - we are all here for you

cat and julie have pretty much covered everything i would have suggested. and i am glad that your doctor has ordered an endoscopy...

is there any family history of anything like this?
when is your endoscopy scheduled for?

Thank you. All of you are so kind, I'm really happy to have found this forum. :hug:

I'm not too sure if there's family history of any of this, I'll have to ask my dad since I get most of my bad genetics from his side of the family.
My endoscopy is scheduled for this Thursday at 9 in the morning. Kind of nervous, but I hear it's a breeze.