Swollen Tum

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cat

Joined
Jul 4, 2010
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Hi my stomach is so swollen at the moment, i actually look six months pregnant, which im not lol. I do not eat much either. Does anyone else have this problem ?
 
Hi, Cat, and yes. Peek around the forum and you'll find references to people assuming someone's pregnant, actually wearing pregnancy pants (or - worse - elastic waist jeans! Ack! Okay, that one was me), and the stomach that just won't go away.
 
So that's where the tummy comes from?? Seems like I can lose all sorts of weight, but I too always look a few months pregnant! I even had my boys ask me one day if I had a baby in my tummy *tears*..what causes it??

Shanan
 
My mom has had issues with that for years but for her it was a problem with her liver. She called it "abdominal distention."
Call your health care provider if:
* The abdominal swelling is getting worse and does not go away
* The swelling occurs with other unexplained symptoms
* Your abdomen is tender to the touch
http://www.nlm.nih.gov/medlineplus/ency/article/003122.htm

It could be a number of things from simple gas bloating to serious issues related to your liver, pancreas, spleen etc. If you have discomfort and a slight fever this may be a sign of an infection. My mom suggested getting an echo sound done to be sure that there's no infection and to find the cause.

I was there with my mom about a year ago when a sales woman asked my mom when the baby was due. I think I felt worse than my mom did who tried to play it off as a compliment for looking young enough to have babies. :p

Welcome to the forum Cat.
 
Thank you for the info. I am not overweight at all but have this little tummy issue for the past year or so LOL! Some days isnt as bad as others but it is frustrating. I had surgery last Feb and it went away but the last few months it has found it's way back. I haven't gained a pound of the 20 pounds I lost after surgery but I sure did gain the tummy back LMAO! Thank you though and will definitely look out for those symptoms!

Shanan
 
I have this too! I have measured myself and my waist is 28" in the morning and 30" at night. Before Crohn's I was a uk size 8 (american 4??) now I have to buy size 12. And I have not put on a single pound. Casual acquaitances assume I am pregnant, especially when they notice I am not drinking or smoking.
 
Rebecca85 said:
I have this too! I have measured myself and my waist is 28" in the morning and 30" at night. Before Crohn's I was a uk size 8 (american 4??) now I have to buy size 12. And I have not put on a single pound. Casual acquaitances assume I am pregnant, especially when they notice I am not drinking or smoking.
Click to expand...

Haha, I know!!!

I look soooo pregnant, and it's been like this for a year! I notice people passing me on the street just staring at my belly! How rude!!!! And yeah, Becca, doesn't make it any better when people start noticing you aren't drinking! :p

Oh well... Nice, sort of, to know there are others out there too. :)

Lots of love,
 
Before I was diagnosed I would get this all the time. At one point everyone was congratulating me and talking about how I was pregnant. It was rather embarrassing. But then it just magically went away. This disease is so confusing sometimes.
 
big pants

Yep...a big belly can bring unwanted attention.
I just chalk it up to inflammation.(?)
I keep pants in roughly 3 sizes, skinny, normal and my fat pants!

It's not nice to appear huge when you know that you are actually slim.
(except for a great big belly)
I dislike appearing as though I have been overeating, when in fact
it has been a struggle getting food both in and out, and I'm actually just sick.

At least as a man, noone asks if I am pregnant!
hang in there,
Walt
 
I had the longest pregnancy, 15 years! I'm in the Guiness Book of Records! I'm famous!

Seriously tho, you know how I bang on about endos, well when I was investigated, and they found a fibroadenoma on my ovary, it weighed 5lb!
there was this really big woman in work with the biggest belly I've ever seen, she could rest her plate on it to eat! after my hysterectomy I told her about my 5lb cyst and how my belly went down, and I encouraged her to see a gynae, and she did. her cyst weighed 3 stone!!!! WTF?
just another slant for us ladies, it's not all gastro, sometimes it's gynae
xxx
 
Hehe, Joan, you always make me smile! You know how to cheer us up! :D

Wow, interesting stuff about the cysts... How did they see it? How do I find out if I'm pregnant with a cyst or if it's just Crohnie bebeh? :)
 
Hiya sophia

I had an ultra sound scan just like you do when you're preggers!
they were like 'Oh my God, it might have hair, teeth and skin!!!'
I promptly fainted!
ha ha ha
 
I had 2 ultrasounds in hospital. Obviously it's hard for normal people to see what's going on in those. So I about had a heart attack when I saw a big empty space with a little thingy curled up in one corner... Turns out it was a funny view of my bladder!
 
handy plate rest...

Hey Joan, funny stuff!
I admit that I had to look up 'stone':
Stone (mass), an Imperial unit of weight equal to 14 pounds

So 3x14=42 pound cyst
Now I see why you'd say:
"her cyst weighed 3 stone!!!! WTF?"

whew... agreed! Eek
Thanks for another laugher,
W

ps surely you are a Hero to this lady?!?
 
Holy Moly! a 42 pound cyst?!?!? Now I am going to promptly faint!

My stomach goes from flat to roughly 5 months preggers in the span of a day. I have all but given up on pants and opt for cute cotton dresses. Even my GI commented on the lovely purple dress I had on today!

Sorry, Walt, I don't think this would be a good look for you! :)

- Amy
 
My tummy seems to do the same..it will go down and then all of a sudden the next day it's back! Sometimes it will stick around for some time before it decides to go away again. I wish it would make it's mind up LOL! But I wanted to share a story to bring some humor to the issue. About a year and a half ago, my husband was deployed overseas (he is military)! Now, I never really had the "preggers" tummy going on before he left so he never experienced it with me. Shortly after he left, I would feel bloated I guess you can say and it would extend just alittle bit but wasn't noticable in my normal clothes. My littlest one was around 4 yrs old at this time. About a month before my hubby got home, I had a pretty bad flare. It was really hard for me to shake it so I started taking Entocort, flagyl and Cipro ( you all know the drill LOL). I started noticing my tummy is extending alittle bit each week and just wasn't going away. My husband would call when he could to check on me but it was nothing I got the chance to tell him about..the calls were only about 10 minutes long if we were lucky so alot of ground to cover in short time. They tried to let him call me twice a week but being in Iraq, that wasn't always possible. And on the other hand, never thought to tell him what I was experiencing. Anyways, so the week of his arrival comes and the damn tummy is still sticking around. My friends were asking questions and I was starting to get the "looks" when I went out in public. So, it's the day of my hubby coming home! I dress up, put makeup on..the whole nine yards..to appear to be doing better than I was. We meet him and his squadron and the joy was overwhelming as you can imagine. We get back to the house, my husband puts his bags down and my four year old boy is standing on the side of me. He was looking at me oddly that kinda made me smile, he's brain works in funny ways sometimes LOL! He looks over at my husband and says "Daddy, do you know Mommy has a baby in her tummy?" I almost fell over...My husband looked at me with this weird face and said "Yeah, what's up with your stomach, I noticed it in the car" OMG..I couldn't believe it...did I mention my husband had been gone for 10 months?? LMAO!! Let's just say, it was hard to get my husband to understand that I wasn't pregnant, but for some odd reason I had this pregnant tummy look. Thank god I had a GI appointment the next day and I soo took him with me so he can hear! We got to the car and he was soo relieved!! I was still mortified by my sweet, innocent little man! LOL! Now, I can laugh about it! Children are soo funny sometimes and they will definitely say the damnest things...So there is my story about this crazy issue...it's a big joke in our house still when my "pregnant tummy" comes around!
 
I just need a tee shirt - "I'm not pregnant I have Chron's" on the front and "Google it" on the back. I go 6-8 months and always get asked if I am pregnant
 
Where do I sign up for the t-shirt? I can't remember wearing anything other than elastic waist or dresses. I hate it!

Kanonu - awesome story. Love it!
 
Walt said:
Yep...a big belly can bring unwanted attention.
I just chalk it up to inflammation.(?)
I keep pants in roughly 3 sizes, skinny, normal and my fat pants!
Click to expand...

Not many guys answering this one, Walt, but I get that too... generally flat tum in the morning and pregnant man by the time I go to bed. I actually found an elasticated belt which doesn't look too bad... that's a must have accessory
 
lol me too, can be very usefull though when you are in a loo queue, just hold your tummy and go 'ooooo i really need to go' and people let you past (and then regret it!) much easier than explaining why you are really busting lol

ps may not work for the guys ;)
 
Kanonu - Great story! Your poor husband must have been counting the months on his fingers and not liking the outcome! Glad everything got explained in good time!!!
 
Hi cat,

I don't look 6 months - I'm more like 2 or 3 months.

I was lying on my belly today (for non-pleasure related reasons), and I started laughing because I was so high off the floor. I started rolling around on my belly. It was a riot.

It's just a part of that "Crohn's magic". My belt buckle rises and falls about 3 notches many times during the day.

It really was a laugh rolling around on my bloat today - never did it before.
 
I just had to join in the tummy fun! I have had everything from funny looks to evil stares because of my belly. For a couple of years, I was having horrible problems with my tummy size. I didn't know it, but I was having a reaction to some medication that was bothering my Crohn's.

Needless to say, it got HUGE!! I had a hard time getting through narrow areas because my poor belly was so big - and you can't just suck it in... It is like having a balloon in there. It will squish around but it doesn't go away.

Finally I am just back to having the amazing expanding belly. It was flat for a couple of months and I was SO happy. Sigh. It never lasts. It's baaaack!

PS> I HATE elastic, but what are ya gonna do??
 
I have always had a very bloated stomach. I remember being at school at about 8 years aold and one girl telling me I looked like I was pregnant. I just thought I was fat at the time and didn't have a concept of embarrasment or vanity and just laughed it off. Now looking back it must have been the crohn's as I've always been in pain and here I am at 30 years old with the same bloated belly even though I'm very fit and active. The bloating really bothers me but not as much as the pain - if I could get rid of the pain I would put up with looking bloated. :shifty-t:
 
For a long time I would only bloat after dinner. Now I seem to bloat whenever I eat solid food. At work we went out for lunch the other day, I should have stuck to soup, but I could not help myself. Not long after lunch my skinny day with jeans and a nice tee-shirt turned in to large swollen belly, jeans undone, jacket tied around my front to cover the gap cause by the belly. I think I need to wear stretchy clothes or keep track pants at work, and bigger tops too.
 
So what you guys are saying is that the bloating I get that's so bad not a day goes by where I don't want to curl up and cry and can't leave my house in the evening because I look pregnant (and feel so bloated I can barely walk anyway), the bloating that is actually destroying my life for which my doctors have found no explanation, us quite simply my very mild and seemingly inactive Crohn's? I mean, it's so bad I'm actually going to the Mayo Clinic next week for it. I suppose they can probably answer this question too, I'm just surprised to see so many crohnies with the same problem!
 
Hey Ag.

I think a bit of bloating can be "normal" (whatever the heck that is) for us.... but I think it is a good thing to get yours checked out, but that sounds excessive to me....

I hope they can find something to ease your pain and your mind.... :rosette2:

Let us know how it goes....
 
I had bloat last night the first time in almost a month. I went to physio and shopping prior and didnt eat lunch so on the way home my stomach gurgled and then I ate dinner and I waited too long to eat... I cant do that, need small meals thru the day. I will learn. Also forgot my VSL took it last night and a bit better today ;)
 
At the moment my tummy increases a minimum of 5 inches after i eat solid food that is what it did after breakfast today. Gosh only knows what it will do after dinner.:ylol:
 
It's not 5 inches, but I have been getting very bloated again because my GI emphasized that I should keep on eating fruit and veg. So, back to bloating, pain, etc. etc. I'm at the point this evening that it hurts to wear my elastic waist gym shorts so am going to change into sleepwear (at only 8 p.m.). I figure I've tried fruit and veg for a good couple of weeks now, have suffered enough, and it's back to easily tolerated foods until it seems safe to try again.
 
Yeah. My abdomen gets distended... really badly when I'm having a flare. It pretty much gets bigger and bigger throughout the day. lol. :wink:




____________________________
Diagnosed: Crohn’s December ‘09
Gastritis August ’09, TMJD 1992
Surgeries: 1-terminal ileum removal
Treatments: Current- pentasa
Past- pred.:thumbdown: aciphex, ranitidine
Other: Multi-vitamin, calcium,
digestive enzymes, probiotics,
and fish oil
 

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