Undiagnosed and slowly going crazy. Any guidance?

[Alouette2012]

This started about 8 years ago when I was in high school. I got a random pain in my stomach which was agonising and left me in tears. Ever since then the pains have been recurrent. I had a slight pain in the upper right hand side of my abdomen - there's no word to describe it other than a twisting and pulling sensation.

That came and went for several years, I could always expect to feel it at some point every month. Then in June 2010 I got such a weird pain. It started when I was walking home from college and I couldn't stand straight. By the time I got home I was nearly crying.

It went and I never experienced that again. But about a year ago the pain spread so it was on my lower left as well as on my right.

More recently I've got a really tender stomach but only when I sit down, and I've had a sharp pain in my back as well which comes and goes. This is along with the pain in my right. I've had an ultrasound which was clear, been given the diagnosis of a pulled muscle, growing pains and, of course, IBS. I was getting somewhere when I had the ultrasound, but then they just put me back on tablets for IBS which don't work.

The pains are tiring. At the moment the only thing which works are Co-Codamol; normal aspirin and paracetamol don't do anything. To top things off I've been feeling fuzzy-headed, tired, nauseas and had an upset stomach several times a week.

I'm at a loss of what to do because doctors more or less laugh me out. Any advice at all?

 

[StarGirrrrl]

The only advice I can give you is to persist with new Doctors.
Point out the severity of your symptoms and the fact that you've tried the medication without success. And that you've had very little testing.

 

[UnXmas]

All you can do is keep going back and tell them the medications aren't helping. Make sure you tell them if it's getting worse, and especially if you have any symptoms that aren't typical of IBS. IBS is a diagnosis that gets thrown around when they don't know what's wrong and so assume it's not serious.

It might not be serious - but you're still entitled to be treated respectfully and to be given adequate pain management. They should keep trying things to get the pain under control, whatever the diagnosis.

Do your symptoms make you suspect Crohn's/Colitis?

 

[Alouette2012]

Since looking into the symptoms of Crohn's, some of my symptoms do seem to match up, but they also match up with endometriosis...

But the ones which I can really relate to are:

-Cramping
-Mucus
-Possibly blood, although I can't be 100%
-Slight acid reflux
-Fatigue
-Abdominal pain, obviously
-Some diarrhoea, but not serious.

But the problem is they also match up with a load of other conditions as well.

 

[UnXmas]

Since looking into the symptoms of Crohn's, some of my symptoms do seem to match up, but they also match up with endometriosis...

But the ones which I can really relate to are:

-Cramping
-Mucus
-Possibly blood, although I can't be 100%
-Slight acid reflux
-Fatigue
-Abdominal pain, obviously
-Some diarrhoea, but not serious.

But the problem is they also match up with a load of other conditions as well.

They are quite "general" symptoms, though they're also Crohn's/Colitis symptoms. Make sure you tell your doctors if you think there's blood because that's a sign it's not IBS. There are simple stool tests they can do to see if there is blood or not, which aren't invasive. You deserve to get some answers and treatment for your symptoms. Don't let them tell you otherwise.