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Hi vluquin, welcome to the forum. It sounds like you're close to a diagnosis, so presumably once you get fully diagnosed then they can get you on some meds and get you feeling better. I know everything is really scary and depressing right now, but it can get better. There's no cure (yet - you're very young and I would think that there will likely be a cure within your lifetime), but remission is totally possible. I spent 2 years in remission and basically got my life back during that time. Just hang in there a bit longer until they can fully diagnose you and get you on some treatment, from there your quality of life should improve.

Kelleh, you're right that the ED never fully goes away. Particularly when I first got this IBD or whatever it is, I was terrified that the anorexia was going to come back full force. I became so terrified of food for awhile when I was first sick, I stuck to a few safe things and was afraid to try anything new for fear of bringing really bad symptoms on myself. And I did lose weight that first year that I was ill, I dropped about 20 lbs - I went from 135ish (normal, healthy weight) down to 115 lbs (underweight for my height, I was just starting to look borderline skeletal) but fortunately at that point they finally put me on steroids so I gained my weight back, and then some. I went up to about 140 lbs. Then I got hemorrhoids for the first time and they put me on the steroid suppositories, and I got to my highest ever weight of 146 lbs. I gradually got myself back down into the 130s, but then I had to go back on steroids and I've been off & on them for the past couple years so my weight has slowly gone back up. I'm currently almost back to my heaviest weight - I'm at about 144 lbs right now. I'd love to just get back down into the mid 130s, that's my goal. But yeah, I really have to think about it and do it the right way, not beat myself up inside if I gain or don't lose, not punish myself by withholding food, not weigh myself 10 times a day, just basically not obsess over it. It's almost less scary to just hold onto this extra 10 lbs than try to lose it, you know? It feels less risky to just stay this weight, but I do want to get back down to my "healthy" weight of 135. I think I just have to do it really slowly, like I did last time. And I need to somehow avoid going back on steroids for a good long while!

Izzie, poor thing! That sounds like a breakfast that would make me sick for sure. I typically don't have breakfast at all. I always have zero appetite and I usually have some mild to moderate nausea in the mornings. I know I need to get something in me though - having something in my stomach for the acid to work on seems to help my GERD. So I compromise and have a smoothie for breakfast most mornings. It's mild enough that it doesn't make me feel sick, it gets some good calories and nutrients in me, and it quiets my GERD. I make my smoothie with tummy-friendly ingredients - a cup of ice, some almond or cashew milk, some soy-based protein powder (my stomach can't handle the whey based stuff), some powdered peanut butter, some chia seeds, cocoa powder to make it chocolatey, and a banana. I blend that all up and drink it at my desk when I get to work. It's yummy and I think it's fairly healthy. You might want to try something like that (honestly, anything sounds better than a greasy cheese sandwich!).
 
Sorry for the double post but I just got back from le hospital and I looooove my GP. She's so good.

Apparently I'm not the only one who's complained about the GI department at my hospital. They're notoriously shitty :p

I mostly went over my GERD/reflux/whatever symptoms with her and she thought it was strange that the PPIs aren't helping more, and since she's a GP there's really not much else she can do on that front. However! She thinks I might have an esophageal diverticulum. She'd apparently seen other patients making odd/atypical belching noises like I do in those cases? That and I regurgitate everything I try to swallow like a champ.

Sooo she's referring me to radiology to get a proper look at my esophagus. Methinks maybe one would see a hiatus hernia on such an x-ray as well? She wasn't sure. If anyone knows let me know.

Her main idea for basically all of my problems? Esophageal diverticulum + hiatus hernia + GERD + IBS or IBD.

Which sounds pretty reasonable to me. So yeah. Checking the esophagus first and foremost, further down the line probably a pH test. If the GI won't order one I'm pretty sure my GP will, so.

I mean, everything's slow as fuck, as usual, but at least she believes me, understands my frustration and wants to explore other ideas than IBS and stress. In the meantime I need to lose weight. On account of the hernia. Apparently that's the best way to stop hernia-related reflux? If one is overweight or on the higher end of normal, that is, which I am a little according to my BMI. That and sleeping on a raised bed which I already am, and that has helped my sore throat in the mornings.

Sooooo overall a very good visit. She's so nice, my GP. She doesn't pussyfoot around, she's a pretty tough and prickly type, but she doesn't think I'm crazy and that makes all the difference.

And @Cat-a-Tonic Yeahhh I know. It was offered to me and I didn't want to be rude. Next time, I'd rather be rude :lol2:
 
@Cat - We were warned during therapy. A lot of the girls did believe that it could go away completely - but it can't. I've had to explain to multiple people that it cannot just go away. I did explain to my current boyfriend, and he is totally understanding - he just hates it, and I honestly don't want to lose him, so he's a good barrier between the ED and myself. :p It's not a full iron-strength barrier, but it's most certainly there.

I know what you mean about the 'risky' weight. I know that if I went back down to 130, I'd start pushing to go back into the 120's and possibly lower. How tall are you if you don't mind me asking? I'm at 160lbs. I haven't seen this weight for a couple of years, it's extremely depressing. :( I guess that makes me gained more than 30lbs! Now when I put it in that perspective - ARGHH!!! I guess we just learn to stop punishing ourselves along the way in life. It's very difficult with IBD though, or potential IBD!

@Izzie - Told you! If you find your GP/GI pretty rubbish, there's a good chance that somebody else thinks the same and probably complained too! (By the way, you didn't double post :p)

It sounds like she has some reasonable ideas of what is wrong with you! I am so glad you finally found somebody to listen to you. Are you happy that she said it may be a potential of IBS as well as the GERD etc.? I wouldn't know what esophageal diverticulum was, but guessing what from it can be in your large bowel, I can get it's pretty nasty in the same way! Sounds like you're well on your way with finding out how to treat you!

It's always nice when somebody doesn't think they're crazy. :)
 
kellehbeans said:
@Cat - We were warned during therapy. A lot of the girls did believe that it could go away completely - but it can't. I've had to explain to multiple people that it cannot just go away. I did explain to my current boyfriend, and he is totally understanding - he just hates it, and I honestly don't want to lose him, so he's a good barrier between the ED and myself. :p It's not a full iron-strength barrier, but it's most certainly there.

I know what you mean about the 'risky' weight. I know that if I went back down to 130, I'd start pushing to go back into the 120's and possibly lower. How tall are you if you don't mind me asking? I'm at 160lbs. I haven't seen this weight for a couple of years, it's extremely depressing. :( I guess that makes me gained more than 30lbs! Now when I put it in that perspective - ARGHH!!! I guess we just learn to stop punishing ourselves along the way in life. It's very difficult with IBD though, or potential IBD!

@Izzie - Told you! If you find your GP/GI pretty rubbish, there's a good chance that somebody else thinks the same and probably complained too! (By the way, you didn't double post :p)

It sounds like she has some reasonable ideas of what is wrong with you! I am so glad you finally found somebody to listen to you. Are you happy that she said it may be a potential of IBS as well as the GERD etc.? I wouldn't know what esophageal diverticulum was, but guessing what from it can be in your large bowel, I can get it's pretty nasty in the same way! Sounds like you're well on your way with finding out how to treat you!

It's always nice when somebody doesn't think they're crazy. :)
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Not being treated like a nutcase is the best. Should be the norm, but sadly isn't.

I'm still not too keen on the whole "it's IBS" thing. But she wasn't saying IBS over IBD really, we didn't get into that part of things much. Mostly dealing with the upper GI issues today. My capsule endoscopy should give some answers. I don't really think IBS is a real thing, I think it's just what they tell you when they don't know :lol:

And yeah apparently that GI department is well-known for poor documentation and "forgetting" to follow up on patients...

It's just good to feel like it's moving forward. There's been so many starts and stops, mostly because my GI just thinks I'm a nutcase, so it's nice to get things moving along again. I have managed to get my GI to at least do the proper tests, but he's COMPLETELY dismissed my upper GI issues. So, that was today's win I guess :D

Hope the rest of you are doing alright.

BTW, has anyone else ever gotten a really bad pain in their whole arm after a simple blood test? It hurt like hell going in and it still hurts SO MUCH. I'm usually not a baby about needles at all but ouchh.
 
That's what I have been getting from my last GP and GI! They both don't think I'm crazy and also said they need to rule everything out first, and it's not necessarily IBS. Especially when my stomach pain has been for 8 months constant and not 2-4 days like IBS (or so the internet suggests!). I also do not think IBS is a real thing, but hey, we shall see, won't we! I'll feel defeated if they find nothing, and will just say it's IBS, but I refuse to be lumped in with all the other people who say 'Oh it's my IBS' and 'my IBS this, my IBS that'. :lol:

I am so glad today is a win for you! :)

I'm alright in terms of IBD-related pain (or whatever it is). It's my head. My highs and lows have seemingly got worse. I know WHO the cause is, but I just don't want to deal with it, and I can't let go - completely anyway. I can't explain the feeling - it's just like I can't sit still. Last week I felt as if I wanted to kill myself because of the pain. This week, most of the time I just feel like curling up in my room and hoping everybody forgets about my existence. Sorry for the depressing speech there! It's just so hard to battle mental health right now. Plus my psychologist STILL hasn't referred me to a psychiatrist. :(

I used to get the injection pain from vaccines, but never from blood tests! Unless they butchered my arms on the way in. Then it'd be bruised for like a week and just ache like a bitch for a day and a half. But my whole arm used to die when I had my HPV vaccines and others like tetanus/polio/diphtheria.
 
Sorry to hear that. Strangely, my mental issues have gotten a lot better? I don't know what it is, sometimes when I have a "real" problem to deal with my anxiety kind of goes away. On days/weeks when my symptoms are particularly bad I do feel very depressed though. So I understand why you'd feel extra down, having had pain like that! Even after bouts of feeling very sick I can get really depressed.

Can you call and rush your psychologist? It sounds like a pretty miserable state to have to try and battle without psychiatric help.
 
Izzie, sounds like a very productive appointment! I don't know if hiatal hernia can show up on x-ray or not. I haven't had any x-rays of that done. The only x-rays I've had done recently are of my hips (arthritis) and a couple years ago I got rear-ended in my car so I had an x-ray of my neck (whiplash). Haven't had any x-rays of the esophagus that I can recall. I'll be interested to hear if your x-rays show anything.

Kelleh, I'm 5'8" tall. I know the 120s are a bit too low for me, I think I can get into the 130s and then maintain that healthily. Of course, when I was at my worst with the anorexia, I kept my weight much lower - between 105 and 108 lbs (any lower and I was afraid people would notice and make me get help - any higher and I felt like a fat cow, which obviously I wasn't). That was way underweight. I know 130s is healthy. I feel like 140s is just slightly too big for my frame and my height. How tall are you?
 
@Izzie - Lucky you. :( Mine did seem to be on the up, but then went back downhill, again. I have potential borderline personality disorder, so that'll explain my extreme highs/lows in a day alone.

I can go straight to my GP but I am sick of seeing the GP about everything and anything these days.

Cat - I'm only 5'4 (and a half, 164cm). So, my 120's were a lot higher in BMI than say yours. I'm quite short. I thought I was 166cm, but my hospital appointment the other week ruined that for me. Also made my BMI higher than I actually thought it was. *sigh*

So, now I'm wiping redder BM. It's always slightly orange-y, but I always blamed spinach/kale or carrots. Nope. I've had a few carrots, but that was last night. I don't know what's going on. My stomach hurts again. I've been to the toilet 4 times, back to my pre-Laxido days, where it's like I'm constipated, but I'm not. With Laxido, I go the same amount of times, but it's mostly liquid. I'm starting to prefer the diarrhoea. Stupid stomach. I haven't eaten anything wrong recently. I'm fed up today. Clean ups are also stupidly hard.
 
Vluquin, I'm so sorry, that all sounds awful to be living through! I hope you get answers, and feel better, as soon as possible.

Izzie, umm, oops? Hope things feel better soon.

I am frustrated atm. I went most of a week without touching a veggie, but last night had a very well cooked tomato sauce on top of some cheese raviolis. And last night and today I'm paying for it. The sauce wasn't even spicy. But I've got a lot of D already. The only thing I can trace it to is the tomato sauce. I see the nutritionist tomorrow. We'll see what she thinks, I guess. I've been keeping a food and symptom diary for about 2 weeks now, so I hope that helps.
 
Wildmtn, make sure to look at the ingredients list of the spaghetti sauce. When I first got sick with IBD but didn't yet have any GERD symptoms, spaghetti sauce was safe for me (I thought). So I had some one day and felt ridiculously ill the next day - I remember it because the next day was the funeral for my hubby's grandfather, not a good day to have to need the bathroom a lot. I couldn't figure it out - until I realized, the spaghetti sauce I had just before the funeral, it had a lot of garlic in it. My normal spaghetti sauce didn't have garlic. So that was how I found out that garlic is a trigger for me!

If your spaghetti sauce didn't have garlic or if garlic doesn't seem to be a trigger for you, it could also be the acidity of the sauce. I can't do spaghetti sauce anymore due to my GERD, the high acidity of it just kills my stomach. Also, some people are sensitive to nightshade vegetables and tomatoes are one of those (I forget what the others are, might be bell peppers? I'm sure you can google nightshade veggies if you suspect those are a trigger). Oh, and if the sauce had onions, that could be another potential trigger. I can get away with cooked onions, but fresh not so much.

Kelleh, the doctor's office or hospital always gets my height wrong too. :p With some careful measuring at home, I have determined that I am indeed 5'8" and not 5'7" or 5'9" (!!) like they sometimes carelessly write in my chart. :p Yeah, BMI is more in your favor the taller you are. I have a friend who is tiny, she's only 4'10", and even though she doesn't weigh very much and certainly doesn't look obese, she's still considered obese because of her BMI. It's like BMI is biased against shorter people. Weirdly, I feel short a lot of the time - I'm the shortest one in my family. Everyone else is taller than I am. My younger brother is 6'6"! I'm nearly a foot shorter than my "little" brother, ha ha. He lucked out with genetics, he's tall, blonde hair and blue eyes, and good health. I'm mousy with brown hair and brown eyes, short for my family, and of course multiple health issues. Ugh.

Anyway, that was rambly. My point is, measure your height at home because they seem to do a slapdash and often inaccurate job at the doctor's office when it comes to height. You might be pleasantly surprised, maybe you're a bit taller than they said.
 
Awake at 4 am my time with really bad stomach pains, nausea, generally icky feeling... And I was supposed to have a meeting in 5 hours AND have lunch with a friend, both of these are things I cancelled before (also because of stomach issues). So, not only do I feel physically horrible, I feel like a total flake and a shitty friend. Juuuust lovely.
 
@Cat - I'm dead upset about my height being lower than I thought! I got so excited when I thought I had a growth spurt a few years back! Apparently medics hate short people! Waaah! Don't worry about whinging about that! Nothing wrong with being mousey with brown hair and eyes! I am both, I have very dark eyes and hair though, but I kind of treasure the eyes because they get noticed a lot. Although, my hair is significantly lighter at the moment.

Haha I'm not going to get my hopes up about being taller! :lol:

@Izzie - You're none of that! Chin up.
 
Kelleh, my eyes get noticed sometimes too - this is a bit creepy, back in high school there was a teacher (not my teacher) who randomly came up to me once and said, "You have the eyes of an Indian princess." Uh, what? It might have been a nice compliment but coming from a 50ish year old teacher to a 17 year old student, that's pretty creepy. :p My dad also once randomly complimented my eyes and I was like, you know that I have YOUR eyes, right? Ha ha. My eyes and hair aren't very dark, my eyes are like medium brown and my natural hair color is sort of a medium-light golden brown. My hair started going grey when I got sick 6 years ago though, so I've been dyeing it ever since, and I do like very dark hair so I've been dyeing it dark brown.

Izzie, poor thing, you're not a flake or anything else. Are you able to explain things to your friend and perhaps do something other than lunch? Like, you could see a movie or just hang out and talk without food being involved. I've had to do stuff like that in the past, I had plans with friends that I had to change because leaving my couch and my heating pad just wasn't happening. Fortunately my friends were totally understanding and they came over and we watched bad movies and made fun of how bad they were. It was a nice time. So hopefully your friend is understanding and is open to modifying today's plans as well.

As for me, I'm exhausted today. Anybody else find that sometimes it's really difficult to get through a full week? I work Mon-Fri but sometimes, like this week, I find that I run out of steam mid-week. I really need to figure out why my energy levels are like this (my bloodwork is, of course, totally fine). I just want to curl up and sleeeeeep but I can't.
 
@Cat - HAHA! I love it. I get loads of attention because of my eyes. Eyes are awesome. :D Nothing wrong with dark brown hair, I love the chocolate shades you can buy! I actually have chocolate put in with my blonde highlights, because it's such a luscious colour.

I managed to get my butt in gear and contact my doctor's surgery about my mental health. I have an appointment booked for the 5th of October, just to go and get my referral to the community mental health team psychiatrist. I fit the criteria for borderline personality disorder to a tee, but I have never been officially diagnosed with it. But, once it has been diagnosed by a psychiatrist, I am confident I can begin to fight it with the correct therapy. I've suffered from it since I was very young.
I didn't want to see the doctor for mental health as well as my physical because of the time I have to take out of work etc., I'm always concerned I may lose my job or something along the lines. But, my mind matters have got far too much for me to cope with, and I've just had to take the plunge and make that doctors appointment. I did email my psychologist a little angrily yesterday as I thought she hadn't sent a letter to my GP, but it turns out my crappy GP surgery had struck again and just hadn't bothered with me.

I'm a little excited, but I am also extremely terrified. I just want to beat this, and I know it's possible. :)
 
Kelleh, I can relate to your fear. I fit a lot (most if not all) the symptoms of Asperger's, but I'm terrified to ask my doctor about it too. For me, I think it would be worse to be told that I don't have Asperger's, because then what? I'm just a severely socially awkward jerk with a lot of quirks for no reason? Eek. I'd much rather have a legit reason for why I am the way I am. Anyway, best of luck with the doctors, I hope you can get that stuff sorted out and on some good treatment (medication, therapy?). You're braver than I am! And you definitely can beat it! You go girl!
 
By reconsidering I did mean the diagnostic conclusion. Seems like the images may have changed their minds? No matter, I'm done dealing with them and I won't be attending their CT scan.

As far as treatment options besides the Pentasa, my doc wants me to hold off on any type of heavy duty meds so I don't become resistant to them which is understandable. I'm seeing a naturopath in a couple weeks to see what other things I can do aside from traditional medicine, he also recommended I look into a pain clinic which I don't know very much about but he said my GP should be able to give me a referral. Basically anything to alleviate pain, I'm all for. But I'm glad to be out of that last flare at least for now. I've been procrastinating on my blood/stool testing because it's just not a fun job but I know I can't keep putting them off even if it's gonna be unpleasant. Hoping I can stay stable on Pentasa. I was headed down a bad road there for a bit. Still having that new type of pain but it's not getting worse like it was. Just hoping I don't have another flare, I need stability so I can have more of my life back.

So I haven't been stripped of my diagnosis...yet. I've read that small bowel Crohn's is very tricky to diagnose and/or treat and Crohn's itself can be a very tricky disease that disappears and then reappears...but I'm still very new at this. I hope I won't have too much trouble with treatment.
 
@Cat - Eek! Asperger's is nothing to be afraid of though. My ex-boyfriend had it. If he'd had told me early into the relationship (and not 18 months + 6 months of living with my parents and I), then I would have learned to deal with it. He was just afraid I would have left him over it, which isn't like me. I liked him for who he was. But unfortunately, when I did find out (I actually found a letter from his doctor by accident about his disability allowance, then had to ask him) I had already had second thoughts about our relationship as there were some aspects that I could no longer handle.

Can you not go to the doctors about it? Just say that it is bothering your ability to communicate with others, and you just want to see if it is Asperger's and not something you need to work on? I think everybody is ever so slightly into the 'autistic' stage of the autism spectrum (I know we're already on it), but some slightly more than others without being at a complete stage (if you know what I mean!)
This is an odd thing to be talking about, because I just read a heart-breaking post on Facebook about a guy with Asperger's and he was calling out to all other sufferer's to get together, which was really nice - but his story was so sad!

@gadget - How can somebody just change their mind? That's pretty shocking! Just find yourself a new place to get your testing! They sound damn right indecisive!

I've heard of pain clinics, but I'm not sure what I think of when I hear that word! I think, I think of people all standing in a circle holding dangerous objects. No.. idea. My head is weird. :lol:

Stool tests suck. Because my stool wasn't loose on one for bacteria etc. they just threw that aside, which annoyed me a little because it wasn't pleasant to go. Plus, they could see it had blood in/on and it was mucus-y, so no idea why they didn't use their intuition to test it for other things! I'm guessing they're just paid for what they've been told before. Although, I do appreciate that it wasn't loose, so I don't hold them accountable for that.

Isn't Crohn's mainly in the small bowel? Or am I wrong? So that's just general, Crohn's is hard to diagnose, correct? Argh. I have a feeling mine is in small bowel, due to a pain I have above navel, a little to the left, as well as my LLQ. Urgh. Hope you get the correct treatment because you've been through a lot!
 
@Cat-a-Tonic: Full work weeks are impossible for me atm. So kind of a blessing in disguise that I'm just a temp, and a part-time student. In part it's impossible because of the stomach thing, and how tired I get, but also just with my ADHD which at the moment is not managed very well, it's tough for me to keep full steam...
 
@Izzie - I understand your pain on that one because my best friend (who also lives in Sweden) has ADHD and Asperger's. The way she explained the full steam thing to me, is that she's given spoons at the beginning of the day, which is like energy expenditure. If she runs out of spoons early in the day, she tends to not want to leave her flat and will be incredibly run down and miserable. So, I can imagine your 'spoons' go down pretty fast with stomach problems, work and school!
 
kellehbeans said:
@Izzie - I understand your pain on that one because my best friend (who also lives in Sweden) has ADHD and Asperger's. The way she explained the full steam thing to me, is that she's given spoons at the beginning of the day, which is like energy expenditure. If she runs out of spoons early in the day, she tends to not want to leave her flat and will be incredibly run down and miserable. So, I can imagine your 'spoons' go down pretty fast with stomach problems, work and school!
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I just kind of spend a ridiculous amount of energy 1) making everyday things like food and laundry and cleaning work okay and 2) trying to start doing things :p Which I know sounds strange to someone who doesn't have ADHD but just trying to try is a challenge sometimes :biggrin: And the stomach thing has really disrupted my routines because I don't feel the same every day anymore so it's like blarrrgh.

Haven't figured out a new system that works yet.
 
No no no, I understand it completely. My friend explained it to me very well. Like, she expends loads just getting out of bed. Routine destroying is also soul-destroying!

I think I understood what she was saying so well because I saw it was calorie counting or spending money, where you only have a set amount to achieve a goal, and obviously the spoons is pretty much currency in the same sense too. If that made any sense at all. :p
 
Kelleh, I'm glad to hear you'll see someone about your mental health. I think mental can be so important, and gets bothered a lot when we're in physical discomfort!

I got to see a nutritionist yesterday. I eat horribly, so I was worried that I'd get "lectured" but she wasn't that way. She instead gave me a lot of ideas. I have a print out of how to go "beyond the BRAT diet" because I tend to eat low residue because of the D and pain so often, and she's worried (like Cat has mentioned before) that I'm not getting enough nutrition. But there are some other changes I have to make, too. I like coffee, and tend to drink 20+oz a day, and because it can have a laxative effect she wants me to cut back and then try to stop that. Today I'm going to try to just have ONE cup. Wish me luck! I also tend to drink 1 diet soda day, mostly because I HATE salting my food, and I know need the sodium. She wants me to drink sports drinks (I'll try) and broths instead. Also, I have given up dairy in the past, but she wants to try it again, just for a month, while tracking it for her, just so we can say we did. No biggie, that one. I bought some vanilla coconut milk that the rest of the family won't drink, and some non-diary creamer for my one cup of coffee.

Oh, and she was super interested in the app I've been using to track my food and symptoms! It's really neat, it allows you track what you eat, and when you have bowel movements, etc, and then it tries to make correlations for you!

Here's a Apple link and the Google version I've only used the Apple version, so I'm not sure they're exactly the same, but it looks like the same app, and it's by the same ppl, so I think it is.
 
Thanks wildmtnhoney. I'm nervous about it, but I will get through it! :) Eating disorder is in check to an extent, and now I want my other MH problems to get a seeing too and I will beat this! Just like I will eventually find out what is wrong with my physical health...

Wow, you drink a lot of coffee! I used to too, and when I tried to go cold turkey, it gave me headaches, so I wish you lots of luck on that one. Do you not add salt to your water when you boil pasta/rice or veg? It doesn't over salt and just adds some nice flavour to the foods, and usually brings out their flavours.

I'm going to have a look at that app when I get back from the hospital! Had my last pee 10 minutes ago, and now drank 3/4 of my litre of water I need to drink! I am going to need to pee desperately aren't I!? Wish me luck!
Going to ask the radiologist if they can just check near my navel to see if there is any kind of blockage or anything that is potentially causing me pain there, worst they can say is no! :)

URGH I'M SO BLOATED FROM ALL THIS WATER!
 
Izzie, I can't let myself get to the point where full work weeks are impossible. I *need* to work - I need full time work so that I can have health insurance, for one thing. It's like a vicious cycle when you live in the US and are chronically ill - I need to work so that I can have insurance so that I can have my medical stuff covered so that I can be well enough to work so that I can have insurance so that I can work so that I can have insurance...

I get resentful sometimes though and today is one of those days. My hubby works part-time and he's been looking for a full-time job, he's a had a handful of interviews here and there, but for whatever reason he just can't seem to get a full-time job. He works maybe 2 days per week on average, seriously. He's completely healthy aside from the occasional kidney stone so there's no reason he can't work full-time. And I can't stop working full-time in spite of my bad health. If I quit my job in our current situation, then we wouldn't be able to pay our mortgage nor have insurance so I'd become sick and homeless pretty quickly which obviously would be completely shattering. I hate that it feels like the pressure is all on me, I have to work and I have to be sick, he gets to be healthy and hardly work. And on days where it gets to be too much for me, I start resenting my hubby. I feel like he's not even trying and isn't being supportive of me when I'm having a bad day and he gets to stay home and watch TV while I have to drag myself into an office. Sometimes I just want to scream and/or throw him out and other times I'm okay (he really is a good guy aside from his weird inability to work more than like 14 hours a week). Resentment obviously isn't good for a marriage so some days I'm just not sure what to do. At times he feels like an anchor - it's like, if I have to do everything myself, be the full-time worker and be sick, then why am I paying for his stuff as well, his food and his cell phone and his insurance etc? If I have to do it essentially alone then sometimes I feel like I should just be alone. And some days, like today, I just feel like crying. I don't know what to do.

Sorry for that vent! I'm definitely having a pity party day today and I am running out of sick days for the year so I went to work anyway - having a pity party without being able to properly cry and bask in the pity, it's just not good so all these emotions are coming out. My arthritis started acting up yesterday and it's still bad today, I'm walking with my cane. The pain is getting to my head I think. It doesn't help that certain co-workers have to make comments. "Oh, you have a cane! Did you hurt your leg?" No, I have a cane for the same reason I had a cane last time. For my arthritis. "You're too young for that!" Gosh, thanks, I'll make sure to let my joints know that. Really helpful. Ugh, sorry guys, I'm just having a day. :p Thanks for listening to me vent.
 
I can't imagine even having to worry about insurance and the like when I have enough to worry about just feeling like I do. Vent away, sounds like you could use it :)

And I can understand why you'd feel resentful being "the sick one" and working full time while your healthy spouse only works a couple days a week...
 
Thanks Izzie. :) I'm doing somewhat better emotionally this afternoon. A co-worker cheered me up by giving me a nice thank-you for a project I did for her, and I also went out on my lunch break and bought myself a tiny pie (if a tiny pumpkin pie isn't wonderful then I don't know what is). I didn't even know they made tiny pies and carried them in my local grocery store, I went there to pick up some other stuff and I saw the tiny pies and I was like, MINE! :p Plus I've discovered that everyone in the grocery store is really nice and gets out of your way quickly if you're a lady walking with a cane and a scowl on your face, hah.

As for the resentment, it keeps coming back. I'm okay a lot of the time and I am great when hubby actually works a good amount which happens sporadically (like, his boss takes off the whole month of January, so he gets full-time hours for that month). But then he'll go back to 1 or 2 days a week and my resentment starts to come back up to the surface again. Something's gotta give, eventually. Either he'll get a job or I'll snap and tell him to GTFO - and truthfully I'm getting closer to snapping lately. Sometimes I feel like I'm being too mean, I know he's been looking for a job and he's put in his resume in at a lot of places and he says he wants a job, he wants to work full-time and it seems like he's being honest and it really does seem like he's frustrated with his lack of proper employment. But then other times I just feel like he's not trying at all, like he just watches TV all day and does nothing to try to better our situation. Sometimes I'll find ads for jobs that he could do, and sometimes he'll apply but other times he'll say things like, "Yuck, I don't want to work retail." (For the record, he currently works retail in his part-time job so that's BS - his degree is in animation/art, but he graduated from art school 13 years ago so he's not going to get a job in the art field at this point and I think he has trouble lowering his expectations to what the reality is.) When he acts like that, like he feels that a job that I suggest isn't good enough for him, in a way I feel like he's saying that I'm not good enough. That I have to keep doing this longer and feeling this pressure longer because he'd rather have me do that than lower himself to even considering working full-time in retail or whatever. So there's some added resentment there. Ugh. I'm venting again (and once again trying not to cry at my desk at work). I need to think about happier things so that nobody sees me cry. Happy thoughts. Tiny pies.
 
Oh, and yeah, having to worry about insurance on top of everything else, yeah, that really sucks. It doesn't even cover everything, either. It covers a lot, like my Lialda would be something like $500 per month without insurance. With insurance it was $75 per month and then I got a savings card from the manufacturer on top of that so now I pay $10 per month for it. Medical tests can be pricey, like when hubby first had kidney stones a few years ago, I had to rush him to the ER in the middle of the night (he had horrendous pain and vomiting and wasn't yet diagnosed so we had no idea what was causing his symptoms), and they sent our insurance a bill for something like $5,000 - that's for one ER visit. With my insurance we pay 80% usually so we were on the hook for about $1,000. And when I had an MRI of my hips to look at my arthritis, that was $4,000 just for that and I think I also paid about $1,000 out of pocket for that (thank goodness they let me set up payment plans for this stuff so that I can pay it off in installments). Yet another reason why I cannot stop working no matter how ill I get! :( I have a constant flow of medical bills to pay for. The medical system in this country is so broken it's not even funny. And our wait times are still pretty long, too. I once waited 6 months for an MRI, and my GI always has a 3-4 month wait list. My GP even has a 3 month wait list for an appointment as of right now too (it used to be more like 2 weeks so I don't know what changed there). Hubby called our GP a few weeks ago when he had his latest round of kidney stones, and he wasn't able to get an appointment until December. So we pay a lot of money and wait a long time, it's like there's literally no good parts about our healthcare system here.

Sorry, that was another long vent! I seem to be on a roll today! :p
 
@Cat - Wow, you really were not having a good day were you! But happy thoughts are tiny pies. That made me even smile! I've never had pumpkin pie though, so I have no idea what that tastes like. :p

Sending big cuddles to you. I don't really know what to say, but I was actually thinking about insurance costs and healthcare in the U.S last night, and it's actually terrifying that you guys actually have to pay for the 'benefit' of being ill! It's horrible. :(

I read something this morning, that actually made me think and cry. It was a little like,

When I was 17, I was a depressed teenager and self-harming. I attempted suicide multiple times.

Now, I am laying on my sofa downstairs in my house, listening to my Husband telling stories to our 4 year old in funny voices.
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I'm not sure it was meant to make me cry, but it made me feel better. Message in this is pretty blatant - things get better, so don't give up! I hope that made you smile and not cry like me! :)

Ugh. Had my scan yesterday. My bladder was too full, so after a handful of pictures, she got me to empty it half way. Then I hadn't done it enough, so she asked me to do a bit more for a clearer picture. Either way, right at the beginning, she seemed to be paying particular attention to a lump in my uterus. For once in my life, I wasn't anxious about something. I was terrified. Turns out it was nothing, but I suddenly thought, 'oh god, I may have to have surgery' - (there is family history of HPV cells, cysts, polyps in the uterus). On the plus side, I asked her if she could see my bowels etc. She did warn me that she probably wouldn't see much. She went to the bit where my concentrated pain was and checked my general bowel (and even showed me my kidneys!) but nothing stuck out to her.

Which of course left me feel a little deflated, because I thought, 'if she can't see anything, then there's probably going to be absolutely nothing'. But, she was very nice. She didn't have to check for me. :)
 
Kelleh, you've never had pumpkin pie!??! That's shocking to me, it's like a staple food here in the US in the fall. We have it at Thanksgiving every year and it's so yummy. I know you have a fructose issue, so your best bet if you want to try it is to look for a recipe and make your own (it's not difficult - use fresh pumpkin though, not canned). It's delicious and pumpkin is really tummy-friendly for most people (you can even give dogs a bit of pumpkin to calm an upset stomach, both my dog and cat love pumpkin). Definitely give it a try!

Yeah, getting sick was the most expensive thing I've ever done. :p It's definitely not cheap to be ill in this country, a lot of people go bankrupt because of medical bills here - it's a terrible system that basically punishes you for getting sick (as if being sick isn't enough punishment by itself!). I have my full-time job and I also sell stuff on Etsy on the side for some extra money, so I'm getting by financially. I can pay my bills and stuff but I am certainly not rich, I'm just barely scraping by sometimes and I definitely live paycheck to paycheck. I get really excited when I have extra money, because that means I can go grocery shopping. All my clothes come from thrift stores or garage sales, the only clothing items I buy brand new are socks, underwear, bras and shoes (all my regular clothes and workout clothes are second-hand). My car is nearly 15 years old with almost 200,000 miles (still running well though) although I do have a bit of money saved up so lately I've been looking at the possibility of buying 7-8 year old car with somewhere in the neighborhood of 100,000 miles. :p (Cannot afford a brand new car but can afford a decent used car.) So yeah, I've always been thrifty anyway but I've definitely had to fully embrace thriftiness when I got sick, because I can't afford to live any other way. The upside is, I can sew, so my thrift store clothes often get custom tailored by me and I actually do get lots of compliments on my wardrobe. And my car has held up really well in spite of her age and high mileage (she's a Toyota so she might just last forever) so I don't really need a newer car but have been looking a bit. My thinking is, if I can get a newer car that'll last me 10 more years, then I'll be okay. My house will be paid off in just about 10 years, so at that point, whether hubby has a job or not, we'll have more money then because we'll no longer have a mortgage payment. So at that point I will have some breathing room and can put money aside into savings and pay off other debts (medical bills, credit card debt, student loan) and just be financially wayyyyy better off. I just have to make it through the next 10 years of working full-time which sometimes feels extremely daunting.

That was rambly. As for the story you posted that made you cry - honestly, I'm not a kid person, I don't have kids and I don't want kids and I don't really like kids. :p So it didn't affect me much as the thought of having a kid just makes me want to run away. I do get the point, that things can and do get better. I get that and I'm not going to harm myself or anything like that. I was just having a rough day yesterday, when my pity party days happen I just sort of wallow in it. I limit myself to one (or two at most if it's really horrendous) pity party days at a time, though. I let myself wallow and cry and feel whatever crappy miserable emotions I need to feel - then I get on with life the next day and then I'm okay for awhile until the next pity party day comes along. Basically I just need to be really not okay for a day so that I can be okay for the rest of the time. Maybe not the best system but it's been working for me. Maybe I should stay off the forum on my pity party days though as I clearly seem to worry you guys! Don't worry, I'm okay. :)

Rambling again. Kelleh, I'm glad your test went okay and that your lady parts are fine. At least that's one potential suspect that you can cross off the list, right? Sometimes normal test results are good if you can eliminate some possibilities and narrow down the list of what it could be. When's your sigmoidoscopy?
 
I don't think I've ever had pumpkin. I have pumpkin seeds, and pumpkin spice, but never pumpkin, and especially not pumpkin pie. I feel slightly deprived!

Do you make your own things to sell on Etsy? What kind of things do you do? Nothing wrong with being thrifty. I'm usually like that, unless I'm going through one of my phases of impulsive behaviour. Like, I bought a new car (well, it was 4 years old) because I couldn't be bothered to put mine through its MOT (not sure what you guys call it!). I'm a bit lazy, or just needed an excuse. Probably the latter.

Haha, it made me cry - not because of the kids, but because things are meant to get better, regardless of what is going on. But, hey, let's have a forum pity party! I'm not feeling my best either. Wiping clear mucus, fissures bloody hurt, think everything is properly inflamed again, or it's starting to flare up worse, or again. I don't know. I don't know where it stops any more.

It is positive that this is the case, however, when she checked my bowels, nothing was seen, but I'm trying to tell myself its because ultrasound pictures on bowels are not all that clear. But surely some thickening would be viewable? The sigmoid is on the 30th October, I have 3 holidays to get through first!

All I want to do is eat chocolate today!
 
On Etsy, I am currently selling 3 types of things. The first is that I'm selling vintage buttons - my grandmother gave me her entire collection of buttons a couple years ago. She's a hoarder so she had a huge amount, she gave me literally well over 10,000 buttons (the box of buttons weighed 45 lbs!). I sew and do crafts so I kept a reasonable amount of buttons for myself and am selling off the rest on Etsy since crafting supplies and vintage items are allowed to be sold on there. The second thing I'm selling is, I crochet, so I have a few handmade scarves on there. And the third thing I'm selling, which has been the best in terms of bringing in money for me, is framed 4-leaf clovers. When I walk my dog, we always find 4-leaf clovers in the park so I've been collecting them and pressing them into a book. Once they're pressed and dried, I buy little picture frames and frame the clover artfully. They turn out really cute and make nice gifts so at first I was just giving them away as gifts, but then I started an Etsy page and have been selling them. I actually just had my first international sale this morning - someone from Germany ordered some framed clovers from me. My hubby also has his own Etsy shop - he makes little sculptures of dragons and sells those. Neither of us has a ton of sales, but we both have reasonably steady Etsy sales at this point so that's been a nice little bit of extra money coming in. I have a cousin who sells TONS of stuff on Etsy, she literally makes like $50,000 per year just on Etsy - if I could make that kind of money selling clovers and buttons, maybe I could actually afford to quit my job (although there's still the insurance thing).

As for ultrasound - it doesn't get a good picture of the digestive tract at all, so do not get discouraged. When I had gastritis and my stomach was quite inflamed, the ultrasound couldn't see that and I only got my diagnosis of gastritis because everything else in the area (gallbladder, liver, etc) looked okay. Ultrasound can see certain things okay but it does a bad job of seeing any part of the digestive tract, at least in my experience and understanding.

I'm not sure what MOT is - is that like emissions testing? Here in the US, certain states require emissions testing (California I think) but most states don't. I've never had to do anything like that in my state, which is good news because my current car wouldn't pass emissions (small leak in the fuel system which is allowing gasoline vapors to escape). Hubby's car has a similar issue and his also wouldn't pass emissions. If we had to do emissions testing here, a LOT of people would fail. Although if we had emissions testing, I think I'd buy an electric car. I've been seeing a lot of used, low mileage, just a couple years old (like 2011-2013 model years) electric cars for sale for decent prices. Like Nissan Leaf, I think those are $30 to $40,000 new? They're selling for $10,000 and under just a couple years old and in really decent shape. An electric car wouldn't quite be within my current budget (I'm looking at more like $6,000 or so), but maybe in 10 years once I get my house paid off...
 
Wow, that sounds amazing. Such a cute idea, I like it! Sounds like you have a lot of things to do with Etsy! I've always looked at it, but it's not that popular over here in the UK. I have bought something from there before now though.

I sell loads of eBay, that's generally my trade outside of my own job. It's only me selling my old clothes, I seem to have tons. I've made 1.5k (probably about $2000) in the last 6 months. I've now started going to car boots (not sure if you've heard of these, or if you have them over the puddle) and picking up cheap clothing and selling it on eBay. Proving to be quite a successful trade.

I keep telling myself this, but I thought if there was something, then possibly it would have been seen. She could see my intestines, but they weren't a great picture - but I'm not a radiologist, so I don't know what a good picture is and what it isn't. From what she told me and what I had read before, I understand that they're not. But I also heard people got diagnosed that way, and also see they have a specific bowel ultrasound, which I found loads of reports on over the Internet. We shall see. I just feel like I may be wasting my time in terms of the sigmoid scope. I can't stop running to the toilet today. All stool is 'flaky' if you know what I mean? That and very mucus-y. I'm tired. I want to go to the gym, but my mood is so low, I'm not sure I can get myself out of the house.

MOT is where they test the basics to check they are road worthy, so just basically make sure tyres are not running flat or low on tread, make sure emissions are OK, brake pads are OK, and just simple things like that. It's done once a year.
I almost bought an electric car, but my Grandad is a mechanic, and talked me out of it. He said they are basically 'disposable' cars. If the battery goes, you're talking thousands to replace the damn thing, and you may as well just buy a new car.
 
Kelleh, I've heard of car boot sales - I think it's similar to a flea market or a garage sale? I loooove garage sales, I'm hoping to go to some tomorrow. :) I also buy a lot of clothes at garage sales. Since you can't really try them on at the garage sale, I just buy whatever is affordable and my style. When I get home, I try everything on - whatever doesn't fit or doesn't work on me, I take to a consignment shop to sell it there. So yeah, I do something similar to what you do. I've gotten a lot of clothes that way, I got myself a brand new cute winter coat at a garage sale for $2. I get a lot of interesting dresses as well. Do you ever read the blog "New Dress a Day"? The girl who writes that, she buys seriously ugly/huge dresses at garage sales or thrift stores and then she sews and tweaks them to be cute and fit well. She's seriously an inspiration to me. I'm not sure if you sew, but if you do, you should check out that blog.

Believe me, the vast majority of IBD'ers do not get diagnosed via ultrasound. You've got a much better chance of getting diagnosed via the sigmoidoscopy w/ biopsies, I promise. You're not wasting your time. You're taking the first step and there may very well be a lot more steps (tests) afterwards, but it's a good test to have.

I think I know what you mean by flaky stool - it's kind of fluffy almost, right? It's like it was diarrhea but then it sat in your colon to the point where it got a bit constipated and all stuck together but in a weird way. That happens to me as well fairly regularly.

That's good to know about electric cars and their batteries. I presume hybrids must be similar then. My current car is just a regular gasoline car, not hybrid nor electric. It's very small though (Toyota Echo) and it gets great gas mileage and has been very reliable. I've been looking at other subcompact Toyotas (Yaris, since they no longer make the Echo) so that's almost certainly what I'll end up buying next. Hopefully as time goes on, electric cars will get better and cheaper to buy & fix.
 
I guess so - like the garage sale that is - except it's out of your car! Sounds like a great way to get you some clothes. I used to use eBay quite a lot to buy clothes, especially branded. There were sooo many on there that were unused and were going really inexpensively. It was even better when they labelled it wrong on their listing and nobody else found it but me. :D

I think I have heard of that blog before, I don't think I've actually looked at it, but it sounds awesome! I wish I was that patient.

I am definitely getting biopsies. But if the IBD is not in the large intestine, then there's going to be nothing showing from the results. Which is probably one of the things that is bothering me the most. I'm almost not wanting to go through with it. I am close to giving up again, I have a wonderful mind for that.

I guess so, it's like falling apart, maybe like a jigsaw? Such a weird analogy, but I see somebody else describe it that way. It's like jagged. Sometimes it looks like it may have been formed, but it hasn't. It always sounds like it is diarrhoea and you get the 'oh god, not again' feeling. It's happening a lot again, and I wiped just clear, stretchy mucus earlier. Wasn't very pleasant. Argh.

Hybrids are, but they don't always rely on the fuel. I have a regular petrol/gasoline car myself. But yes, hopefully. I really like the Tesla. But, they're around £200k. Not really in my price budget. :p
 
Yeah, my brother makes a lot of money and he wants to buy a Tesla. Supposedly they're coming out with a more affordable Tesla (like in the $30-$40,000 range I think) at some point in the next couple years. Right now my brother is driving a horrible ancient beat-up Honda that barely runs and is literally held together with duct tape in some places. :p He wants to keep his current car until he can get his Tesla, but I don't think his car will last that long. Which is another reason that I'm kind of looking at newer-ish cars - I can sell my brother my current car which might actually last him until an affordable Tesla comes out.

Don't give up. Have the sigmoidoscopy. If it finds nothing then you'll at least have that on your side to be able to argue with your GI that you should have more testing to look at the small intestine/stomach/the rest of the colon. And if it does find something, bonus! :) Are you just nervous about the enemas? I promise, they're not fun but they are over with quickly and it is a worthwhile test to have.

Ah, so car boot sales are just whatever fits in your car? And then do a lot of people get together in their cars in one location to have the sale? Garage sales here are held at people's houses, in their garage or in their yard or driveway. In my area, there are a lot of city-wide or neighborhood-wide sales so you can hit a lot of sales in a relatively short time. Some will even print up maps so that you can plan which houses you're going to go to and in which order. And sometimes churches or schools will hold large sales in which all of their members/students will donate items and then they'll have a huge sale with the proceeds going to charity. So I have to plan my Saturday mornings accordingly, depending on which town or neighborhood or church or school is having a sale that day. :) I still have to plan my garage sale strategy for tomorrow - haven't yet looked at the ads to see where the sales will be.
 
They're quite nice looking cars. There's only a few around this country, but I've seen 1 or 2 just in my home town!

Hopefully. I'm just scared I'm going to exhaust all testing, and that will be all. Some of the GI's I've read about on here sound absolutely awful, and I don't think I'd do very well with that! Stupid stomach today. Anything I eat, and bam, diarrhoea. Of course, not helping the soreness I have rectum/anally. Stupid body.

Sort of! They usually travel to a designated field and sell, usually on a Sunday! It's good to walk around, but some people try and charge too much or they just sell pure junk.
 
kellehbeans said:
some people try and charge too much or they just sell pure junk.
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YES. Here as well. At garage sales where you can't try on clothes, I feel that clothes should never cost more than like $2. No, I'm not going to spend $10 on your used jeans that I can't try on. :p If they were like $1 then we're talking. If I can try it on, like if it's a jacket/coat that I can try on over my clothes, then I'll spend up to $5. But my rule for myself is, if I can't try it on, I'm not spending more than $2 for any article of clothing. Some people try to charge way more than that and I just walk away from them. The best sales are when people have nice stuff but they just want to get rid of their stuff so everything is marked at 50 cents or a dollar. If there are cute clothes in my size at a sale like that, it's like xmas for me. :D I just found a sale like that a couple weeks ago, I got something like 5 shirts for less than $3 total. And they all fit me perfectly. Love that!

You're not going to exhaust all testing. It's been 6 years since I've been ill and there are still tests I haven't had and avenues I haven't explored. If you have the sigmoidoscopy, it doesn't mean that you won't be able to have a colonoscopy later on. Plus, some tests can be repeated - if a colonoscopy doesn't find something, that doesn't mean that having it done again in a couple years is worthless. I've had 2 colonoscopies and 1 sigmoidoscopy, and 2 upper endoscopies at this point. The lower scopes didn't find anything but the 2nd upper scope found my hiatal hernia (the first upper scope was done before I had any GERD symptoms so presumably the hernia hadn't formed yet at that time). I know it's all very daunting when you're just starting out with testing, but honestly the sigmoidoscopy is a good one to start with. Try not to worry too much, have the test and go from there. One thing at a time. :)
 
I'm the least crafty person alive so Etsy is a foreign world to me, though very fascinating. I can't even hem a pair of pants by myself :p

Me, I'm mostly bummed about my perpetually sore throat right now. Feeling a bit more hopeful since my appointment with the GP who actually believes there's a problem. I've also read up on some rules regarding specialist care and how you're supposed to be allowed to choose hospitals within your own region. Going to have my pill cam next week and then hear about switching. Throw the rule book at 'em :D

A little nervous about the pill cam. The swallowing of it, mostly. I have trouble with my Omeprazole capsules some days, so swallowing a camera feels weird. Also not looking forward to the whole laxatives/not eating for a day thing.
 
Question: does anyone know what kind of conditions/problems would be visible on a barium x-ray?

In my case of the esophagus but I'm wondering if you would see scarring, inflammation etc.?
 
Izzie, when I had a barium swallow they were mostly looking for odd swallowing movements, GERD, and that sort of thing. I don't recall them saying anything about scarring, although they did mention narrowing at some points, and I know they didn't mention inflammation or a lack of it, either, but I don't know if that's because they didn't see it, or what. Sorry if that isn't super helpful!

Fun talk about all the sales!

I am grumpy a bit. Woke up around 1am to have squishy poo. Haven't done that in a looong time, and I have no idea why it happened. Grrr. At least it's the weekend and I was able to sleep in after that.
 
I'll ask them, of course, I'm just curious :p

Really the thing that is getting to me the most right now is having a sore throat CONSTANTLY. Everything else I at least get some relief from now and then but this is constant and awful.
 
@Cat - it's even funnier when it's in the poorest condition EVER. Some people do just try to push their luck. Ugh.
Wow you did well! Which reminds me, because I'm up so early, I'm going to put my boyfriends clothes up on eBay, just before we go on holiday!

This is very, very true. I'm just extremely impatient, I guess! Looking at how long it takes people to even get certain tests etc. I guess I'm actually a bit lucky!

@Izzie - it'll show thickening, scarring, so it'll probably show some kind of damage!

@wildmtnhoney - Big hugs! I keep waking up at 6:30 in pain and a very vocal stomach + tenesmus, so I'm laying here like, 'why should I get up?'

Ugh. I keep having extremely mushy, mucus poo! Lots of undigested food, and in turn, I haven't been eating very much because it's causing me fissures galore. It was quite bloody last night too. :( just in time for my holiday.. My OH has also said his was going back to yucky after a few days of it being good with no blood!
 
I woke up this morning with pain in my TEETH. Probably unrelated to anything else, but I feel like every tooth I have suddenly has a cavity. Chewing is a bitch. No idea what happened. Maybe clenched my teeth in my sleep or something, I know I do that sometimes. But ouch.

@kellehbeans At least you understand each other? :p No but in all seriousness that doesn't sound like fun at all.
 
Oh god! Dental is irritating! Make sure you use mouthwash or something!

Funny thing, we both completely understand each other, and we joke about it too. But it actually makes him feel much more comfortable with his UC as he knows I won't get impatient or not understand him, which is actually a really nice relationship trait. Weird things bring people together!

I'm actually cursing eating now. 10 mins after eating and I'm in the loo. It's just... Mush. Mucus-y mush. Still, no blood this morning, so I was either imagining last night or it was a 1 off.
 
Hope you're all doing okay!

I'm supposed to have my pill cam this week, though I might have to postpone because of a bit of a family emergency. So that's a bummer.

I'm on the phone today trying to get to a different hospital. Because if I have to postpone this by weeks and weeks, I don't want to do it at my old one. Everything I do there seems to be for nothing since they don't follow up, they forget to chart, they're just incompetent fools, to be honest.

So today I'm using my best "don't mess with me" tone of voice over the phone to try and speed all this up.
 
Kelleh, with both you and your boyfriend having digestive symptoms right at the same time, particularly with him being okay for a bit up until now, I wonder if you both got a touch of food poisoning and didn't realize it? Hubby and I did that once, we went to a restaurant and we both had different meals but they both had tomatoes. We got home and I had to run to the bathroom about 6 times with rather urgent diarrhea, which didn't strike me as odd at all. But then I noticed that hubby was running to the bathroom with about the same frequency that I was, so it was only then that it dawned on me that we must have gotten bad tomatoes on our meals. It was almost funny when we realized it! He thought he was just feeling a bit "off" and I figured it was just my usual gut issues, but when we realized it was happening to both of us, then it all made sense.

Have a good vacation and good luck selling on ebay! I bought myself some more clothes over the weekend at garage sales. I got a cute new dress for $2, it has an adorable print - it's got little bicycles all over it, I love it. I also got some new fitness equipment - got a really nice barbell set for free! They were just giving it away and I snapped it up. I already had a dumbbell set at home but not a bar, and this is a super nice weighted bar and seems very high quality - it came with 40 lbs of weight plates too. Now I can do squats with the bar at home, very happy about that! :)

Izzie, I have some tooth issues as well - I have really sensitive teeth particularly when it comes to cold foods - even cold water hitting the wrong spot on a tooth can give me a horrendous few moments of pain. I've had these issues since I was something like 19 (so 16ish years now, well before IBD and GERD came along). I'm not sure what causes my sensitivity/pain, but I've found that those special "sensitive" toothpastes can help in my case and I've also adjusted the way that I drink water so that it doesn't hit the bad spots. It is seriously annoying though so I feel for you. I hope your tooth pain is something easily fixed/treated. Do make sure to let the dentist know that you're being investigated for both IBD and GERD, as I think both can affect teeth (I know IBD can affect the mouth like with causing mouth ulcers, and with GERD if you're refluxing into your mouth then the acid might start to wear down the tooth enamel).

As for me, my hip pain has been improving to the point that it's almost back to my "normal" (I'm no longer limping nor using my cane so that's a very big improvement). I'm fighting off a migraine today but I'm functional and okay overall. I had to go to a birthday party yesterday for 2 of my nieces and they only had grilled meat as the main course - so all I ate was some potato chips and a piece of birthday cake. Fortunately my guts didn't get too mad about that. Now I'm just waiting to see if I come down with a cold, since at least one of the kids was just getting over a bad cold and another adult at the party also had a nasty cold (fortunately she only stayed a minute to drop off a gift and she didn't get anywhere near me). I always seem to catch a cold/virus when I see my sis-in-law's kids, so just playing the waiting game to see what I come down with this time. :p
 
Waiting really sucks :( could still be months yet before I get a pill cam. Man I hate the wait times for healthcare in Alberta
 
Kero, you've been going through this for quite awhile now, I'm sorry to hear that you're still waiting for tests & answers. I hope it's not too long before you can have the pill cam done.
 
I'm having real trouble swallowing these days. Or, trouble, things get stuck. Which is not pleasant. Kind of makes me feel panicky, actually.

Swallowing has been an altogether different experience since my tonsillectomy a few years ago and I've had similar troubles before any of this started so I'm not sure if I'm making it a bigger deal than it is because I know it's a thing that can happen from GERD, or what.

Got my x-ray appointment for NEXT WEEK. My GP works fast.
 
Cat-a-Tonic said:
Izzie, I did some googling on esophageal dismotility and came up with a bunch of information about swallowing disorders. Hopefully this link is helpful to you:
http://www.hopkinsmedicine.org/gast...ses_conditions/faqs/swallowing_disorders.html
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That is awesome, thank you! I don't think I would've come up with those fancy words to describe what's going on (non-native English speaker and all that), so that is very helpful! Will bring this up with a doctor the next time I see one.

I think also with the amount of burping I do right after I eat it's hard for things to get down when air is constantly pushing up. Blegh, people don't realize how lucky they are not having to worry about these kinds of things :ybatty:

Also, I've spoken to the (new) hospital, and there's nothing really prohibiting me from choosing to see a GI there instead of where I've been, so now I just have to kind of refer myself to them via phone :lol2: And then HOPEFULLY, I'll be able to see a new GI in a couple months or so.
 
That's cool, megan, I'm hoping they figure out more and more safe and effective procedures to treat this kinda stuff!


BTW, anyone know if esophageal... stuff, issues swallowing etc. with GERD - is that an ENT thing or a GI thing?
 
Megan, thanks for the link! That's interesting, I might ask my GI about that. He said I'm not a good candidate for the fundoplication surgery, but if my GERD gets worse then I wonder if the bracelet thing might be a better option for me. Something to think about anyway. How have you been lately, are you doing okay?

Izzie, my GI has always dealt with my GERD stuff. It was his idea to do the pH impedance test, and he also personally did the upper endoscopy in which my hiatal hernia was confirmed. It was my GP who initially diagnosed the GERD, but my GI was the one who confirmed it and has been treating it ever since. I've never seen an ENT doctor for this stuff, it's always been my GI dealing with the GERD, prescribing meds and ordering tests. So for me it's always been a GI thing with a dash of GP thrown in.

How's everybody doing today? I have a lunch date with a dear friend who I haven't seen in awhile (she's got a new baby which is keeping her very busy) so that'll be nice. But I didn't get to pick the restaurant this time, and the restaurant that we're going to is not looking to be the most tummy-friendly. It's mainly got stuff like pizza and calzones, which is obviously not great for me with my lactose intolerance. I did look at the menu and I see that they have lamb shish kebabs, and I can actually do lamb (I can't do pork or beef, but I will on occasion eat other mammal meat such as rabbit, deer, and lamb, as those are actually pretty safe for me). So I'm going to have the lamb today I guess. I'm just hoping they don't put too many spices on the meat, I'm going to ask for minimal spices. Hopefully my tummy is okay with it.

Speaking of my tummy, it's throwing me for a loop! It never does what I expect. I'm on my "time of the month" right now, and I always always always have diarrhea when I'm on my period. Always. Except for this time, apparently. :p I have had formed stools for the past couple days! It's seriously odd. I am not complaining by any means, I just find it really weird. I feel like my guts are just trolling me now to get a reaction, ha ha.
 
Troll guts, that's hilarious :D

I'm okay today. The swallowing difficulties are giving me anxiety. But I recognize it as being anxiety and it's probably not as huge a deal as I make it out to be. It's annoying, though.

Been taking a lot of walks, and actually cooking myself dinner every night, and trying to get things done.
 
OK. I'm done procrastinating. Worked through my minor OCD issues and got the stool sample collected. It's a calprotectin test and from what I was reading is excellent in detecting inflammation even when there appears to be remission. But of course there's the "what if it's normal" thing, especially since I've been putting it off for 10 days and have improved symptomatically but I am going to the bathroom a lot. Who knows? I might be surprised. Hoping I don't have to go through with the repeat Prometheus. My last blood draw was unremarkable except for the slightly elevated lymphocyte count, now that symptoms have died down I just don't want to do any more stupid tests. At least I'm doing better. Anyone else got any experience with the calprotectin test? This is my first time doing it as I'm somewhat of a germaphobe and have been from a very early age. Anyway, hope everyone else is doing well.
 
Gadget, I just did a calprotectin test myself a few months ago. Of course mine turned out to be normal. (Supposedly anything under 50 is normal, my level was 49...) I'm a germophobe and have some OCD as well and I did have a bit of trouble with it, just mainly with being grossed out by the collection hat thing that you poo into. I immediately threw it out once I had my sample collected. And it was a bit gross having a stool sample in my fridge overnight, I kept the jar of poo well away from my food. Aaaaand I brought it to the lab in a cooler, which I then immediately disinfected. :p Once the sample jar of poo was out of my life, and the collection hat thing was out of my house, I was fine. It's definitely not a great process if you have OCD. And I do try to fight the OCD tendencies, I really do - my dad and grandma both have it quite bad (both are hoarders and my grandma is also a compulsive hand-washer and makes everyone else around her wash their hands a zillion times too). So I mainly try not to wash my hands obsessively nor hoard things, but the germophobia is more sneaky.

Speaking of germophobia, I haven't gotten sick! I saw my 5 nieces & nephews a couple days ago and I'm still fine - usually I'd be coming down with something already by now. And I know my youngest niece was sick so it's really odd that I didn't catch whatever she has - I always get sick from those kids! I can trace my last 2 flus back to them, and yes, I had my flu shots both times but caught the flu from the kids twice anyway, that's how strong the germs on these kids are. :p Anyway, I'm excited that I managed to not get sick! That's impressive, maybe my immune system is finally working somewhat normally? First I have solid stools during my period and now I don't get sick in spite of hanging around the little germ factories - what's next? I might actually be well enough to go to the gym for an entire week straight at this rate, ha ha. ;)
 
Cat-a-Tonic said:
Gadget, I just did a calprotectin test myself a few months ago. Of course mine turned out to be normal. (Supposedly anything under 50 is normal, my level was 49...) I'm a germophobe and have some OCD as well and I did have a bit of trouble with it, just mainly with being grossed out by the collection hat thing that you poo into. I immediately threw it out once I had my sample collected. And it was a bit gross having a stool sample in my fridge overnight, I kept the jar of poo well away from my food. Aaaaand I brought it to the lab in a cooler, which I then immediately disinfected. :p Once the sample jar of poo was out of my life, and the collection hat thing was out of my house, I was fine. It's definitely not a great process if you have OCD. And I do try to fight the OCD tendencies, I really do - my dad and grandma both have it quite bad (both are hoarders and my grandma is also a compulsive hand-washer and makes everyone else around her wash their hands a zillion times too). So I mainly try not to wash my hands obsessively nor hoard things, but the germophobia is more sneaky.

Speaking of germophobia, I haven't gotten sick! I saw my 5 nieces & nephews a couple days ago and I'm still fine - usually I'd be coming down with something already by now. And I know my youngest niece was sick so it's really odd that I didn't catch whatever she has - I always get sick from those kids! I can trace my last 2 flus back to them, and yes, I had my flu shots both times but caught the flu from the kids twice anyway, that's how strong the germs on these kids are. :p Anyway, I'm excited that I managed to not get sick! That's impressive, maybe my immune system is finally working somewhat normally? First I have solid stools during my period and now I don't get sick in spite of hanging around the little germ factories - what's next? I might actually be well enough to go to the gym for an entire week straight at this rate, ha ha. ;)
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Glad to know someone else understands the struggle. I knew I had to do it and I'd put it off already for 11 days. Was diagnosed OCD at age 7 and was put on Zoloft without my having a choice in the matter. I'm convinced that being drugged that young has ruined my brain chemistry for life but that's a whole other story. My parents were desperate and I guess I don't blame them. I've gotten better over the years about it but there's still that little touch of OCD that I can't seem to shake.

Do you usually get sick a lot, Cat? I've always seemed to catch colds easily and it usually triggers a flare so I'm back on the compulsive sanitizing thing again. My two most major flares were preceded by colds. I've been considering a flu shot but I don't know how I'd react to it since I haven't had the shot since pre-Crohn's.
 
Today is one of those days where I'm just SICK of feeling the way I'm feeling. I wake up every morning with the sore throat from hell. I can't eat normally, I can't work out the way I normally would just UGH.

I am hoping that the x-ray I'm having next week will give some answers so we can move on to actually TREATING the problems I'm having.

Considering the fact that I'm already on Omeprazole, and tried Esomeprazole and neither of those things work enough, I'm feeling like I'll end up having to have surgery.

I just really don't want to feel sick 24/7 anymore.

Like, with 40 mg of omeprazole a day, eating hardly anything, and so much Gaviscon it's actually ridiculous, I can function. Kinda. But I can't live like this forever, can I?!

I'm hoping that weightloss will be a game changer but who knows. I'm just depressed and sad today.
 
Gadget, yes, if there's a cold going around work I almost always catch it, and whenever I am around kids I seem to come down with something as well (I don't have kids of my own, but I have 5 nieces & nephews so whenever I see them I almost always catch whatever bug they've been passing around). And I'm similar, a cold won't necessarily trigger a flare for me but it does make my guts more angry. It seems to be something like, when my immune system turns on to fight the cold, it also fights my guts a bit more than my "baseline" so I not only end up with a cold but also with abdo pains and diarrhea and nausea, etc. In fact, that's usually how I can tell it's a cold and not just allergies, if my guts are reasonably quiet then I know it's just allergies! :p

And as for OCD, I haven't actually been properly diagnosed with it and have never taken meds for it, but I have a strong family history of it so I'm pretty certain I have it as well as I definitely feel compelled to do OCD type things at times - I do have some hoarding tendencies (like hoarding food especially which is also something my grandma does - at least I'm wise enough to hoard non-perishable foods, but my grandma hoards stuff like milk - she at one point had 7 gallons of milk in her fridge and at least half of them had gone bad already, but she now has Alzheimer's as well which is a whole other story as she forgets that she already has 7 gallons of milk and buys even more - my dad also hoards food, like when I was a kid my dad went out and bought something like 50 packages of Hot Pockets because my brother once ate and liked a Hot Pocket). I try really hard not to hoard things besides non-perishable food - I know the food will get eaten eventually, but hoarding other stuff means it just sits there which is obviously problematic, so I try very hard to avoid that. And I know I wash my hands a lot when I'm cooking - it'll be something along the lines of, I touched an egg so I have to wash my hands because salmonella, oops I touched that bowl which might have gotten some egg germs on it so wash my hands again, for the next 10 minutes I'm still thinking about salmonella so I wash my hands 8 more times, and so on. It mainly only happens when I'm cooking or handling food, or if I'm around sick & contagious people then I also wash my hands a ton, but that's mainly it. Fortunately the food hoarding and hand washing are the main/only ways that my OCD has manifested, and I am hoping that as long as I'm mindful of it then it won't get worse. I don't want to be as bad as my dad and grandma are.

Izzie, I hope the test next week gives you the answers you want so that you can move forward with more effective treatment or surgery or whatever looks like the best option. For what it's worth, I have been there - my GERD is relatively quiet these days, but in the past I certainly had many days where I had those sore throats, sometimes to the point that it hurt to talk, and had to take a ridiculous amount of meds to feel functional. I've been there and I got out of that situation without needing surgery. Sometimes it can get better on its own or with little tweaks to your medications. In my case, I think ranitidine actually helped - it's not nearly effective enough for it to be my primary reflux med, but I take it before bed and before workouts as those are my two worst reflux times, and that seems to actually help quite a bit. So for me it seemed that Nexium on its own wasn't enough, and ranitidine on its own definitely wasn't enough, but the two together actually works quite well for me. (I also take a handful of Tums before working out but apparently that's fairly normal - my hubby who has zero GERD issues also takes a few Tums before hitting the gym, like if he goes to the gym with me he'll steal a few of my Tums.) Anyway, that was rambly, but my point was that it can get better and I hope it does. Good luck next week and keep us posted on what happens with the test!

How's everybody doing today? I'm fairly well. I ate something yesterday the guts didn't like (I think I put too much seaweed in my miso soup - my guts can handle some but apparently not lots) so I had an episode of d with some undigested bits in it yesterday evening, but my stools seem to be going back to more firm and formed today and no more undigested bits. Other than that I'm doing okay. I've been feeling well enough this week that I was able to work out Monday & Tuesday and I plan to hit the gym today as well.
 
I am not so well today. Been having more pain the past few days, and then my period started so I have cramps on top of it. Last night I was up tossing and turning quite a bit, and feel bad for my poor husband :(. This morning we were almost late getting my youngest to school, because I had to rush to the bathroom for some severe D - the kind that leave you in a cold sweat afterwards, because it was so much and so...intense I guess is the word I'm looking for. So now I'm home, in bed with my cat and lap top and thinking my cleaning plan for the day might not happen after all. :(
 
@Cat-a-Tonic That does help to hear! When you're in the middle of it it feels like a neverending horrible thing.

I have Ranitidine but I've gotten so much mixed messages from doctors about it so I haven't really taken it in a long time.

My GI said that mixing them was useless because they're "the same thing"? Something my own Google searches have not agreed with, but I trusted him enough to not mix. Maybe I should talk to a pharmacist for better info...
 
Well, ugh. I jinxed myself! So I said earlier that my reflux has been quiet lately? I think my reflux was like, hey, yeah, I have been quiet - time to get loud! I was in the gym just now and I suddenly had an attack of the vurps (vomity burps). I have hardly even had the burps in the gym lately, let alone vurps. Not good. I could feel the acid starting to boil up in my stomach, so I left the gym quickly and took some extra reflux meds, had some water, and am currently forcing myself to eat some food so that the acid has something to work on besides the lining of my stomach. As long as I can prevent an attack of gastritis, I'll be good. Yuck, though! My reflux seriously has been quiet for months, no idea why it decided to go nuts out of nowhere today. I wasn't doing anything out of the ordinary in the gym - sometimes if I do a lot of abdominal exercises then that'll really angry up my GERD, but I did zero ab exercises today (the vurps came on when I was at the end of my workout, I was doing some stretches and suddenly got vurpy). Hmmm. Weird! I guess it just wanted to remind me that it's still here.
 
Cat-a-Tonic said:
Well, ugh. I jinxed myself! So I said earlier that my reflux has been quiet lately? I think my reflux was like, hey, yeah, I have been quiet - time to get loud! I was in the gym just now and I suddenly had an attack of the vurps (vomity burps). I have hardly even had the burps in the gym lately, let alone vurps. Not good. I could feel the acid starting to boil up in my stomach, so I left the gym quickly and took some extra reflux meds, had some water, and am currently forcing myself to eat some food so that the acid has something to work on besides the lining of my stomach. As long as I can prevent an attack of gastritis, I'll be good. Yuck, though! My reflux seriously has been quiet for months, no idea why it decided to go nuts out of nowhere today. I wasn't doing anything out of the ordinary in the gym - sometimes if I do a lot of abdominal exercises then that'll really angry up my GERD, but I did zero ab exercises today (the vurps came on when I was at the end of my workout, I was doing some stretches and suddenly got vurpy). Hmmm. Weird! I guess it just wanted to remind me that it's still here.
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How typical! That sounds super annoying though, I know the feeling and it's icky. I feel like I'm kind of walking around with gastritis all the damn time lately, I often get that kind of sharp pain like I swallowed a handful of glass shards or something.

I've actually googled that LINX procedure thing a little and it seems kinda cool. The "regular" kind of reflux surgery I've heard of has sounded really scary and permanent and with potentially really shitty side effects. Though it doesn't even exist as an option here yet...

Oh well. Hoping for an actual diagnosis first and foremost I guess :D And if I have esophageal diverticulum then I'll probably need surgery for that :shifty:
 
I think I avoided an attack of gastritis, thank goodness. I know that sharp pain very well and I really like to avoid it if I can. I took something like 1200 mg of Ranitidine yesterday (!!) and an extra Nexium and 2 Zofrans. That's a ton of meds but it took that much to get my reflux attack under control. I also had to sit with my heating pad on my stomach for the entire evening in an effort to calm things down (it did help). I am doing okay today but I skipped the gym just to be safe, and I'm eating safe foods (nothing acidic at all) and drinking a lot of water. Still not quite sure why my reflux went nuts like that, I can only presume that it's taking trolling lessons from my guts. :p Also still pretty sure that I jinxed myself by saying how quiet my reflux had been, sheesh. And seriously, my arthritis went crazy last week for no reason and forced me to use my cane, now this week my GERD goes nuts for no reason? What's next? (Don't answer that, I don't want to know!)

Surprisingly though my energy levels are actually okay this week. It's already Thursday afternoon and I don't feel exceedingly exhausted yet - lately I've been getting exhausted on Wednesdays and having to really work at getting through Thursday & Friday and then resting most/all of the weekend. I feel mostly okay today aside from the remnants (mostly just burping, and a little bit of an acidy feeling in my throat) of yesterday's reflux attack. Going to rest up this evening which is fine as I have a couple of projects to work on anyway - I'm finishing up crocheting a blanket for an xmas gift, and I've decided to make a Halloween wreath for my front door. Now that my house has been painted and looks nice, I actually want to decorate the outside of it, ha ha. :p I saw a really cute tutorial online about how to make a Halloween wreath, so I'm going to try it, already bought all the supplies. (On that note, has anybody else heard this phrase? I saw this online the other day, it said, "Why buy it for $15 when you can make it yourself for $92 worth of craft supplies?" HAH! That's sadly but totally true, ha ha.)

Getting rambly again! I hope everybody else is doing okay? Izzie, what day next week is your x-ray? I'll be thinking of you and hoping for some worthwhile results!
 
It's on Wednesday!

Apparently I'm supposed to stand up and swallow stuff WHILE they take images too, to check if there's any problems with that. Which I feel like there is.

I'm hoping for some results too, honestly if this doesn't show anything I'm going to start believing I'm actually insane :p

I have an annoying cough today, but otherwise am doing alright. I've been staying really busy which honestly makes my symptoms worse but at least I don't spend all day thinking about it.

I'm feeling much more hopeful though, since a) my GP actually believes something is wrong with me and heard my weird belching and agreed that it is NOT normal and I'm NOT imagining it. And also b) I've been told that I am well within my rights to demand a hospital transfer, so if this x-ray is a bust and I need to continue with a GI, all I need to do is be tough and site various fun patient laws and they HAVE to transfer me or I can report them.
 
I'm so stressed out today. Need to vent a little bit. Work has been crazy today. Fridays are never easy, for some reason. I'm a Mon-Fri office worker and I'd love to just have an easy, low-stress Friday so that I can ease right into the weekend. Nope, Fridays are always crazy and busy and full of complicated work projects that I need to give a lot of time and attention to, and today is a particularly bad one. I'm stressed, my boss is stressed, the whole department is stressed. And even my cat is stressed! Seriously, she's been over-grooming to the point of giving herself large bald patches and even at times she'll give herself wounds from over-grooming. The vet kept saying it is allergies but the allergy shots and steroid shots didn't help or did very minimal difference. So my cat went back to the vet today, again, and the vet finally agreed that it's stress. So now my cat is on valium. Seriously, I didn't even know they make valium for cats. I hope it helps her. I might need some for myself if this day doesn't end soon, ugh. I'm headachey and stressed and just want to run away. My guts are getting grumbly because of the stress. It's not good.

/vent over. How's everybody today? Anybody have fun weekend plans? I have zero plans which is wonderful. Hubby and I are going to stay home and do things like clean our house, decorate it for Halloween, work on a couple craft projects, and just rest and veg out. That sounds absolutely perfect to me.
 
Hey all, I'm now back from holiday, so I apologise if I've missed something you have said, but I'm going to do my best at replying to all of you! I hate replying on my iPad, but I can't wait to reply on Monday, as I'll probably get so backed up on posts!

@Izzie - good luck on Wednesday! That has come around quickly! How are you feeling? Are you nervous?

@Cat - Valium for cats!? I've never heard of that! Hope you feel better today, Friday's do suck. I generally am busy Mon-Thurs, but lose interest by Friday, so I'm really sorry to hear yours was so stressful! Your weekend sounds pretty epic. I forgot about Halloween!

@wildmtnhoney - periods always do make things worse don't they?! I couldn't believe that I had to have time off of work on my last one as it made me feel so rubbish!

As for me, holiday was great. I had very little pain, BUT I didn't go to the toilet for 4 DAYS. I felt so bunged up, bloated and just ugh. I tried eating veg, and yes I ate a lot of rubbish, but things that'd usually make me go to the toilet. I did lots of walking and exercise, including going swimming which I LOVE. I don't know if I drunk enough, well not as much as I normally do. I ended up caving on Wednesday and bought myself some max strength Senakot tablets. The next day, I didn't go. Took it again the following day, went once, which was a relief, but not all gone. Second day, I went twice, but it still wasn't right, so I stupidly thought "I'll take it again today (yesterday) and I should be back to being regular."

Bad mistake. I now have diarrhoea again. Don't know whether this is my normal now (had it all last week before I went on holiday), or I've just over-prescribed myself. I guess I'm going to have to let it settle down again, but no more laxatives! I went to a metal gig last night, was standing with some whiskey & cola, and I had a bad stomach ache - now today, ouch!! These fissures & haemorrhoids are never going to heal. Almost been 5 months now. [emoji17][emoji17] it makes me even more nervous for my sigmoidoscope, as I think it's going to hurt.. A lot.

But apart from this, I wish I wasn't home!
 
I can't say I'm nervous really. One of my anxieties is being allergic to things, so anytime I have to consume something - medication or in this case contrast fluid - it makes me a little nervous? But nothing I can't handle. I did manage to transfer my x-ray referral to the hospital I actually want to go to so that's good. They inspire confidence in a way that my old hospital does not :p

Honestly my approach right now is to try and stay busy and forget that I'm sick as much as I can. If I'm "okay", I try not to think about it. I want it to be a sidenote, a small thing, not something that consumes my mind 24/7. And as long as I'm well enough to do other things, that's what I'm going to do.
 
Nope, nope, NOPE. Today is a day where I'm starting to slope again. I'm starting to believe I do not have IBD (again), as I don't bleed and every time I "do", I'm either not sure or there's not enough to cause an alarm, and probably from fissures or/and haemorrhoids. Alternating C & D while researching is a pretty blatant symptom of "IBS". I had diarrhoea yesterday. Today I feel bunged up, even after eating quite a bit of fibre. I'm fed up with you body - MAKE UP YOUR BLOODY MIND!!!!

I get back home, and here I am, feeling down about the possibility of IBS and something that'll never be sorted, because that's what I have. I don't want this scope. I'm actually quite scared.

/rantover
 
Even if you do have "IBS" or some other non-IBD problem, there are still things to do to get better! If you don't have IBD, that's a good thing, right?

Whatever it is - or isn't - you clearly have legimate problems that warrant investigation and treatment. Don't lose hope!
 
It is a good thing if I didn't, of course! It'd be brilliant, but like everybody, I just think we all want a conclusion and help in what we're going through. Just the right treatment. Considering I don't respond to IBS medication, that's a bummer and a dead end really. Sorry, bit of a moan. Had a bit of a bad day, my boyfriend has been low too and I just feel like a crap girlfriend.
 
Sorry to hear that! On days when other things are going badly too, being sick on top of it all just makes it that much worse.
 
It does - mind you, only complaint I have today is that I'm very bloated. I'm actually considering getting another job. Again. Not the 1st time I've considered this. I just don't want a job where I work weekends, I want one I work weekday nights, but it's so hard to find. I'll just have to work on a pay rise for my current job. [emoji13]
 
Hello to everyone. I've read through this thread quite a bit and wish all of you the best with your current symptoms.

I'm 28, and I started having bad diarrhea about 10-11 months ago. For a while it got better, but then the last few months it got worse again, which prompted me to finally go to a GI. I honestly didn't expect them to find anything, but my bloodwork showed elevated ESR and CRP. I had one colonoscopy a few weeks ago, but they weren't able to see the full colon because I was going through a constipation phase and couldn't get cleaned out entirely. They did take biopsies from my rectal area, but I was told that the redness that they saw on there was because of the prep. I have a CT scan this Friday and another colonoscopy in December, which hopefully will actually work this time. Since all of this started I've lost at least 10 pounds without trying particularly.

Oh, and I tested positive for h pylori and took the antibiotics for that, but I'm still feeling crappy (no pun intended) so I think maybe that wasn't the main cause of the problem. I don't know.

After some research, I started to suspect that I might have IBD, and I know from the colonoscopy report that that's what my GI is evaluating me for. While my symptoms have not been as severe as some others, for the past three weeks at least I've been in a C/D cycle with no days of completely normal bowel days. Either I don't go at all or I have lots of BMs and D. I've also noticed some aches in my leg muscles and in my lower back, especially on the right side where most of my abdominal pain is.

I can't really figure out what foods seem to set my symptoms off, except for coffee (sadly), but I seem to be responding somewhat weirdly to fiber. My mom and some other people suggested that I take fiber supplements to help the D, and within a few days of starting them I had constipation for the first time in my life. It seemed like too much of a coincidence, so I stopped taking it.

So all of this plus the fact that autoimmune diseases run in my family and I've read that people with Ashkenazi Jewish ancestry have increased risk of IBD makes me think that IBD is a definite possibility. I'm not entirely sure, though.

One thing driving me a bit crazy: I can't tell if there's blood in my stool or not. Starting a few weeks ago I noticed that some of my stool has dark patches. They're not quite black, exactly, but there is a noticeable inconsistency in color. There's usually a lot of mucus, and sometimes that can look slightly reddish. I've even taken pictures of my poop on my phone--ugh--and have studied them closely. On the computer screen they look pretty red, but I don't know if that's just a trick of the lighting or what.
 
I swear, every single morning I wake up feeling like I have drank a glass full of acid in my sleep. Very tiresome, I do NOT want to keep feeling like this.
 
@CatLady42 - Hi and welcome to the undiagnosed board! :) Sorry to hear what you are going through, but it is also quite relieving to hear that your doctors seem to be on top of searching for the cause of your problems!

I, too am feeling very relieved by your presence and story! I just read you have a cycle of C/D which is what I am going through! No in-betweens! This makes me feel so much better. Please keep us (me especially!) up to date with what happens with you.

In fact, reading through your post, there is a lot in common between both of us and our symptoms. I too do not believe my symptoms are that severe, so sending hugs your way. We'll be here for you!

@Izzie - 2 more days and hopefully you'll have some sort of direction to follow!

Ugh. Went to doctors about mental health stuff today, and I thought I'd slip in a question about my alternating constipation and diarrhoea. Apparently it's *very* normal, and he doesn't seem to think I have IBD (or cancer, as he seemed to add in?) and thinks I have IBS. New doctor. New to me, new to the surgery. He was very nice, but he did go "your problems are very common, but that's not what you wanted to hear, was it?". Of course, that annoyed me. But, I just want something I respond to - IBS medications don't help, natural remedies aren't very helpful... Argh. Just wait for this scope I guess, so frustrated at the moment - I don't know whether I'm coming or going..
 
Random question: when you all say you are constipated, do you mean passing hard stools, or just not passing stools at all? Because this weekend I went 2 days of no stools, then suddenly back to severe D, but there was nothing of what I could normally consider "constipated" stools during that time --- no hard, firm, dry, stony stools --- just a lack of bowel movements.
 
@Wildmtnhoney - I think, in my case it depends. I went through a stage of passing pellets, which were pretty hard to pass, but I was still going 2-9 times a day. These days, to me, constipated is when I haven't been for a few days - and I always have a feeling that I am bunged up - if you know what I mean! I rarely pass hard stool any more.

My BM's at the moment are lack of, but when I do get them, it's diarrhoea like. I find it quite hard to differentiate with diarrhoea too. I mean, is diarrhoea amount of times gone or the consistency, or both? I go pretty much with both. That's why I coined the term 'constipated diarrhoea' when I used to pass the hard stools more than a few times a day.

I hope this helps a little!
 
Hi CatLady42, welcome to the forum. You can have your stool tested for blood - they can test for "occult blood" meaning that even if you don't see blood (or aren't sure if what you're seeing is blood) the test can pick up blood in the stool even if it's not visible. So you might want to have that done while you're waiting for the next colonoscopy.

Izzie, I'm with you in the "feeling full of acid" club today. Hubby made fried fish last night for dinner (I can't even complain because it was my idea, it sounded delicious at the time). It made my reflux go wild, again. I woke up with a sore throat and just generally feeling nauseous and acidy and bleh. So not fun. I hope your test on Wednesday goes well! I see my GI a week from today, next Monday, so I'm currently working out what I'd like to ask him about.

Kelleh, glad to hear you had a good trip. I'm also in the C&D club right now! So I had fried fish last night as I mentioned, and that not only riled up my GERD but my guts as well. It gave me diarrhea, but it also made me nauseous so I took a Zofran which tends to stop me up sometimes. So, I think I've currently got a constipated plug from the Zofran, with diarrhea building up behind it. I feel crampy and sometimes feel urgency this morning, but when I try to go I can't get anything to come out. Definitely not fun to have both C and D at the same time.

And yeah, Valium for cats is a real thing. Apparently it's just regular valium in a much smaller dose - it's no different than regular valium for humans other than the dosage. It's actually been going really well so far, it makes my cat act funny like she's a silly kitten again. She's 12 years old so she's been slowing down somewhat, but the valium makes her more playful and more snuggly (she's never been one to sit on my lap, but now that she's on valium she sat on my lap about 5 times yesterday!). She also will walk around begging for food which is hilarious. My hubby was trying to eat a peach the other day, and she stood up on her hind legs and tried pawing at the peach to get it for herself! :p The vet is thinking that my cat is stressed or depressed, and I'm no medical expert nor veterinary expert, but my cat sure seems to be in a better mood on this medication. The hope is that if she's less stressed/depressed then she'll stop over-grooming, and it's been too early (just a couple days) to tell if that's improving at all. I have high hopes though! And at any rate, it's been hilarious and good so far from how she's been acting. Our other option was to put her on kitty Prozac, but that was much more expensive (it's something like $45 per month for kitty Prozac, and only $7 for a 2-month supply for kitty valium). So I really hope the valium works on her over-grooming issue, because I can't afford kitty Prozac.
 
@Cat - Sorry to hear both you and Izzie are suffering from the acid-y feeling today! :( Fried fish definitely does sound like an amazing idea - but definitely isn't. I learned that last week - I ate that, then a fried doughnut. BAD. IDEA. :D But it was worth it.. while I ate it, at least. Fingers crossed for you to let that get better.

Oh gosh, no, that sounds awful! I can sympathise though. :( Constipated diarrhoea is probably one of the most evil concoctions ever made by our bowels, pretty sure of it.

Oh bless her, poor kitty! She sounds awfully cute! Maybe she had a sneaky peach beforehand and was like 'GIMME!!!!' :p That is so cute. Gosh, I'm jealous of the cuteness. :p Let's hope this Valium (I'm still giggling that they give it to cats!) works for her - seems like it is already so yay, one happy patient (the furry kind of course!). Is she not over-grooming now?

Which has just reminded me that I forgot to say my doctor has put me back on Venlafaxine. :(
 
Kelleh, it's hard to say what's just regular grooming and what's over-grooming. My cat has been over-grooming to the point of giving herself large bald patches and even wounds at times. She currently doesn't have any wounds, just many large bald areas. So, presumably, if her fur starts growing back in the bald patches, then I think we can say that the valium is a success. And she still needs to do a normal amount of grooming - if she stops grooming altogether then she'll get matted fur (my dad had a cat that lived to be 18, and it got so old and sick that it stopped grooming and its fur got really icky and matted). So yeah, it's hard to say right now. I've seen my cat grooming since she's been on the valium, but it's hard to say whether it's a normal amount or if she's still over-doing it. She's also only been on the valium for something like 3 days, so it's really early days and impossible to tell if it's doing anything besides making her act silly and steal peaches. :p

(And yes, it's the cat that's in my avatar picture to the left - that photo was taken years ago, when she was about 1.5 years old. She's now more like 12.5 years old! Her name is Lydia and I call her Lydia kittya.)

Why did they put you back on Venlafaxine? I am trying to remember, did it do anything at all for you last time? I don't know much about that med, but if it's something you tried and failed in the past, it seems ridiculous for them to put you back on it. There are plenty of other meds to try, it makes no sense to go back on something that didn't work! :(
 
Oh, and I forgot to mention - I finally was able to "go" and passed the constipated plug. But there was a bit of blood in with it, ugh. I'm hoping that's just a one-time thing because of the constipated diarrhea. At any rate, I'm not having fried food again any time soon. :( I've learned my lesson, for now. I'm going to the gym (maybe not the wisest idea but still a better idea than eating fried fish) and then I'm going to have a lunch of steamed broccoli & cauliflower with a packet of ready-to-eat salmon. Veggies and not-fried fish. Hopefully my guts don't punish me for the veggies! Usually steamed/cooked is okay.
 
@Cat - let's hope for the best! She seems to be your little star! Seems she keeps you sane! Fingers crossed. Oh, bless. 12 isn't too bad in cat years - really. My sister has a cat and he's about 18/19 years old. He is a massive fat cat, and does some awful farts. [emoji23] Lydia is a nice name!

I can't remember much myself. They took me off of it just in case it was messing my stomach up. Just taken my first dose. [emoji22] I think they're trying to fob me off, both physical and mental problems. But, going to try and see if this levels me out again, although I'm struggling to remember if there's any real difference with meds or not. (sorry if this was really rambly, I'm trying to reply on my iPhone :p and I've just had my dinner... Hehe)

Did it hurt when you did go? Hopefully it is a one off! I went to gym too - did 45 mins as I promised myself. Cross trainer seems to upset my stomach though! I boil my veg RIGHT down almost haha!

Randomly off-topic - question to everybody/anybody - does anybody have problems digesting food - if so, what are the culprits, and does it hurt your stomach before you rid of it?
 
Cat-a-Tonic said:
Megan, thanks for the link! That's interesting, I might ask my GI about that. He said I'm not a good candidate for the fundoplication surgery, but if my GERD gets worse then I wonder if the bracelet thing might be a better option for me. Something to think about anyway. How have you been lately, are you doing okay?

Hi Cat, i'm not doing too badly. I quit my job and started doing some work experience at my old primary school which i'm loving (minus the 6.20am wake ups). I broke up with my bf of two years over the weekend which was stressful and has given me a little stomach unease but I think even people with the most iron stomachs would also get that...it wasn't fun, especially as he was the most supportive loving bf ever, but the spark had gone and it would have been selfish to stay with him just because he was so empathetic. I do hope to remain friends with him though, he is the best person i know.

All in all though, despite the lack of money, which i guess isnt the end of the world as i live with my parents still, and the fact i am now single...I am doing well. I am not as frequently unwell (touch wood)and I have started seeing an acupuncturist. I think being proactive is helping a lot, like i am taking some control. My pillcam came back completely clear as did my MRI's, which i guess its very good. Just means the IBS diagnosis is being firmly tied to me by the doctors. :yfrown:
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Oh Megan, I'm so sorry to hear you've gone through all of this. Keep on pushing for more tests, don't let them brand you with IBS. Sending you big hugs. I know the feeling of breaking up with a partner because the spark is lost. It takes a lot of bottle to get up and leave, just like getting up and leaving your job. Fingers crossed things start looking up. Thinking of you.
 
Megan, wow, lots of changes! It sounds like it's all for the best though, so good for you for doing what's best for you, even though I'm sure it was probably very difficult (I have a hard time with change myself so I can certainly appreciate that). You're right that that amount of change in such a short time would be stressful to anybody, let alone someone with the kinds of symptoms we deal with. I'm glad to hear that in spite of everything, you're taking care of yourself and doing relatively well. I agree that being proactive seems to help - for me, diet and exercise in particular (and I clearly haven't been so good on the diet side of things lately!). I haven't tried acupuncture yet but I've heard good things, it's definitely on my list of things to try. I'm really glad to hear it's been helping you, that's wonderful. Oh, and I can relate to disliking waking up that early! I get up at 6 AM Mon-Fri myself for work. It's pretty miserable especially now that the days are getting shorter - lately, when I wake up, it's still dark out. I hate that! It seems like it messes with my internal clock or something. It feels like I should be asleep when it's dark out and wake up when it gets light out, it's just wrong to get up when it's still pitch dark outside. Anyway, I feel for you on the whole waking up early thing! You mentioned working at a primary school - are you studying to be a teacher?

Oh, and as for the IBS thing - for what it's worth, my pillcam and basically every other test I've ever had have all come back clear/normal/inconclusive as well. That doesn't mean it's not IBD, though. Sometimes it just hides really, really well. I insisted on trying a trial of IBD meds (specifically, prednisone) and it worked really well. My GP and GI both agree that pred wouldn't work on IBS, and we've ruled out basically every other illness that would both cause these symptoms and respond to pred - so, even though I haven't had it show up on a test yet, my doctors do treat me as though it's IBD and not IBS. So long story short, keep fighting. It sounds like you're not willing to accept IBS as an answer (and I certainly don't blame you!) so keep on fighting for proper answers and treatment. Whether that means a medication trial, tests to confirm/rule out other illnesses, changing doctors, etc - don't give up. I know it's frustrating and difficult, and it's certainly okay to feel frustrated and upset. Unfortunately, presuming that it's IBD, it's difficult to diagnose and sometimes takes a long time and a lot of hurdles to jump over to get there.

Kelleh, yes, I'm totally a cat person (I have a dog too and she's great, but I definitely lean solidly towards being a cat person) and my cat is sometimes the only thing that gets me through the day. After a tough day at work, I go home and find my cat and pet her till she purrs, then I just sit there with my head near her and soak up the purrs, it's lovely. I call it "purr therapy" - my hubby thinks it's weird but he's a dog person so whatever. :p My cat was named Lydia after the character in Beetlejuice. When I first got her, she had been abandoned as a kitten and she had some health issues including poo issues and crusty eyes. So she was sort of crusty all over! So, first order of business was to give her a bath. She's mostly black, and when she got out of the bath her wet black fur was all spiky and it looked a lot like Lydia's hair in Beetlejuice. :p So that's how she got her name.

It didn't really hurt when I passed the constipated plug, no. And I've gone again once since then and no blood, so hopefully it was just a one-time thing. I did my workout and just finished eating my broccoli and cauliflower and salmon. Guts feel a bit grumbly and crampy still but I am hoping that's just left over from yesterday's fried fish incident and not related to my workout and/or the amount of veggies I've just eaten.

Oh, and YES I have a hard time digesting certain foods. About half the time I can eat salad just fine, the other 50% of the time I cannot and I end up passing chunks of undigested lettuce. And yes, that does hurt my stomach, I can feel the undigested lettuce passing through me and it's not a pleasant feeling. I can't digest nuts or seeds - I can do nut butters just fine, and milks like almond milk, but whole nuts/seeds do not break down at all and come out of me whole. If I eat sesame seeds, they go plink-plink-plink into the toilet and look exactly the same as they did before I ate them. Larger nuts/seeds will hurt a lot, it feels like they're scraping along the wall of my guts as they pass through. Strawberries tend to not digest for me and often come out looking as though I didn't even chew them (I swear I did chew them!). They don't hurt as much but they can cause some upset. I can't digest coconut at all, that's my #1 worst trigger food and will cause an immediate reaction. Even tiny amounts of it will make me ill for days. I haven't seen it pass in my stool, but I haven't ever had large enough amounts of it to see it. The last time I had coconut, it was at Thanksgiving at my aunt's house a few years ago. She had gluten-free gravy and I forgot to ask what was in it. It turned out she thickened it with coconut flour. I started feeling ill halfway through eating my meal, that's how quick the reaction was. Thanksgiving is always on a Thursday, and my workplace is always closed Thurs & Fri for Thanksgiving. So I had a 4-day weekend, and I was ill the whole 4 days. I only had a little bit of gravy and it only had a little bit of coconut flour in it. So yeah, coconut just murders my guts! And it's only been that way since IBD came along, before I got sick I used to be able to eat big chunks of coconut with zero issues whatsoever. Let's see, what else... I can't do beef nor dairy either, but that's because I lack the enzymes needed to break those down properly, so I don't think that's related to the IBD necessarily (I have been lactose intolerant for like 10 years longer than I've had the presumed IBD, and I haven't eaten beef since I was something like 14 years old and I'm 35 now, only had the IBD for 6 years). Those are the main things that I just cannot digest. I hope that helps?
 
Thanks for the welcome.

For me, constipation might mean not going at all for a day or two, despite trying. After three days with no poop I've taken to taking a laxative, so it doesn't go much longer than that. (Although even with laxatives it can be hard to pass a movement.)

Sometimes, instead of no poop I'll just have a very small amount of poop that's hard to get out over multiple movements. Today I literally just let out one small ball of poop, even though I tried to go on several other occasions. Yesterday I had about three bowel movements, each with 1-3 balls. The day before that, nothing. Friday was a bad D day, so now I've had three days of C or at least semi-constipation. The C cycles tend to be longer than the D, which mostly works for me.

I have read that D/C cycles can happen with IBS, but I haven't really seen an explanation for why this happens. Then again, IBS in general doesn't have an explanation so I guess this isn't much different.
 
@Cat - I can't really say if I'm cat or dog person - I'm more a parrot person! :p I do love animals though. Any animal makes me happy. When I used to go through lots of crying spells when I was a teenager, and I was home on my own, my parrot used to pick up on and suddenly became very needy and cute and always made me smile! He does think I'm his mum though. :p
I absolutely love how she got her name! What a beautiful story. Now I want a cat. My OH wouldn't let me as he is a dog person, through and through!

Let's hope those veggies stay put! Well, you know what I mean!

Ouch! I am the same with seeds (linseeds, any seeds, even goddamn strawberries!), I've noticed in the last few days that I cannot digest quinoa, like even full bits. Not just the curly bit that you can't digest, ALL of it. It sucks. I suck digesting most vegetables too, like spinach, lettuce, peppers - but I still eat them. Peppers are probably the worst, and nuts do the clinking down my intestines too. No matter how much I chew them, they'll always be pieces! It's funny how we're all the greatest inspectors of our own poop these days. :) I don't think I even did this as a kid! (Apart from the 2 times I found blood when I was younger). Somehow I think insoluble fibre seems to plug me for a bit, then all of a sudden, WOOOSH! (sorry about the sound affects :lol: )

@CatLady42 - I'm exactly the same. Poop over loads of different movements. You sound exactly the same as me. My stool has suddenly turned hard again, think I'm going to have to start some of the Laxido I have again, just one sachet though as laxatives generally instantly (even if they're not meant to) give me diarrhoea.

Update on my Venlafaxine - I took one pill and I'm surprised I kept it down. They made me feel super sick. They are horrible. I remember this from before when I was trying to get off them. Although, they were the reason my weight plummeted so low before, so I'm going to have to keep an eye on that.
Also been taking Buscopan cramps and they don't seem to be doing much, but also make me feel sick too! (I took these before Venlafaxine and they made me sick during the day, but I took the AD's at night and they made me almost throw up!)
Argh, I hate meds sometimes!
 
Cat - I had a friend who's dog was on Prozac, it was a great thing for him! HOpe the meds work for your cat, too.

Megan - I totally agree that all those changes would upset a "normal" tummy too. I tried acupuncture, too, but my insurance wasn't covering it so I had stop as it ran to costly. I wasn't sure if it was helping or not.

CatLady - sorry I missed welcoming you earlier!

Kelleh - did the meds ever "calm down" and stop causing you nausea? that sounds like no fun!
 
@Wildmtnhoney - Funny you should ask that actually. I had no problems with nausea and my AD's at first, for the whole time I was on it and even when I first taking it. The problems started when I started to taper off of them, and I started to feel sick all the time, and every time I took 1 or half, whatever dosage I was on, I'd get extreme nausea for an hour or so afterwards. Now I'm back on it, even at the lowest dose, I'm feeling sick again. I'm guessing it has something to do with the fact my body was so addicted to it at one point. Buscopan doesn't seem to be making me sick any more, but I have a new weird discomforting feeling in my left side where it usually hurts!

EDIT: I only get the nausea from the AD if I have eaten - if I haven't eaten, I can say goodbye to all my stomach acid, so I have to be careful!
 
Kelleh, I'm not a parrot person but I used to have a cockatiel and he had such a big, funny personality so I can see what you mean. :) Birds tend not to like me though, it's like birds always pick one person to love and it's never me. :p I got my cockatiel back in college, my roommate and I got an off-campus apartment and they said the only pets we were allowed to have were birds and fish. So we got some goldfish but they were really boring, so then we got our cockatiel, Chirpey (we couldn't think of a good name, ha ha). My roommate was not the most diligent person ever when it came to things like cleaning and chores, so I ended up being the one to give Chirpey a bath, take him to the groomer to get his wings clipped, clean his cage, etc. As a result, I think Chirpey associated me with unpleasant things like having a bath and having to go get his wings clipped, and my roommate never did any of those things, so he chose to love my roommate and was rather indifferent towards me. When I graduated and moved out, I let my roommate keep Chirpey since I think it would have broken his little bird heart to be away from her. That was the only time I've ever owned a bird. I've bird-sat for others' birds though and they never like me either! In particular, my uncle had a horrible little lovebird (which was appropriately named Tiny Satan) and that bird hated me with a passion. I bird-sat for Tiny Satan a handful of times but it was always very trying. Honestly, part of why I got a cat was so that I wouldn't have to bird-sit that horrible little bird anymore! :p My in-laws also had a horrible little quaker parrot which bit me, hard, whenever it had the chance (that bird only liked my mother-in-law, it tolerated men but it hated all women who weren't her). That bird ended up dying a rather untimely death and I was not sad one bit about it. So yeah, anyway, that was rambly but I can see how you could be a parrot person if it was a friendly and not horrible bird since I know that birds can be very intelligent and have big personalities - sadly my experience is that I haven't met a bird who liked me and I'm solidly not a bird person!

My cat is pretty much what you described your bird as being like. My cat seems to know when I'm not feeling well, and she'll come and sit near me and just keep an eye on me to make sure I'm okay. Sometimes she'll purr softly for me too. It's very comforting even if she's not overtly cuddly. She's very subtle in showing that she cares for me and worries about me. Oh, and the other thing she does, she always follows me into the bathroom. That's a great comfort and distraction if I'm having a rough time on the toilet! Once again, my hubby thinks it's weird that the cat always wants to come into the bathroom with me, but whatever, he's weird. :p

Yeah, I don't think I ever really inspected my poo when I was a kid. I do recall that I had recurrent anal fissures in college and I think high school as well, so that's probably as early as I started inspecting my own poo. These days though I'm like a poo detective! :p What is this chunk in my poo? Let's see, let's look at the clues. What did I eat today or yesterday that is this color? What did I eat that's out of the ordinary for me? Oh, I know, it's mushrooms! ;) And oh gosh, insoluble fiber doesn't plug me up at all - just the opposite, it goes through me very quickly but it seems to cause me bleeding as it does. That time that I was bleeding every day for a whole month? It was set off by me eating shredded wheat cereal - whole grain and high fiber, yikes! It all came out of me like 2 hours later but then I bled every day for a month straight. The only thing that seems to stop me up is medication (Zofran usually) or very rarely cheese will actually stop me up for a bit. I shouldn't have cheese (lactose intolerant) but I do sometimes anyway because it's delicious.

The steamed broccoli and cauliflower lunch was largely a success. It did make me a bit gassy, but I was expecting that. And other than the gas, I had no trouble at all. My guts are far less crampy and grumbly today - still a tiny bit of unsettled-ness in the guts, but things are vastly improved over yesterday, plus no more blood which is definitely a good thing. And hey, I managed to go to the gym yesterday (cardio) and I'm going again today (weights) so I'm doing okay. :) As long as I can get my workouts in, I'm doing pretty well.
 
I think you'd be surprised with my bird. He is such a woman's bird. He will get all scared of men, until he sees my relationship with them and how I react to them. But, we took him to the vet once, and because all of them were female, he was such a cutie apparently. Although, his favourite woman to pick on and love was my Nan, he was always trying to get her attention. Cockatiels are cute though! My godfather used to have one, and it used to say 'who's a pretty boy?'. Charlie (my African Grey) says a lot of different things, but he says it in a human voice, so sometimes when you're on your own, it's a little scary when you suddenly hear a gruff males voice!

Animals know when their humans are sick. I've seen a lot of cases with this in both cats and dogs. It's so cute. Actually shows their appreciation of their owners. I think I'd get a little worried and uneasy if a cat followed me in the toilet! Although, my parrot had to come in with me once as I couldn't let him roam on his own upstairs because I was scared he was going to fall down the stairs. Little munchkin decided to climb up my bare leg while I was on it though. :lol:

I had haemorrhoids when I was younger, or supposedly. That's when I saw the blood. I don't remember the extent of the blood. I just remember the A&E doctor checking internally and coming to the conclusion that I had haemorrhoids. But, now I have them a lot, plus multiple fissures in all positions, and they don't make me bleed! So, that confuses me a little.

Wow, that sounds dangerous! I don't think certain foods make me bleed, or at least not much that I've paid attention to. Quinoa is one of those ones that hurts though, and definitely does not come out digested. :lol:

Glad to hear that! Glad to hear you managing the gym too! I also went yesterday, but I am only allowing 45 minutes to try and get the 'bug' again, and to not be too dangerous on my gut. 45 minutes though did hurt. I blame the cross trainer. What sorts of exercises upset your gut?
 
So tomorrow is my x-ray. Is it strange that I'm hoping for it to show something so that I'll be taken seriously finally?

I'm starting to worry about Barrett's Esophagus and pre-cancerous cells and whatnot, because I've had this for a long-ish time EVERY. SINGLE. DAY.

If it doesn't show anything I'll have to fight and argue to get a pH test and I just don't really have the energy for that.

And I just really don't want to live like this anymore. I want to feel better!

Oh well, I shouldn't be so negative. It might show something. If it doesn't I think I'm finally ready to pay out of pocket for private care so that things will get done...
 
Izzie, don't worry yourself too much with cancer. It's quite rare for somebody your age to find pre-cancerous cells. Just try and relax. We are all in the same boat - pain every single day for a long time. You're not alone, and we'll be here for you. Sending hugs.
 
kellehbeans said:
Izzie, don't worry yourself too much with cancer. It's quite rare for somebody your age to find pre-cancerous cells. Just try and relax. We are all in the same boat - pain every single day for a long time. You're not alone, and we'll be here for you. Sending hugs.
Click to expand...

Thanks :)

Oh you know what else? A funny/infuriating moment today. I was visiting a relative who asked how I was. Sick of talking about being sick, I told him I was okay, doing a little better (which compared to how I felt this past spring, I am). And he told me that it's probably because I've been working so much, so I don't have "all that time to worry and make yourself sick with stress".

I wanted to throttle him :voodoo:

Just because I on some days when I feel better and am busy try my damndest to forget that I still feel terrible - DOESN'T MEAN THAT MY ILLNESS IS ALL IN MY HEAD!!!

God I wish people would shut up about things that are none of their freaking concern and that they have no actual knowledge about whatsoever.
 
BTW has anyone done an x-ray where you have to drink barium? Should I expect to feel like crap after? Apparently the drink also has sorbitol in it which was also in the stuff I drank before my MRI that made me have the worst case of instant D ever.

And I have plans a few hours after my appointment, so I'm concerned...
 
Izzie said:
Thanks :)

Oh you know what else? A funny/infuriating moment today. I was visiting a relative who asked how I was. Sick of talking about being sick, I told him I was okay, doing a little better (which compared to how I felt this past spring, I am). And he told me that it's probably because I've been working so much, so I don't have "all that time to worry and make yourself sick with stress".

I wanted to throttle him :voodoo:

Just because I on some days when I feel better and am busy try my damndest to forget that I still feel terrible - DOESN'T MEAN THAT MY ILLNESS IS ALL IN MY HEAD!!!

God I wish people would shut up about things that are none of their freaking concern and that they have no actual knowledge about whatsoever.
Click to expand...

I think I would have throttled him. My parents annoy me when they say 'you've been a bit better lately'. I just shout, 'no, I'm sick of saying I'm sick!'. But understand the throttling part. Stupid people.

:rosette1:

Nobody has actually really replied to my thread I made earlier, but has anybody had like a 'butterfly' feeling or a nervous feeling in one concentrated area? It's not so much painful, just VERY uncomfortable and I'm PRETTY sure it is not wind.
 
Kelleh, no idea on the butterfly-ish feeling, sorry

Izzie, I did a barium swallow, and yeah, it gave me D :(. Not instant, but shortly after we were all done. And it's weird, because it turns your stool WHITE. So, white D for the rest of the day was what I had.
 

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