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Median Arcuate Ligament Syndrome (MALS)

Digestive Health | Last Active: May 6 8:00am | Replies (1159)

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@jmmb

Thanks for your advice. I do have the psychologist appt. scheduled. I used to go actually to my mom's psychologist after she passed. I would see her with dealing with the stress of being a caretaker while my mom was alive, and it was good to talk to her. It was easy since she knew my parents, the history , my surgeries, etc. I just felt like she, the mayo dr. was dismissing my symptoms as real. I have noticed so many MALS patients have gut problems as well.
So if you have continued pain, is it that your artery is still narrowed? Can you still have the pain without it narrowed? Like I said I get confused as to the sIBo and artery pain. I did get the chest pain checked with my pc. She did ekg and it was normal. I think it was from my artery pain.
Thanks for your help.

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Replies to "Thanks for your advice. I do have the psychologist appt. scheduled. I used to go actually..."

@jmmb so this is where it can get confusing, you can have pain from the celiac artery, however once tha is fixed you can have problems with nerve pain, scar tissue and smaller vessels in the area. There really is no good diagnostic test for causes other than stenosis. A negative ekg is good, but a stress echocardiogram would be better, MRI of the heart... there is also a heart cath angiogram... each test is a bit more invasive so you have to weigh the pros and cons. I understand you felt dismissed with the Mayo doctor, I also have been dismissed by many that did not understand the diagnosis, you are made to think it is all in your head! I was told while lying in the hospital that I should never return to my vascular surgeon, to stay as far away as possible, that I needed to learn the difference between acute pain and chronic pain, it has stuck with me. The doctor that told me this, dismissed a CT scan that showed restenosis of my celiac artery, I suffered for a long time before getting the nerve up to tell my awesome vascular surgeon. I ended up having exploratory surgery which showed restenosis of my celiac graft. I am really sorry to hear this is still happening at Mayo, we need better CME education to all the Mayo staff who potentially could see a MALS patient from the doctors that understand MALS.

Have you had a celiac block by chance???

Thank you @kariulrich. . I never was told anything about what you mentioned about the nerve pain or celiac block. I had the angiogram and was told the arteries were good, my pain was not from that so I pursued the sibo. May 2017 I had my ultra sound duplex aorta iliacs bypass grafts. The one where they measure the sound waves. It said : based on systolic velocity this patient high grade stenosis in the celiac and sma arteries, but this is roughly stable compared to prior exam. Now to me that is not reassuring "high grade stenosis" and roughly stable. This is what the Mayo dr. looked at and said its fine then. Now I am curious as to what you are mentioning, maybe there is more to this than I am aware of. Maybe I should get a vascular appt. at Mayo and have their opinion. Maybe there is some nerve pain issues. I know I have a lot of scar tissue as well. This is all so complicated, especially with the sibo....Thank you for your input