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ongoing abdominal pain, chest pain and back pain
Digestive Health | Last Active: Aug 10, 2023 | Replies (4)Comment receiving replies
I didn't have an infection in my gallbladder. Instead, the gallbladder was failing. There can be a genetic component to gallbladder problems (my dad and 3 of my grandparents had their gallbladder removed). For women, pregnancy or being on hormone birth control can be a cause of gallbladder attacks. Rapid or substantial weight loss can also be a cause of gallbladder attacks. My family history and being on hormone birth control should have been a clue to my gastroenterologist. The GERD diagnosis didn't make sense because I could, at times, eat GERD trigger foods and have no reaction. I was given the h-pylori test and the result was negative. As the vast majority of reflux is caused by that bacteria, a negative test result should have been an additional clue to my doctor that it was an incorrect diagnosis.
As the years went by, my pain stopped being diffuse and, instead, hurt in my upper right abdominal quadrant and directly behind that in my back. It also sometimes radiated into my shoulder blade. I had a nightmare gallbladder attack one night at a wedding when I ate shrimp scampi. My attacks involved intense nausea and a loose stomach. Some attacks also caused vomitting.
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@msb18 , I am sorry to hear that you have to endure that intense pain and complications. Comparing to yours, mine has not caused serious complication yet. However, considering that I was very healthy individual except for back pain before my abdominal began, I want to make the best effort to take care of myself. And that is why I am on this forum. It has been very interesting journey to learn about abdominal pains and how people deal with them. It is also so interesting how there are so many cases where doctors are powerless to help patients or misdiagnose patient like you.
Since last month I have been written health journal to collect my health data to see if there is any distinguishing pattern related to my abdominal pain and back pain. Eventually, I am going to write a program to more easily collect the data (I am currently using excel to keep the health journal).
I am gonna use this data to help my doctor to navigate to find cause of my health issue. My doctor has already gave up on me because he think I am physically healthy except for gastritis according to all the test he had done on me. However, I found that doctors do need more clear and accurate answers from patients (such as what time exactly pain occurred and they ate) in order for the doctors to diagnose better. Since I learned about the facts from my friend (she is a pharmacist), I decided to help myself and doctors to diagnose me better.
Have you changed your diets since you found the cause of the pains?
I recently started to change my diet. First I am cutting sugar out then meats, greasy food and eventually want to try elimination diet to see if food is making the pain worse. Since gallbladder pain is often caused by certain food, I am trying to self diagnose myself by changing diets. I know cutting sugar out makes non sense to my current pain but I am doing it just to enhance my overall health condition.
Eventually I am going to see a doctor with data i collected. Thank you for sharing about the gallbladder failure. I didn't know about it until you mentioned.