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Chronic Upper Abdominal Pain without an answer
I have had chronic upper abdominal pain (mostly center and to the left) for about a year. It has worsened over the past 4-5 months and includes nausea, and worsening pain after eating/drinking. I often wake up at night with pain that feels like it is gnawing through to my back. I have a history of small bowel Crohn's (unchanged in years), as well as diagnosis of GERD, LPR and Bile reflux disease. I have been on PPI's for two decades without much relief. I had an EGD in 10/2018 and there was dome bile pooling in the stomach and some focal gastritis. I have fatty liver and a small 'cyst' of the pancreatic tail. I keep telling my GI that I feel that there has been a change since last year and requested another EGD (am scheduled for a colo next week). He states there is no reason to repeat the EGD. He wants to put me on Prozac for "Functional Abdominal Pain." All recent labs have been basically negative; MRCP pretty much benign; uncontrasted CT abdomen in 1/2019 negative. Could use some thoughts on this whole situation. Thanks
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anyone do an abdominal ultrasound to check the gallbladder? I have had similar chronic upper abdominal pain (although the rest of my symptoms are different) and this is my next step. Maybe it is worth asking about?
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2 ReactionsUltra sound was what finally confirmed gallbladder for me..
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3 ReactionsRequest a HIDA scan to test gallbladder function. Hope you find answers/ relief soon.
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2 Reactionsif you have bile reflux its your gall bladder and you need to get it out ASAP it destroyed my life i had the same and waited 4 years to get
it out and it has destroyed my belly and most of my esophagus no longer works and i have to puree most of my food. get the gall bladder out ASAP
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2 ReactionsHi, @loricx3 and welcome to Connect. It sounds as if you have a real consensus here from people who have suffered from similar problems. We are all just patients ourselves, with no medical knowledge beyond what we have learned from personal experiences but it certainly would not hurt to broach the question of gallbladder to your GI.
I never had gallbladder problems so this is not something I am personally familiar with, but I do remember the pain my mother was in from her gallbladder until she had it removed. I never saw her as sick as she was after she ate something fatty. If you are eating fatty things at all I suggest you try to eliminate them and see if that helps. I don't think fatty liver itself would cause your pain. I had fatty liver that lead to cirrhosis but never had pain in my abdomen form it.
Please let us know if you find out the cause of your pain, and if your doctor thinks it could be gallbladder. If he/she does not I would be curious to know how gallbladder was eliminated as a possibility.
JK
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1 ReactionI have had chronic upper abdominal pain across/near lower rib cage for about 1 1/2 years. Pressure, burning, aching, swollen feeling, prickly sharp pains like bees stinging me, etc. Had a carcinoid tumor test Octreatide Scan, ct abdominal with contrast. also facial flushing so had the Mast cell test, Gastrin test, blood work up.....all negative. Feels like nerve or tendons or muscle. Waiting on results of Hida Scan. ....then will probably have abdominal mri....anyone have similar side effects. It really interferes with my life ...debilitating...
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2 Reactions@artgrams - I know what it feels like walking around with such pain and no answers. Abdominal MRI might show something. Did you have endoscopy? Chest CT? You could have referred pain from other areas- like your gallbladder, esophagus and diaphragm. Is your doctor an internist or gastroenterologist? Please keep us up to date after more tests are done.
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2 ReactionsI agree with @astaingegerdm bc that's what I was going to ask as well.... What kind of specialists or Drs are seeing you for all of this? Definitely sounds like nerves and muscle from what you described - maybe osteopathic, neurologist, or even rheumatologist can sometimes get to the bottom of these mysteries, if you already have a good GI and Internist who aren't sure where else to go for you.
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1 ReactionWell sounds like me I have upper right quadrant pain also pain across stomach through to the back like a gnawing pain I was diagnosed with gastroparisis but this pain is not suppose to be pain they associate w GP. Going for ct scan w contrast. They wanted to give me amitriptyline which is an antidepressant for nerve pain I refused I'm not depressed and told them so I wouldn't take the Prozac that is for depression don't let anyone doubt u r pain.
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1 ReactionI'm so sorry you are having so much trouble and hopefully the CT with contrast will prove beneficial. I just wanted to ask how much of a dose was the amitriptyline that they wanted to put you on. I know that a smaller dose does not treat depression, so the only thing it would do would be to relax nerves. My rheumatologist started me on the lowest dose of 5mg, and stressed that it was not being prescribed to me for depression bc he knew that was not his diagnosis, and he said even if it was, that minimum of a dosage would not do anything for depression. Despite all of that, though, I was on it for about 4-6 wks for my body to adjust to the side effects (mainly grogginess), but then he decided to take me off of it bc it wasn't helping that much with pain, and my body wasn't adjusting to the grogginess. He wind up putting me on Gabapentin which was back in November, and it has helped quite a bit (along with diet changes and physical therapy). The gabapentin only took me about 2-3 days to adjust to sleepiness and ever since, I have been fine.