Thank you so very much for your reply. To answer your question of how long she has been living with these symptoms, she is 62 years old and had gi symptoms in her 20’s and again in her 30’s. The current symptoms began about one year ago after she had bariatric surgery one year earlier.

They were manageable for a while but for the past 5 months she has had almost daily nausea (not vomiting), cramping that is sometimes severe, slow bowel motility, and occasional headaches.

Depending on which symptoms need attention, she takes triptan for the headaches, Xanax for the nausea (almost daily) and a pain killer (I do not know which one). However, these drugs do not always work.

She has been seen by a neurologist, neuro surgeon , GI specialist, and went back to her bariatric surgeon who had wanted to perform exploratory surgery but she was warned against it.

The four specialists are only somewhat familiar with the vagus nerve and have had no recommendations for treatment.

She is highly intelligent and very conversant with the subject. She has been in therapy for ptsd with the same therapist for over ten years. She has always had bouts of anxiety and depression but lately those mood changes appear to be directly associated with her illness.

She has very limited funds and sent for the TENS stimulator but there is no way to connect the pads to the device. We do not think it is wise for her to use the invasive VNS.

I would like to follow your advice and contact the people listed below but am not certain what the full email address is. Is it: mayoclinicconnect @(and the name you entered?

I am so grateful for your help. I live in Utah and she lives on the coast. I am in daily contact with her and it is difficult to see how much she is suffering.

Hello again Amanda, I found the site again and see that I simply click on the addresses you suggested. Forgive my brain fog!