Small bowel erosion and moderate ascites

Posted by alyssinreality @alyssinreality, Feb 1 6:56am

I am 31f. In October I experienced sudden intense abdominal pain. I had been consitpated a bit before. The pain was so bad I was gagging but didn’t throw up. They did a CT scan in the ER and found signs of “enteritis” and small volume ascites.

The extreme pain didn’t come back and they sent me home. (That was an all day experience. I was nauseous until early evening when they sent me home)

I had some abdominal discomfort here and there the next few months but nothing like that first episode until January 3rd. I had that exact same intense pain. I tried to stick it out and threw up for 10 hours straight. I also had diarrhea this time. I went back to the ER and they did another CT. they found the exact same inflammation in my small intestine in the same pattern. And now the ascites was moderate volume. They even noted that it increased since the first ct scan.

They admitted me and had the GI take a look. They kept me for 3 days and did a colonoscopy with biopsy, endoscopy with no biopsy and a pill cam. The pill cam showed the erosion in the small intestine. They ran tons of stool samples and everything came back negative. No h.pylori or salmonella or any of the other bacterial and viral things. They sent me home.

I’ve followed up with the GI since and they keep saying it could be enteritis from over use of NSAIDs(no matter how many times I tell them I hardly take any painkiller) or a viral enteritis and “maybe the tests were false negative”. As for the ascites, they’re confused because they can’t physically see it. My stomach isn’t distended. I only weigh 128lbs. I’m 5’3. I’m a small person and you’d think the ascites would show. Because of that they just want to wait a month and see if it gets worse. They seem to think the ascites will go away.

(By the way I have no signs of liver issues according to bloodwork, ct and a sonogram). All of my internal organs appear to be normal on scans. But I’ve talked to others who have had ascites and scoured the internet high and low and I can’t find one “okay” reason to have ascites and I’ve been told by others who had it that a wait and see approach seems irresponsible and unheard of.

Help me decide what to do. Should I be pushing for paracentesis?

Interested in more discussions like this? Go to the Digestive Health Support Group.

Still wondering if anyone has heard of ascites of an unknown origin where the doctors choose not to do diagnostic paracentesis. Is that neglectful? Isn’t any moderate volume ascites that is detectable on ultrasound and ct a cause for concern?

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