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Alcohol, stomach discomfort and long term health problems
I hope someone can help me with my strange permanent symptoms that i have had for the past 3 years.
I am a 33 year old male. From 18 to 30 years of age i would describe myself as a reasonably heavy social drinker, probably around 50 units a week. Despite this i always found that i rarely suffered from hangovers and it was not uncommon for me to go jogging the morning following a night on the booze to run off any slight hangover i may have had. I was actually quite fit, and when i was 30 ran two half marathons.
3 years ago i joined the police service. The training for this meant spending 15 weeks at a residential camp. There was little to do there, and everyone's routine was to spend the evening in the onsite bar. It was also extremely stressful. The food during the 15 weeks was terrible, poor quality canteen grub and not much of it. Every evening to relieve the boredom i would get fairly drunk, probably drinking around 6-7 pints of lager. Every morning was an early start, and i was frequently tired from spending so much time in the bar the night before that most days meant i drank around 5-6 cans of diet coke to keep me alert. Weekends we came home, but this meant seeing friends and socialising so i would go out drinking at weekends also. This meant over the 15 weeks, i probably did not miss an evening where i wasn't fairly drunk, ate rubbish food , drunk countless diet coke. Despite this i kept my fitness levels up and jogged every day.
This is where my problems started. Towards the end of this 15 weeks i woke up one morning and felt terrible. I was strangely out of breath doing simple things, just getting out of bed. I felt really rough, like i was really over exerted. It was the same sort of feeling i would get after a really long 2 hour jog or something, the same sense of exertion - but i hadn't done anything. I had a strange uncomfortable full fulling in my upper stomach. I was also having ectopic heart beats.
I went to a doctor that day i felt so bad, and he sent me for an immediate heart echo cardiogram at the hospital. This came back normal.
As i was leaving the camp a few days later to go home, my doctor recommended seeing my home gp.
Before i went home for good the last day of the training course meant a fitness test. I went to bed that evening and for the first time didn't go to the bar as i still felt rough. I thought in the morning i would feel ok. However, when i woke up i didn't. I felt exactly the same, easily out of breath, totally exerted and generally feeling under the weather.
I tried jogging this day, and it was bizarre. I just couldn't do it. I was out of breath bending down to put my trainers on.
Basically i returned home and over the course of the next year i must have been back to my GP around 20 times about the above problems. My ectopic beats settled down after a few weeks. My tests have involved an ultrasound on my stomach, ECG's, blood tests for everything as far as i know, i have been referred to the infectious diseases clinic, been put on Prozac (they thought it was all in my head).
I eventually gave up going to my GP, as he basically said there was nothing else they could test me for.
Three years on my symptoms are as follows:
1) I am not breathless anymore. I do jog now regularly but find it far more tiring than i ever did. Half an hour is my limit.
2) I have a permanent upper abdomen 'raw' feeling and always feel below par. I know this is vague but i find it difficult to be more specific.
3) if i drink alcohol now, i feel absolutely TERRIBLE for days after. Even if i drink small amounts i will feel rough for a couple of days, nauseous and totally drained of energy.
4) Some days my upper stomach pain feels much worse than offers. However it never seems to be related to hunger/no hunger, or what i have eaten.
My question is really, did my alcohol consumption cause permanent damage to some area of my body? Could it also have been related to my lifestyle at the time? Is it impossible to detect?
The reason i am posting this is because even 3 years on i remember that i used to feel a lot better than i do know in general day to day life. It's incredibly frustrating. I drink rarely now as i feel too ill when i do.
I have a very healthy diet with plenty of fruit and veg. I have tried vitamins, milk thistle, various supplements, all to seemingly no affect.
Can anyone shed any light or what i might have done to myself and how on earth i could go forward?
I am a 33 year old male. From 18 to 30 years of age i would describe myself as a reasonably heavy social drinker, probably around 50 units a week. Despite this i always found that i rarely suffered from hangovers and it was not uncommon for me to go jogging the morning following a night on the booze to run off any slight hangover i may have had. I was actually quite fit, and when i was 30 ran two half marathons.
3 years ago i joined the police service. The training for this meant spending 15 weeks at a residential camp. There was little to do there, and everyone's routine was to spend the evening in the onsite bar. It was also extremely stressful. The food during the 15 weeks was terrible, poor quality canteen grub and not much of it. Every evening to relieve the boredom i would get fairly drunk, probably drinking around 6-7 pints of lager. Every morning was an early start, and i was frequently tired from spending so much time in the bar the night before that most days meant i drank around 5-6 cans of diet coke to keep me alert. Weekends we came home, but this meant seeing friends and socialising so i would go out drinking at weekends also. This meant over the 15 weeks, i probably did not miss an evening where i wasn't fairly drunk, ate rubbish food , drunk countless diet coke. Despite this i kept my fitness levels up and jogged every day.
This is where my problems started. Towards the end of this 15 weeks i woke up one morning and felt terrible. I was strangely out of breath doing simple things, just getting out of bed. I felt really rough, like i was really over exerted. It was the same sort of feeling i would get after a really long 2 hour jog or something, the same sense of exertion - but i hadn't done anything. I had a strange uncomfortable full fulling in my upper stomach. I was also having ectopic heart beats.
I went to a doctor that day i felt so bad, and he sent me for an immediate heart echo cardiogram at the hospital. This came back normal.
As i was leaving the camp a few days later to go home, my doctor recommended seeing my home gp.
Before i went home for good the last day of the training course meant a fitness test. I went to bed that evening and for the first time didn't go to the bar as i still felt rough. I thought in the morning i would feel ok. However, when i woke up i didn't. I felt exactly the same, easily out of breath, totally exerted and generally feeling under the weather.
I tried jogging this day, and it was bizarre. I just couldn't do it. I was out of breath bending down to put my trainers on.
Basically i returned home and over the course of the next year i must have been back to my GP around 20 times about the above problems. My ectopic beats settled down after a few weeks. My tests have involved an ultrasound on my stomach, ECG's, blood tests for everything as far as i know, i have been referred to the infectious diseases clinic, been put on Prozac (they thought it was all in my head).
I eventually gave up going to my GP, as he basically said there was nothing else they could test me for.
Three years on my symptoms are as follows:
1) I am not breathless anymore. I do jog now regularly but find it far more tiring than i ever did. Half an hour is my limit.
2) I have a permanent upper abdomen 'raw' feeling and always feel below par. I know this is vague but i find it difficult to be more specific.
3) if i drink alcohol now, i feel absolutely TERRIBLE for days after. Even if i drink small amounts i will feel rough for a couple of days, nauseous and totally drained of energy.
4) Some days my upper stomach pain feels much worse than offers. However it never seems to be related to hunger/no hunger, or what i have eaten.
My question is really, did my alcohol consumption cause permanent damage to some area of my body? Could it also have been related to my lifestyle at the time? Is it impossible to detect?
The reason i am posting this is because even 3 years on i remember that i used to feel a lot better than i do know in general day to day life. It's incredibly frustrating. I drink rarely now as i feel too ill when i do.
I have a very healthy diet with plenty of fruit and veg. I have tried vitamins, milk thistle, various supplements, all to seemingly no affect.
Can anyone shed any light or what i might have done to myself and how on earth i could go forward?
Symptoms of Gastritis is fullness after eating small amounts of food. Discomfort, pain in the upper abdomen, just above of the belly button. Tiredness, fatigue, bloating, gas and just a feeling like something is pressing on your upper abdomen.
Keep in touch and again I hope you get better.
regards
Keep in touch and again I hope you get better.
regards
What you seem to have is Gastritis. It is the immflamation of the stomach and is hugly corallated to alchol usage. Alcohol destroys the stomach lining and it is directly absorbed. Alcohol causes acid to form in the stomach and your systoms are textbook of Gastritis.
Hope you get well.
Hope you get well.
i get woken up by an irritaion in the abdomen evry morning this has been going on for some time now ,when i get out of bed it all disappears when i get back and sleep it comes again ...for the rest of the day i feel sick bloated and weak, been to the Gp done various tests initially i had hyplori which i was given anti biotics for and tests doe after idicated that the bacteria wass off what to now,Gp say i have gastrititis given me several medication bt no change
this sound like IBS I used to experince the same thing aftr drinking only red wine since i have stopped drinking red wine and fizzy drinks my stomach is not blotted and the stomach crapps are gone if i do drink the above i do take colafac which releave these symptoms
Hi all,
I found this site purely as i was also trying to find out what is wrong with me! I have always been able to drink a lot as I am a very tall female and played rugby etc and and so am used to drinking.
About 3 months ago I woke up one day and I thought my heart was jumping ans skipping beats - I got more and more panicked until I drove myself to hospital. They did all of the tests on me and they were all normal and all I got was a lecture on how to cope with "panic attacks" and "stress". I have never been so happy as I am now so I just don't get it - as I have been so much more stressed in the past. Also I am an ex-cop (for my sins) but just proving I can cope with stress!
They did ECGs everything - it wasn't my heart that was fluttering - and now I have realised it is actually in my stomach. It is a feeling like butterflies like when you are excited - but sometimes it is so bad I get dizzy and feel like I am going to feint! But I am NOT stressed! I have now had to cut my alcohol right back and sure enough if I don't have alcohol for a few days, I don't get the feeling - my doctor said just don't drink alcohol anymore! That was a great help! Maybe it is all related to the nervous system but am very interested if this is just something I should ignore or if it is a symptom of something more scary! xx
I found this site purely as i was also trying to find out what is wrong with me! I have always been able to drink a lot as I am a very tall female and played rugby etc and and so am used to drinking.
About 3 months ago I woke up one day and I thought my heart was jumping ans skipping beats - I got more and more panicked until I drove myself to hospital. They did all of the tests on me and they were all normal and all I got was a lecture on how to cope with "panic attacks" and "stress". I have never been so happy as I am now so I just don't get it - as I have been so much more stressed in the past. Also I am an ex-cop (for my sins) but just proving I can cope with stress!
They did ECGs everything - it wasn't my heart that was fluttering - and now I have realised it is actually in my stomach. It is a feeling like butterflies like when you are excited - but sometimes it is so bad I get dizzy and feel like I am going to feint! But I am NOT stressed! I have now had to cut my alcohol right back and sure enough if I don't have alcohol for a few days, I don't get the feeling - my doctor said just don't drink alcohol anymore! That was a great help! Maybe it is all related to the nervous system but am very interested if this is just something I should ignore or if it is a symptom of something more scary! xx
Hi Guys
I have had the same symptoms with the digestive problems, ill feeling and reaction to excersize or iniitally reaction to any movement. These were brought on by excess in my life, through a very stressful job, physical strain from being a semi professional marathon mountainbiker and overindulging in food and alcohol (socially).
After having all sorts of tests and done loads of research myself, I believe what I have is a mixture of anxiety and digestive issues. I believe the digestive issues are driven from an imballance of bad bascteria and dysfunction from this and over stress. To fight this, I have found resetting my diet with help of a dietitian and eliminating all foods that can cause unease in the stomach is key. slowly reintroduce foods and see what brings on problems. At the same time figthing the bad bacteria with probiotics and drinking lots of water to keep flushing the kidneys and helping them cope as your digestive system slowly resets and believe me this is slow.
Secondly I believe that due to the link to the nervous system and the gut, I believe that these digestive issues were sending warning signals through to the brain and causing anxiety as these were so strong and not normal to me. The event of this happening which was peaked one night at spin class sent my anxiety and stress levels over the edge and caused a panic attack. With this hightened level of anxiety, I had a couple of more panic attacks. what I needed to do here was work to remove the anxiety withcalming excersizes, yoga, only once I completely calmed down, could I actually pinpoint the stomach nervous signals and address them.
I believe what I have, which sounds very similar to some of the posts here, is a mixture of these two things and you need to be dealing with both, however the first thing that worked for me was telling myself I was not dying or had some weird disease and actually bring myself back into control and stop focusing on the bad feelings.
I believe the high level of alert my body was on, was the reason I was struggling to do normal things and as soon as I tried to train, I was struggling to breath and felt ill. I am now back to training and just enjoyed my first session at high intensity.
Unfortuantely I believe this thing is something I will always have to manage and as someone was saying, as you get older, you just need to learn what the body can tolerate to allow you to still do the things you want and unfortunately for me, it has meant reducing my drinking culture and stress to ensure I can still race my bicycle.
Not sure if this will help for anyone else, but I thought to put my story up here as at one point I felt like my life was seriously over and now I am far better than I was and canpretty much function as before with a few adjustments.
I have had the same symptoms with the digestive problems, ill feeling and reaction to excersize or iniitally reaction to any movement. These were brought on by excess in my life, through a very stressful job, physical strain from being a semi professional marathon mountainbiker and overindulging in food and alcohol (socially).
After having all sorts of tests and done loads of research myself, I believe what I have is a mixture of anxiety and digestive issues. I believe the digestive issues are driven from an imballance of bad bascteria and dysfunction from this and over stress. To fight this, I have found resetting my diet with help of a dietitian and eliminating all foods that can cause unease in the stomach is key. slowly reintroduce foods and see what brings on problems. At the same time figthing the bad bacteria with probiotics and drinking lots of water to keep flushing the kidneys and helping them cope as your digestive system slowly resets and believe me this is slow.
Secondly I believe that due to the link to the nervous system and the gut, I believe that these digestive issues were sending warning signals through to the brain and causing anxiety as these were so strong and not normal to me. The event of this happening which was peaked one night at spin class sent my anxiety and stress levels over the edge and caused a panic attack. With this hightened level of anxiety, I had a couple of more panic attacks. what I needed to do here was work to remove the anxiety withcalming excersizes, yoga, only once I completely calmed down, could I actually pinpoint the stomach nervous signals and address them.
I believe what I have, which sounds very similar to some of the posts here, is a mixture of these two things and you need to be dealing with both, however the first thing that worked for me was telling myself I was not dying or had some weird disease and actually bring myself back into control and stop focusing on the bad feelings.
I believe the high level of alert my body was on, was the reason I was struggling to do normal things and as soon as I tried to train, I was struggling to breath and felt ill. I am now back to training and just enjoyed my first session at high intensity.
Unfortuantely I believe this thing is something I will always have to manage and as someone was saying, as you get older, you just need to learn what the body can tolerate to allow you to still do the things you want and unfortunately for me, it has meant reducing my drinking culture and stress to ensure I can still race my bicycle.
Not sure if this will help for anyone else, but I thought to put my story up here as at one point I felt like my life was seriously over and now I am far better than I was and canpretty much function as before with a few adjustments.
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