Re: Please Help Right Side Abdominal Pain

Posted By Amei on September 08, 1998 at 20:33:12:

In Reply to: Please Help Right Side Abdominal Pain posted by Crystal on September 08, 1998 at 19:39:04:







I completely sympathize with you although what I have experienced may not be very helpful.  I awoke at about 1:00 in the morning with severe pain just under my breast bone and what felt like an extreme cramp or spasm just under my right shoulder blade next to the spine.  There was nothing I could do to ease the pain.  I wanted to cry but even that made it hurt worse.   I was in unbearable pain for about 3 1/2 hours before I finally found something to decrease the pain enough to let me sleep.  I took Pepto-Bismol and 1000 mg of ibuprofen (the strongest stuff I had in the house) and used ice packs on my back.  
The next day I started going to doctors trying to find out what was going on.  Several doctors thought it might be a gall bladder problem so I went through x-rays, blood tests and ultra sound tests.  Although the ultrasound and x-rays do show I have gall stones these can be present without symptoms and nothing else indicates a problem.  My blood work was fine, there is no problem with gall bladder or liver function and no indication of inflammation.  Also, my symptoms (pain in the middle, pain on an empty stomach which stops when I eat) don't coincide with the typical symptoms for gall bladder disease (pain on the right side just under the ribs, tenderness in the same area, intermittent pain that gets worse after eating).  
None of the many doctors I've seen really wants to look for anything else.  I was told to have the gall bladder removed because "the surgery is just so easy these days."  (sorry, doctor, but I just didn't consider your convenience when thinking about whether or not to let you operate on me)
I have a friend who was mis-diagnosed for years before they finally removed her gall bladder.  They kept saying that it just couldn't be gall bladder because she was so young (she was in her early 20's at the time).  Her symptoms matched the classical symptoms of  gall stones but the doctors didn't want to see that.  The surgery fixed the problem for her.  
I ran into someone else over the weekend that suggested I research a hiatal hernia so I'm doing that right now.  
Don't take 'it's all in your head' for an answer.  Some doctors tend to do that when they don't immediately recognize the problem, especially when the patient is female.  
I agree with you that this is no way to live.  I wish you the best in your search for answers.  I will be checking back to see if anyone else could help out.