IBS or something else?

[yorkiemom03]

In May 2008, my husband started having pains in his back. He had pains like that before and it ended up being a kidney stone. It took 3-4 ER visits and finally being referred to a specialist before the specialist finally found the kidney stone. So we initially thought it was kidney stones again. The pain moved from his back to his stomach and he became extremely nauseated. After numerous tests, it was determined that it was not kidney stones. It was his galbladder. It was full of stones. The GI doctor recommended taking it out, but the surgeon said "It's not inflammed, I don't think that's whats causing him problems" But the GI doctor insisted that was the problem so the surgeon removed his galbladder. He went home the next day, a Sunday. By Tuesday he was in pain and nausea again. My mother is a nurse and she took him back to the ER. The ER doctor did not want to help him, couldn't find anything on lab work or scans to show why he was sick. But because my mom is friends with his primary care doctor, she was able to get the primary care doctor (who was on vacation at the time) to call the ER doctor and told the ER doctor to admit him. My husband, Tony, spent a week in the hospital on pain/nausea meds and antibiotics. He got better and came home. 2 weeks later he was in the same shape... This went on from May 2008 - November 2008. We saw numerous doctors who had no answers. He was admitted to Vanderbilt University Medical Center and they finally ruled out everything except Irritable Bowel Syndrome. They made him a new appointment with a new GI doctor at Vandy. In December 2008, the new GI doctor, Dr. Eric Sumner, put my husband on 2 medicines- Symax and Doxepin. Our insurance requires generics on medicines when it is available. But the pharmacy did not have the generic for Symax so he was given brand name. It took a few weeks but he started improving. In January 2009, he had a follow up visit with Dr. Sumner. He gave Tony refills on the Symax and Doxepin. By this time, the pharmacy had the generic in for Symax so the generic was what was filled. After 2 days of being on the generic for it, he was getting sick again. We called Dr. Sumner who thought that maybe Tony just was one of those people who needed to be on the brand name of the drug. So he talked to the insurance and it was approved and Tony started taking brand name Symax instead of the generic. From February/March 2009 - January 2010 my husband was okay. He had some bouts of pain and nausea but nothing that was severe enough to require an ER visit or hospitaliztion. In January 2010, he started getting sick again. It got bad enough that he had to go to the ER. They admitted him finally and the GI doctor decided that maybe Tony's body had built up a tolerance to the Doxepin so he was switched to Effexor. It was a rough January-March 2010 but he did end up leveling out. He had another "flare up" in July 2010, but the ER doctor gave him IV meds and he did get better. In November my husband got sick again and required a week's stay in the hospital. He came home and was doing better. On November 30, 2010 we had a huge fight and the following day he was extremely ill again. And since December 1st he has been in Vanderbilt pretty much the whole time. They get him better and send him home, but he usually only stays home a few days. This last time he got out he got out Friday and was okay until Thursday. Thursday he started feeling sick again. He took an immediate release morphine tab that they gave him when was discharged last time. And that seemed to help him. Yesterday we were to go to my mother's house to take some things that we were donating to my cousin, whose house burneed down at the beginning of this month. But he got sick... So I took him to a different ER hoping for a 2nd opinion, but all that ER doctor did was give him 1 shot of a small dose of pain medicine and 2 shots of an antispasam medicine and sent him home and pretty much accused him of being addicted to narcotics. So we came home and tried to manage it ourselves but he barely slept last night and just was not getting any better and wasn't eating or drinking any water. So I just took him to Vanderbilt again and came home because I just couldn't bare to sit there with him. Is it IBS or could they be missing something? He is 6ft 2in, 390 pounds, diabetic. He's had upper and lower GI scopes, CT scans, X-rays, etc. The only 2 tests that haven't been done are an MRI and an ERCP. And if it is just IBS what can we do to control it? He started on Remeron 45 mg at bedtime in December 2010.


This discussion is related to nausea and vomiting after lap cholecystectomy.

[Myown]

Oh okay.. Yes, my Mother too. Her pain got so bad ( she had cancer) and no one even thought to send her to a GI doctor. They would do CT's every few months and didn't see tumors in the stomach, so they figured no stomach cancer..

She was in such pain and she was very strong so to see her not able to move and the nausea, I figured what if its the lining of the stomach , would that show? I thought not.
So I told her I wanted to get her IBS checked out by a GI doc. I didn't tell her I suspected cancer. He did biopsy of the stomach and sure enough. And imagine that, Top Oncologists, Top Hospital and no one thought to send her to a GI for biopsy. He did say what I had thought - the Scans would not have shown the cancer on the lining. I said well tell these genius Oncologists you have here.. He was upset that she hadn't been sent to a GI doctor before this, but she died shortly after.

But now she suffers no more and for that I thank God for that.

I hope you find answers soon and glad cancer was ruled out. Thats a relief for you guys but no answers and still having pain is not easy to deal with..
I wish you the best. Please let us know when you do find out and I hope thats soon..

[yorkiemom03]

Yes, both have been done. His mother died from colon cancer and it took them a long time to find it and by the time they found it it was too late.

[Myown]

Ooops, I do see you mentioned it at the end of the post..

[Myown]

Nobody has done an Endoscopy/ biopsy? Sorry if I missed that in the post if he did have one, but I didn't see it...