Periodic gut pain, salivating & nausea

I am 52, male and active.
Periodically I get a really sharp pain in the lower left quadrant of my gut.  
It doubles me over and I have severe diarrhea.
It also makes me salivate profusely and occasionally I throw up.
Once I have evacuated the pain, salivating and nausea goes away.
I have kept logs but couldn't pin down a culprit.

It has happened every 6 months or so for the last 25 years.
If anything it may be increasing in frequency  but not much.  
A few years ago I had a whole raft of tests but nothing was found.
It didn't fit into IBS and the only theory was stress or food related.

Its a tough one as by the time the doctor saw me there is no pain or even tenderness.  
Hard to diagnose something that isn't there.

I would appreciate any ideas/thoughts/theories.  

John

[Boogie8481]

That's strange....it sounds like IBS to me.  Or some sort of food intolerance.  Does it happy when you eat certain foods?  Or does it happen when you are upset or stressed?  It could also be a gluten allergy.  Do eat a lot of bread?  I would have yourself checked again.  Maybe and colonoscopy since the pain is on the left lower quadrant.  That pain is associated with the intestines.  

[JGK55]

I have had a colonoscopy...no problems. (aside from that gallon of stuff I had to drink).
This happens really infrequently and I have tracked my food around these episodes and there seems to be no smoking gun.  I do eat bread but not a huge amount but 99.9% of the time I don't react/have the issue.  Weird.  I'm beginning to think someone has a voodoo doll and a sharp pin.

[39andstillblonde]

John,

I have experienced the same symptoms, 3-4 times total, and each time it woke me in the middle of the night, sharp pain in the pit of my stomach, combined with nausea and severe salivation. My mouth just waters and waters, I feel either hungry or like I'm going to vomit, and the pain is sudden and intense.  The episode lasts 10-15 minutes.  It almost seems like the salivation helps the pain?   I'm learning to wait it out and let the salivating, swallowing the extra saliva, ease the pain but I have no idea what causes these episodes.   Have suspected MSG but it happens so infrequently that I haven't logged anything yet to try to find triggers.   I'm a 39 y-o female, this has happened 3-4 times in the last year and a half or so, I don't take any medications other than occasional ibuprofen (often enough to know it is not the cause), have no health problems that I'm aware of other than needing to lose some weight.  I do have a terrible habit of drinking numerous servings (avg. 5-6 cans) of my favorite diet soda daily,and have for years...have been waiting to see what adverse effect there might be from that...wonder if you have any similar habits?  The soda I like is a diet citrus flavored soda.  

[sandy649ah]

for two years i used sweetener.......the pink sachet one........now i've developed  excessive salivation and nausea with pain in stomach.........i'd say we need to give up chemical sweeteners...........although in keeping track of what else i ate, i found that this occurs more often  whren i eat foods that are high in sulphur....but its probably a sensitivity to the build up of chemicals in the body

[AmJoHi]

I've had the same problem for over 40 years.  

My symptoms start with lower abdominal cramping followed by an increase in salivation and lately vomiting.  I used to be able to keep swallowing until the "wave" passed, but that hasn't been working for me lately.  The entire process ends with a large bowel movement which starts out formed and ends as liquid stool.  

These episodes occur about once a month, last approx 30 min, come on at any time, and are not associated with anything that I eat or drink.  I used to always have an episode with every menstrual cycle but I'm now menopausal and still having the problem.  

My grandmother had the same problem when she was alive, and now my daughter and granddaughter are reporting the same symptoms.  All of us are perfectly healthy with no other medical problems.  

I would love to know what causes this sudden onset of gastric emptying.  Could it be hormonal?  Is it a sudden increase in gastric motility?  Is it something that everyone has and nobody talks about?  I'd certainly love to know.

[DrBumafelt]

I'm a retired MD but not gastroenterologist. I've experienced a syndrome nearly identical to AmJoHi for most of my 65 years. I kept a log to see if I could link the episodes to any foods or activities. The closest correlate was stress, even a time or two occurring during surgery (I was a neurosurgeon), which was both really inconvenient and embarrassing. They tended to follow excessively-rich meals in which I clearly overate, so maybe this is a body's way of telling you not to overload it. I believe these are a form of IBS and nothing more mysterious. I'm curious about a hormonal role, to cause hypersalivation & nausea along with the cramping and diarrhea. There is something in the gut called Substance P about which not too much is known. I suspect it may play a role. I see no value in swallowing the saliva, fearing that would aggravate the nausea. I'm intrigued to watch it flow out out of my mouth like a faucet into the toilet bowl. The most striking correlation I've noted is a dramatic decrease in these attacks after retiring from medicine several years ago. They nearly stopped completely, convincing me that the role of stress is paramount, probably along with heredity.