Please help if suggestions.......

Almost 7 weeks ago I was sick with a viral flu which lasted nearly 2 weeks with vomitting. Then I had felt completely wonderful with no symptoms what so ever for nearly 2 weeks. I had came home late from work late one evening shortly around midnight, and fell asleep while watching television. At around 2 am I work up from an excrusiating pain (similar to that of a gallbladder attack, only I had my gallbladder out almost 6 years ago). When I had gotten up out of bed, my body felt so flush to where I just about colapsed, was so nauseated, that I barely made it to the bathroom where I just kept vomitting. I would go back to bed, and 5 minutes later I would be back in the bathroom, flush, dizzy, nausious, loose bowels, and just couldn't get the pain to stop. This went on all night long of me laying on the bathroom floor, back to the bed with the same symptoms. I thought the pain, vomitting, etc would stop so that I could go to work, but by 9am it took everything not to call an ambulance, but rather my fiance took me to the hopsital which was a very difficult task.

When I arrived at the ER, they originally tested me for C-Diff due to the stool, but tested negative. They were giving me morphine to reduce the pain but was only taking my pain level down to around a 6-7, and was still vomitting even with the phenergan. They admitted me to the hospital where I stayed for 8 days. During this time I remained on IV fluids, 2 antibiotics, continuous pain meds, phenergan, and every test imaginable. My CT Scan showed swelling in my large intestine near the upper right quadrant where I was having the pain. This pain would shoot off to the left and after about 6 days began shooting down my right side as well. They did an endoscopy, a colonoscopy, and all my blood tests all showed nothing. WHen released from the hospital I was still not able to even drink liquids without vomitting them up. I left the hospital with diloted for the pain, and phenergan and zofran for the nausea, along with omeprazole. This entire time as well my blood preasure has been through the roof from the pain (example average of 158/113) I have never had issues with my blood preasure. Needless to say, I returned back to the ER two days after I was released due to dehydration, and then 2 days again after that. Since this has all happened I have been home the past 4 1/2 weeks resting, with the same constant pain and nausea which has not gone away. The doctors are treating this as gastritis, but how come this isn't getting better in any which way.

[ggreg]

I think you've still got that viral flu.  But I imagine the docs ran tests not just for C. Diff, but also a variety of other bacterias, in case it's not the virus.  If they did NOT test for everything, ask your regular doc to do more tests.  I ALSO think your regular doc should consider the very real possibility that you have an appendicitis infection going on, altho I imagine the hospital looked into that.  Pain does not have to be in the lower right abdomen for it to be that, too.  

Viruses usually run their course without antibiotics, just as it did the first time.  But if it comes back, you're stuck for another couple weeks of illness.  So, to avoid getting it yet again, let me advise you to go around your house and sterilize with alcohol your toothbrush (or buy a new one), clean with alcohol or chlorox mixed with water all doorknobs, the refrigerator door, the phone, anything you touch all the time.  Throw out anything in the refrigerator that is more than a week old, take out the shelves and wash them up good.  Use plastic household gloves while you do this and pitch them too.  If anyone else in your household has had this virus or even a hint of this virus, their stuff needs sterilizing too, in particular their toothbrushes.  

Of course, could be since you had the flu, so did some people at work, and you just plain got it again, and there's not much you can do about that except wash your hands a lot at work and do not touch your face whilst at work (not easy).  Get some plain eyedrops and ordinary nose spray, apply those in the mornings and then wash your face good.

That Zofran is great for preventing vomiting, it's about the only anti-emitic I can stand, and also good is ordinary Alka Seltzer, the kind with aspirin in it!  The alka dissolves and releases gas, which is part of what causes pain, it makes you feel better in general, and neutralizes your pH.  I was also given Hyoscyamine pills for an irritable bowel one time, it relaxes the digestive muscles, also reducing pain, your regular doc can prescribe that when you get him to perhaps test again for more gastric bacteria.  

I think you should only eat bland foods for a week or so, which is stuff that is soft and doesn't have much taste (adding sugar or salt is okay), to include rice, plain oat cereals, hot wheat cereal, mashed potatoes, applesauce, milk, OJ, V-8, fresh bread is great, some scrambled eggs with a little olive oil, those sorts of things.  Non-caffeine bubble sodas are good for burps.  Also, get some "probiotics" in you, from Acidophilus milk or Activia yogurt at the grocery store, consume those for a couple weeks, restores normal flora that medicines and bacteria and viruses have upset.

Obviously, to stay hydrated, drink extra water when you can stomach it.  To get that blood pressure down, somehow manage short easy walks when you can, try to get into a rhythm, or even stretching exercise in the house if you have to.  Do deep breathing whenever you think of it, breathe in very deeply, blow it out, then breathe normal a couple times, go back to a deep breath, and repeat this ten times.  I also lay on the floor with my knees bent and stare at a reflective object in the windowsill so it catches the light, and I'll breathe deep here and there and get lost in that object, empty my head of all thoughts, a little soft music helps this process.  Five minutes, be slow getting up off the floor, and just lay in a chair for a while and watch some TV.  This is very relaxing to a person.

You have been so sick, I know you are at your wit's end.  I hope some of my tips will indeed help you.  I DO think it's very telling that your CT scan showed swelling in your large intestine, that means to me you had one heck of a constipation issue, where waste got dried out and stuck, and this is probably what made you throw up so much.  Whenever you're stretched out on the couch, before you get settled good, slowly rub around your belly button gently and smoothly in a circle, over and over, deep breathe a little, it should help that swelled place relax and feel a little better.  Oh, and when you start to eat regular food again, try some garlic bread, garlic is like an antiseptic to the bowels and also improves appetite... and eventually the more you eat, the easier it is for the bowels to move becuz they have something to push out.  Keep us posted!!!