Stomach distended because of gas?

[sunshine383]

Hi Dr. Goodman,

My mom had a recurrence of ovarian cancer in Jan07 and started a clinical trial and had her first treatment last Tues- Jan29.

About 3 months ago she started getting severe lower pack pain that was first attributed to subluxation,then it was a pinched nerve and in the end they said it was a twisted muscle. In the process she was given many drugs: pain killers, anti-inflammatory, muscle relaxants. She had a few sessions of deep tissue massage and the last one caused a fever and tremedeous pain. that's when the swelling started. Her stomach became distended, she looks like she’s 7 months pregnant. She doesn’t eat much and her legs are swollen too. We ended up in the ER last Wed and did blood/urine tests, everything was normal. ER doc said it must be ascites and she needs to get a paracentesis done. So on Fri we were at the hospital to get it done but the ultrasound showed there’s little fluid and doing a paracentesis will be dangerous. We saw her oncologist and she said her stomach is full of gas because of the cancer irritating the bowels, and gave her a laxatives.
The following Mon she went to the hospital to do some tests for the treatment. Her weight was 150lbs. She did the treatment on Tues and it went well. Wed her stomach got bigger and we went to the ER again. Afte an xray the ER doc said (again) she was full of fluid.
Thur we called her nurse and she said the radiologist was an idiot and that it’s not fluid but gas and that she can’t do anything but continue the laxatives.

On Fri she was 160lbs! We don’t know who else to turn to, one doc tells us one thing and another doc says the opposite. My mom’s largest tumour is just smaller than 3cm, her last CT was 4 weeks ago. So how can the cancer cause such a great irritation to the stomach and make her stomach THAT distended? And is there eally nothing she can do about it except laxatives?

Sorry for the long note Dr. Goodman, thanks again for reading this.
Sandra

[sunshine383]

I posted this on the other thread as well, but didn't want to leave this one "unfinished", I really hate threads like that. Hope this helps.

So this is how this thing unfolded...We got the 3rd opinion. my mom was getting worse everyday until yesterday we had to go to the ER again. The doc did an xray and CT scan and found she DOES have lots of fluid. He did the paracentesis and drained 4 liters out of her! 4 liters! He tested the fluid for infection and it came back negative so we took my mom home.

Finally, the ping pong game is over. It "only" took seeing 4 doctors in 3 different hospital to get this taken care of.

I hope this story helps someone out there. You have to keep at them and insist on tests otherwise you might not be taken seriously. It's unfortunate but we have to be our own advocate.

Sandra

[sunshine383]

Thanks for your reply Yvonne. We called her Oncologist several times, they claim that since the ultrasound didn't show much fluid they can't drain it. The said there's "some" fluid but not enough and that once they start draining they'll have to insert a cath. and she'll always have it in, so they try to delay having to do that as much as possible.

On top of everything the hospital called last night to give us some test results. She now has a urinary track infection and has to take antibiotics. The type they gave her irritated her stomach even more so now we wait to see if she can get a different type. :S

We don't know what to think anymore and are trying to find another doctor that might be able to give us a 3rd opinion.

[YvonneS]

Sandr, Please make the Ono aware of this.  sounds like fluid to me and it only takes about 30 minutes to get rid of it. Sometimes I can't beleive how stupid the "professionals" seem to be.

[sunshine383]

Sorry everyone,
I posted this here already, I was trying to post to the expert forum again and didn't realize it was posting on the community forum :S

Sorry, I'm quite desparate for help.

Sandra