tightness and pain in upper abdomen

[ayeshab]

my mothe who is 54 now has been suffering from secondary pumonary hypertention (she has a calcification around her pulmonary artery )
This apparently has no treatment in allopathy.
There is only a method of controlling the disesse
She has been suffering from this disease for the past 12 years now and she has been on the below given medication all this while
lenoxin -50mg
ecosprin -75 mg(asprin)
lacilactone- 1/2 tablet in a day

Recently i took her to our cardioligist and he suggested that there is a way of reducing the arterial pressure by using sildenafil which is a viagra(it reduced the arterial pressure significantly)
And indeed she has been taking this for the past 3 months now and her pressure has come down from 167 to 139 which is very good
But she has been suffering from siviere gas problems from the past 4 months and i have taken her to various doctors but they have only given her antacids which relieve for a very short period.
since sunday 11/5/08 she has an acute pain in her upper abdomen which shoots to her back we did a sonography and everything is clear...
the doctor has prescribed an antacid and an antidepressant for her ...The doctors suggest this has happened due to her long duration of aspirin treatment and that most patients have complained of gastric problems due to aspirin's...
I have stopped giving her the aspirin ...but would have to start it agin very soon as doctors say it is essential..

[CalGal]

If the pain is mainly in the right, despite the fact that she's already had a sonogram to check things out in the URQ, you may want to ask the doc to do a HIDA scan with CCK injection to check the funtional status of her gallbladder. If she doesn't have gallstones, people can still have problems with the actual functioning of their gallbladder. Changes in gallbladder function can cause changes in bowel habits, and if she is having slow elimination it could result in a fair amount of gas production.

[ayeshab]

She has had severe gas problems even before she started Sildenafil and currenlty she is taking drokin , flunil and happi which is an antacid there is relief but the pian comes back ...
the pain is majorly in the upper abdomen along with a tight feeling and sometimes in the right side!!
what should i do to help her??

[CalGal]

Sildenafil can produce a number of rather unpleasant gastric side-effects one of which can be abdominal pain/cramping. The gas may be due to changes going on in her GI tract due to the medications she is on or perhaps due to a change in her GI flora. You might want to consider trying some probiotics - in capsule form rather than those that are found in yogurt. Those in capsule form typically have higher count than what is found in yogurt.