Upper abdominal pain... Please help!

[sammikay876]

Hi, I'm a 20 year old female and am having the most awful pain in my left upper quadrant. Sometimes it jogs over to my right side, but primarily stays in the middle towards my navel or to the left under my ribs. It began as a very uncomfortable feeling all over my stomach about 5 days ago... Whenever anyone or anything would touch my stomach, I got a nauseous feeling throughout my entire abdomen. This comes and goes, making it impossible to do much. The next day I started to get shooting pains on the left side, and some twinges of pain on the right. The pain radiates up to my shoulder blades and pushes through to the center of my back. I've been nauseous for about two weeks now, and have had no appetite. It hurts to sit up straight and movement makes this worse.

So I called my dr. and was told to go to the ER to get relief. I'm not a huge fan of the ER, because their main job is to get you stable and send you home. I asked for a blood pregnancy test for my peace of mind, as I have been having symptoms of pregnancy and they refused on several occasions as my urine was negative (never once was I asked how far into my cycle I could be...) Blood tests were run for everything else, and they all came back normal. So they tried to discharge me, but first gave me morphine. I was not told what they were giving me, and was in so much pain I didn't think to ask. Well, morphine makes whatever symptoms I am having so much worse. So we called in the dr., and she didn't believe me and left. Not ten minutes later, I was screaming in pain and sobbing because it felt like my insides were ripping out of me. They ended up giving me Toradol which took an hour to kick in. My mom actually had to call my boyfriend (a veteran MP) to come hold me down because nobody at the hospital was listening... He couldn't even hold me down. The entire hour I sat there sobbing and screaming, and at least ten nurses and techs walked by without asking if I needed help. My dr. didn't  come back, but the PA ordered a CT. That took another two hours, and by the time that was ready, I didn't have enough energy to cry or speak much so they assumed I was feeling better and would not give me anything else for the pain. The CT came back normal, and they pretty much told me that I am having intestinal spasms (maybe) or it could be a side effect of my medications (that I have been on for years). They gave me fiber and Tylenol. That was six hours ago, and the pain is near the same level as it was on morphine.

I also do not have my gallbladder anymore, had it removed 2 years ago for a high ejection fraction (never have had stones or sludge). I have not had any irregularities in regards to bathroom habits lately.

I want a second opinion, and will follow up with my primary care dr, but right now I couldn't tolerate sitting up long enough to do so.

Has anyone ever had something like this before? And if so, what helps?
Sorry about my rant, it's just frustrating to me as a nursing student that people can be left like that. I wasn't asking for much...
Thanks again :)

[maileeshar]

Have you tried bring tested for h pylori or similar bugs

[snoopy460]

Do you have your appendix (pain will travel from left to right)? I can relate to what you went through in the ER and don't blame you for being mad. While I was in with my dad last time. A woman in the waiting room was in extreme pain and no one was attending to help her. So I got on the nurses and doctors case to help her. I knew they where just standing around doing nothing. I have IBS or spastic colon and not that much pain.

[mkh9]

Sorry you are having so much pain and not much help. Have you had your blood tested for lipase and amylase? This would check for pancreatitis. I don't know if that would show up on the CT scan or not. Also it could be a neuropathy. You could have a lower GI done to check for blockage, rule out chrons (spelling?)disease etc. or other problems like that. I wonder about adnominal migraine? It starts around your age. I have that and only had pain, nausea and vomiting at night. What helped me was demoral, and something to knock me out and something for nausea by IV (suppositories don't work). They could test you for migraine by doing an Electroencephalogram (EEG). They put me on Klonopin and it worked for me.But once you go on it you have to stay on it as it is extremely hard to get off of /almost impossible. There are other drugs now for migraine variants like Topamax. It could be a kidney stone but I would assume that would show on the CT but I'm not sure. So, if you have those tests done also maybe still get the kidneys/liver checked but again I think the CT may have done that. So find out what has been ruled out by the CT and try to get diagnosed. It does sound like a kidney stone. Yes they treat you terribly in the ER. They treated me terribly for 8 years while I was trying to get diagnosed for a migraine variant. I was in terrible abdominal pain and vomiting non stop all night. All the tests were negative. It started when I was 23. So, kept trying to get diagnosed. If the GI docs don't work try a neurologist or two (one that specializes in migraines). You dont' have to have migraine headaches to have the abdmonial pain.

[Pum67]

Goodness that doesn't sound like much fun for you. Any sign of spots along the pain line? That could be shingles. It is good they didn't find anything on the CAT scan but obviously you can't stay in that amount of pain.

I haven't had anything similar (apart from shingles) sorry and the shingles rash should have shown up by now for you (3 days normally I think).