# Help! I have no life, losing hope!



## Kimcat (Feb 10, 2016)

Thinking back on my life I've had abdominal pain and bowel issues off and on since my early 20's. I had many tests done but all were negative until my ulcer diagnosis at age 30. Two years ago out of nowhere I started having diarrhea, bowel spasms, nausea, abdominal pain, gas and couldn't leave the house most days. After going to 2 different GI doctors, I was diagnosed with IBS and gastritis. Over the last year and a half my symptoms have switched to IBS-C, I've tried many medications: Linzess, senokot-s,magnesium supplements, protonix, miralax, ondansetron, iberogast, omeprazole, dicyclomine, and amitiza among others. None of the medications seemed to be helping me very much. I was still sick, nauseous, terribly constipated, bloated,dizzy, no appetite and in pain. I decided to try the low FODMAP diet, and over time have learned what foods trigger symptoms for me. They include the usual culprits: Too much caffeine, chocolate, beans, broccoli, cabbage, aspirin and of course the biggie for me Stress!! Having this knowledge has helped me manage my symptoms a little more. Then 6 months ago more symptoms showed up, I could only eat a few bites of food and would feel full and nauseous, like I needed to vomit. I started losing weight, on my next Dr appt. I begged my doctor to do more testing, that I was miserably sick and couldn't live this way anymore. She decided to do a stomach emptying study to check for gastroparesis, keeping in mind I'm diabetic. Sure enough I tested positive for gastroparesis, where your stomach empties slowly, food stays in your stomach too long so you feel full, nauseous, etc. Of course my hmo insurance sucks and has protocols for ever diagnosis, so I had to start with trying the natural supplement iberogast, which only minimally helped. The next two treatments were unacceptable one was to be on antibiotics for the rest of my life, the other was a medication that gave you Parkinson's disease like symptoms. The final and last medication is called Domperidone and you can't get it in the U.S., so I get it from Canada. It has also helped me a little. I guess all in all I do feel better then I did at the beginning of this nightmare, but my life is by no means normal, in spite of all the meds I'm on most of the time I'm still constipated, bloated, and have pain. My symptoms can change for no apparent reason like they did last night when all of a sudden I had uncontrollable diarrhea. I've learned to meditate and do yoga in an attempt to relax myself. I feel alone, isolated, overwhelmed, and depressed, I feel like all I do is complain about how sick I feel and how my friends and family don't understand what I'm going through. I have no life because I never know how I'm going to feel and don't want to have an embarrassing episode in public. This is my first post...thanks for reading..any suggestions welcome.


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