# I'm so frustrated :-/



## zivtzi (Mar 6, 2014)

Hey all,

Hope I'm posting in the right forum, where I can find people who share my experience and can somehow relate.

My name is Ziv, I'm 31 YO graphic designer from Israel. In the past years I've had these weird pains in the right side of my stomach, no doctor can diagnose. This pain comes for a second, disappears immediately, and leaves me helpless, scared to death it's gonna happen again right away (it usually doesn't), and mainly exhausted for the rest of the day. A short pain that can ruin my whole day. I can go through months without a single pain, and have weeks when I just don't want to wake up in the morning fearing the pain's gonna come any minute now.

I've gone through so many tests, many of them were unpleasant obviously, and yet I'm left with "IBS" as the only answer, which sort of feels like it's that last things doctor tell you when they can't think of anything else, like it's a default answer to people who are "just fine". I've met some very supportive doctors, but the majority of them throughout the years were extremely not helpful, not understanding, and basically had no patience for me. It's not an injury, it's not cancer, it's "just" a pain that comes and immediately disappears, so why am I like that? I've met a doctor who had so little patience for me, she didn't even bother to look at me. When they press my stomach to check, they don't realize it's hurting me a lot. Some of the doctors say it's because I'm nervous, and completely ignore me when I say I'm a perfectly calm, happy guy. I'm vegan, so some of them completely ignore my beliefs and try to convince me I should go back to eating meat, as if *that* is the problem.

All in all, my experience with doctors is a bad one. They simply don't know what to tell me, and treat me like I'm imagining these pains. It got me to a bad situation, where I refused to go see a doctor for months even though the pains got worse, just because I wasn't capable of dealing with another "you have nothing" face. None of them bother to explain why they think it's IBS, and those who do make little effort, don't bother explaining what it is, or what I should do differently.

I'm frustrated. I'm well these days, with hardly or no pains at all, but living every day with that fear of another wave of pains. I sometimes don't even tell my relatives I'm in pain because they don't know how to help (well, they can't) and the only thing left for them to do is push my to see another doctor, which is basically the last thing I want. Not sure I have a question here, just a story to tell, a very frustrating one...

Ziv


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## mohit (Mar 6, 2014)

http://www.ibsgroup.org/forums/topic/170419-100-cure-for-tension-and-may-be-for-ibs/
Please read my story....please give a chance to this and try


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## FoodandFitness (Mar 17, 2014)

Ziv,

Sorry to hear of your frustration. It can not only be frustrating, but scary, and even depressing to not know what's going on with your body.

In the meantime until you get some answers, I would recommend keeping a food and symptom journal. Write down what you eat and drink every day and make a note of your symptoms and how you feel. A great online tool and phone app to do this with is myfitnesspal.com Have you heard of it? This way if it happens again, you may be able to narrow it down to something in your diet.


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## styrofoamgoldfish (Mar 17, 2014)

Ziv, I've been having the same issues. Though It sounds as if anxiety/stress is not an issue on your end, I feel its been a huge factor on mine. My pains only really started after going Vegan which really puzzles me. I've been to 2 different doctors, most recently tried a trial run of some anti-depressants for pain relief. That was a disaster.

I've been researching online endlessley trying to find what foods to eat and what foods not to eat. All the non-vegans in my life seem to lack sympathy because I'm the one that decided to eat "weird vegan food." But my first doctor said she admired my veganism, and said if anything it should help with my pain and other symptoms.

These pains are keeping me up at night, I understand how you feel when you said one pain could ruin your whole day. Doctors keep pushing pain-killers my way but don't seem to know what else to do but essentially shrugging their shoulders and patting me on the head before walking away.


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## zivtzi (Mar 6, 2014)

Thanks @FoodandFitness and @styrofoamgoldfish!

@FoodandFitness, I've never heard of it, will definitely give it a try. Somewhat like @styrofoamgoldfish, I'm trying to avoid people and mainly doctors telling me that me being vegan is the source of the problem, so I guess that's why I refused to track my foods until now, but I guess it's time I do that. I do know some foods cause those pains but I rarely eat them and still have pains even when I don't. Besides, these pains started years before I became vegan.

@styrofoamgoldfish, I'm praying for you. I refuse to take painkillers of all kinds, only when I really need to. Painkillers are *pain*killer, not problemkillers, and I'm trying to deal with the problem. That's why I'm so frustrated - everyone really are trying to help me avoid the pains, but no one seems to understand my need to find the source of the problem. I've gone through so many tests, some of them were so unpleasant, and flipping through pages on pages of test results with no answer frustrates me even more :-/

Ziv


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