# Lower back and left sided pain



## Matt b (Feb 27, 2011)

For the past few months I have had an almost constant dull ache in my left side.Sometimes when it's real bad I feel it n my right side also.The pain is worsened by laying on my back or eating. The worse attack I have had thus far was after I ate some pizza and under my ribs on both sides hurt like crazy! Like serious bad pain! I wasn't constipated when this pain happened and it doesn't seem to be constipation related. I have felt a spasm twits under my ribs at times also.In the past month I first noticed I had hemmeroids and then began to suffer pretty bad lower back pain. The lower back pain came at the same time as the hemmeroids. Could be unrelated. Also i haven't had a doc tell me I have hemmroids. I can't afford a doc and am just kind of assuming.Well last week the pain on my left side was unbearable and I went to the ER. They did a EKG, abdominal ct scan, and a few blood test. They thought the ct scan would show my problem but it showed nothing they said.What could this left side and lower back pain be? I have assumed it's some kind of trapped gas because I have problems a lot of times passing gas. Sometimes it feels like my rectum is swollen shut! My stools are sometimes very thin also and they always float. Another thing that happens occasionally is I can feel my anal area twitching. It doesn't happen that often but it freaks me out when it does!I have also had no appetite and lost about 20 pounds in a little over a month. I have absolutely no energy and sometimes out of nowhere get extremely tired The appetite and weight loss could be from the extreme depression I have been going through I guess.It seems ever since I started to make myself have much more regular bowel movements I have felt terrible. Before any of my problems I had a bm maybe every 3-5 days. It never bothered me though. Many months ago my constipation worsened and I began to take medications and do other things to have a bowel movement maybe every three days. I felt bad but was still ok. A couple of months ago I began to try to have daily bowel movements. I increased my water and fiber. The only medicine i take for bowel movements is milk of magnesia and i try to not take it that much. Now I feel terrible! Maybe going from a whole life of bowel movements every 4-5 days to a daily bowel movement has messed me up?Mentally and physically I feel terrible! I don't know if this is just depression and anxiety making my physical problems worse or if I have something wrong with me that's making my depression and anxiety worse. I have a complete mental fog all the time!So what could this lower back and side pain be??? Sometimes I have lower abdominal pain also. I have actually noticed that simply taking ibuprofen can make me feel a little better but sometimes after i take ibuprofen I feel much worse. Ibuprofen has never helped my pain before but whatever pain this is it seems to help if that means anything. It barely helps though.


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## aj2010 (Feb 21, 2010)

Matt b,Some of your symptoms sound similar to those I had almost 4 years ago. I had intense pain under my ribs on my left side, back pain, sometimes lower stomach pain, and it hurt to eat, so I ate infrequently and lost about 20 pounds. I later learned my body defers pain from one part of my body to another part. In other words, the pain on my left side was actually pain from my gallbladder, an organ that sits on the right side. After 4 months of pain and many doctors, I had a hida scan, which tests the function of your gallbladder. I had an ultrasound too, but this only looks for stones and doesn't evaluate the function of the gb. It turned out my gb was dying and was only working at 12%. I had to have it removed. I know you said you can't afford a doctor, but this test may find the underlining cause of all your pain.I also have IBS and many food sensitivities, so I'm not out of the woods yet. But the intense pain is gone, and that is a huge relief.Good luck!


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## Matt b (Feb 27, 2011)

Yeah gallbladder was the first thing they mentioned in the ER. Even my doc thought a gallstone could of been stuck causing pain on my left side.They say anything wrong with my gallbladder would of showed up on the ct.After much reading I have found that gallstones rarely show on a ct and you need an ultrasound for that. Actually the last time I was at the ER with similar pains they said they thought gallbladder too. They only did blood work and an x ray though. They said I should have an ultrasound later though and they didn't do those in the emergenc room.Like you say even that won't say if my gallbladder is working right. I need a hida scan.With no money or inscurance I for one can't afford any of these test to begin with and two even if I did the test and they showed my gallbladder wasn't working right I cant afford to have anything done about it.I guess if it is my gallbladder I can just sit back and wait for it to become a true emergency and a hospital has to do something. Right now I don't know what to do. I don't want there to be something wrong with me but there has to be something going on. It might not even be something major but I feel like something isn't right. No money no inscurance and I can't find any way to get health care. What is someone in my position supposed to do?Ring now I just don't know if my physical problems are causing my depression or my depression is causing my physical problems. The depression is by far the worse symptom of them all!


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