# My introduction and brief story.



## sguido (Nov 22, 2013)

Hello all,

Why post here? Well, one of the things the health care team thinks I can have is IBS...but there is no diagnosis as of this date. They're still awaiting lab results. But if it is...then this is the right place to say "hey" and ask if you all would mind if I take a seat at your table to discuss this.

Thanks for taking the time to read my post. Sorry if it reads like venting...but if anybody else has gone through this type of experience, I want to tell them they aren't alone.

Basics: 42 Caucasian male, non smoker, non drinker. Living with PTSD after two quite unpleasant events in the line of duty, one of which left me with a permanent disability (TBI) for which I've been on pain medication for years. (Not looking for advice or comments about that...pain meds were the *last* choice from the pain management center, and arrived only after two years of trying everything else out. Not ideal...but it delivers a quality of life that is an acceptable trade off.)

A couple of months ago, I started to develop a pain in the right upper abdomen. Feels like it's just under the rib cage, three inches further down then when my gallbladder pain first showed up two years ago. (That was 8 months of searing heartburn before two ER trips, which figured out the gallbladder was full of stones, inflamed, and needed to come out immediately. Surgery the next day...and the pain from the gallbladder was gone!)

The pain wasn't constant, so I wasn't too worried. Then the chills and night sweats started. Loss of appetite came next, followed shortly by nausea and vomiting. 4 weeks brought a 19 pound weight loss. And the pain was getting worse.

One night it was so bad it awoke me in agony, and my wife drove me to the ER. Felt just like Kidney Stones I had in 2001, so that's what they treated me for. "Here's some meds, strain your urine, come back if you have a fever, etc.". So home I went, dutifully straining and taking a cocktail of meds to help any stone in the bladder pass without too much trouble.

A week later, pain's bad again. Feels like I've been kicked in the stomach. Gut feels like everything is squeezing, and there is no position I can find to stop the spasms and agony. Once more, a midnight trip to the ER was inconclusive, but they thought it might be cardiac related since I was describing the pain as radiating all over, including the lower part of my chest. More tests, which came back as either normal or inconclusive, and the ER sent me away with an urgent consult to the Internal Medicine clinic. They'd call me with an appointment soon.

Urgent and soon, I suppose, means wait a week, then track down the clinic's number which isn't on the discharge papers. "Oh...we should have called you last week.". Great...I hope that's the only hiccup for this particular medical episode.

Not. Even. Close.

Went to the clinic, and they started planning tests, with the warning to head immediately to the ER if certain things came up. That was a Friday.

Sunday night, I'm kind of feeling like one of those things was coming up...but figured I'd try to sleep. Two hours later, two more of those 'get to the ER now' events happened, so again my wife drives me to the ER.

Which was the start of a nine day long "helliday".

Test after test...CT, MRI, ultrasounds, bone scan, scopes going where I'd really prefer scopes not to go, and enough blood taken to fill a sink. All come back as normal, slightly high or low, or inconclusive.

Doctors are stumped, and call in various specialists to figure it out. All the while, I'm trying desperately to deal with the pain, since they seem to have ignored the part in my chart about me being opiod tolerant because of the treatment I've been on for many years.

Unfortunately, when some doctors don't see an obvious physical issue, they turn to the psychiatrists and treat the patients as either drug seekers or that the patient is imagining the pain. Well, the psychiatrist happened to be the one who treated my PTSD, and he came, we spoke, and he entered into my chart that there is no depression, no addiction, and no drug seeking. So...no mental health reason for the pain.

So the tests start over again...and still nobody is concerned about my pain relief except the nurses. They advocated for me...but the doctors made up their mind that a certain level of pain meds should be sufficient. (This hospital was great two years ago when I had the gallbladder out. Meds were tritated until there was comfort. But the hospital didn't continue with a dedicated pain specialist...no money because of the renovation...so now there is nobody there who can treat acute pain adequately when a chronic pain issue exists, and they use a one size fits most policy. Problem was it didn't fit me.)

Things came to my breaking point when they once again returned to my room with a, "let's try x, then y" spiel. After nine days of agony, I couldn't take any more, and told them so. I wanted home now.

"But we are concerned about the vomiting....you have an IV that we are using to deliver antiemetics (only she didn't say antiemetic, she instead used very basic terminology, as if I was a five year old, including the word tummy. *Sigh*) and if you don't have an IV, we can't get them to you." I told the intern that the medication in question came in a sublingual dissolving strip. She admitted she didn't know that...which made me seriously wonder what else she didn't know. When asked if I was sure if I wanted to leave, I said simply, "I'm in pain. Nothing is being done about that. I'd rather be in pain at home than in here. If you are prepared to address my pain, then I'll stay. Otherwise, please discharge me.". She asked what they could do, and I suggested a PCA pump like I had two years ago, set up with no background meds, and locked out at the level I was supposed to receive meds at. "No, we can't do that unless there is surgery, and you are getting them at the proper time now as it is.". Problem was...staff shortage meant that pushing the call button meant it would be 45 minutes before any meds could be delivered...and in one case, it was two hours. No, not a typo. Two hours. So no, I wasn't getting x amount every two hours...I was getting x amount every two hours and forty five minutes (not good) or x amount every four hours (very not good.). I didn't get an answer when I put it simply : there are two solutions...one supplies the meds every two hours, the other doesn't not. In both cases I push a button. Case one, meds delivered as doctor intends them to be delivered at the proper time. Case two, meds are not delivered at the proper time. Why not choose Case one? Or, barring that, give me the oral version instead of the IV version and I can take it as required.

No answers. I'm outta here.

The discharge papers came quickly, along with a list of prescriptions that was three pages long. And guess what? Included amongst them is the oral version of the pain meds that I can take as required.

So, I'm lying in my comfortable bed in peace, albeit still in pain, and waiting for Monday to follow up with three appointments in the out-patient clinic. I'll be spending the weekend reading through this forum, hoping somebody has posted something I can research further, bring to my appointments Monday, and say, "What about this?"

Thanks for reading, and for any help or advice you could send my way.


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## IndianRopeTrick (Jul 25, 2013)

Okay, I have not been through what you have, but I read your post and thought maybe I can offer something of some use to you. Perhaps your PTSD still affects you in an insidious way and the psych is unable to see that ? I saw this book mentioned somewhere on the forum - healing back pain by MD sarno. Yes, back pain. It might not be related to your situation directly, but it might be useful and might even offer clues on how to get better. I never read the whole book, but I read that it talks about how mental pain (PTSD in your case) might manifest itself as real physical pain. It sounds like the new-age pseudoscientific mumbo jumbo. I suggest you try it and see if it helps. Wiki says its not accepted by mainstream medical Science. But, who knows if it might have merit and might be accepted later (or not).

http://www.amazon.com/Healing-Back-Pain-Mind-Body-Connection/dp/0446557684/

Good luck !

HTH


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## Canadian_Dave (Nov 27, 2013)

Parts of your story sound very familier.. I went to the emergency a couple times early on (due to the time of day that it would occur) and a couple times when it kicked into gear 4 years ago. Same pain position as you; felt like I was stabbed. Pain meds did nothing, T3's did nothing. Sitting down reclined and relaxing seemed to help the most.


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