My name is Erin, I'm 25 from Pennsylvania, and I have had some
kind of issue for almost 2 years. In May of 2008 I had an
extremely stressful time which resulted in extreme abdominal
pain, vomiting, change in bowel movements, and fatigue. There were times where I was not sure I would make it to the bathroom in time, and the pain was so intense I could barely move fast enough some times. I
couldn't eat for almost 2 weeks without vomiting everything up,
and lost 20lbs in those 2 weeks. I dismissed it as just stress
at the time. 3 months later I still had abdominal pain, intense pain, and
frequent bowel movements (like, more than normal, mostly lose.)
The vomiting had eased up to once a week. I scheduled an
appointment with my primary, who then referred me to a
specialist.
The specialist asked me the round of questions, ordered a
flexible sigmoidoscopy/endoscopy, blood tests, stool tests and
various medications. Almost a year after my first visit the
specialist sat me down and tried to explain to me he didn't
know what was wrong with me, and then told me I had IBS (and
Esophegitis-which to this day is still untreated, and never
was). How someone can not know what is wrong with me then
immediately afterward tell me what is wrong, is beyond me.
I sought out a new specialist. This one did a colonoscopy right
away. He changed the meds I was on and told me to use more
fiber in my diet. After the results came back he said
everything looked fine and that it is, indeed, IBS. He asked
how the medicine worked, none of them worked at all. He told
me, again, to use more fiber "Sample the various products out
there" and prescribed the exact same medicine I told him DID
NOT work.
I basically stopped taking the meds and as for the fiber, well,
it makes me go ten times worse even after a month or two so I
stopped that as well.
My symptoms don't come from certain foods, they flare up when
they want no matter what I eat. At first I thought this was
opposite, but I ran tests on my own, like trial and error with
food. I'm not lactose intolerant, and I'm not really sure if I
do have IBS or not, as most people get reactions with certain
foods. The ONLY foods I can not eat are cabbage, onions and
raisins (this seems kind of normal to me, 3 foods out of the
many that I just can not eat) These flare ups come out of
nowhere, last almost weeks at a time and then disappear for a
while.
Basically, 2 years later I still get flare ups and I'm still
totally clueless as to what could be wrong with me. Like
everyone else, I'm not made of money and can't afford to keep
going to specialist after specialist only to hear "I don't
know". I would like to find out soon though, because I'm
getting older and would like to settle down and have kids by at
least age 30!
If anyone could help, or share a similar story I welcome your
response. I don't really know what more I can do at this point.
(You may see this posted on various websites too.)
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