UGH! I HATE this!!

[Kitsune]

/sigh. It's 3am and I have to be up for work in 3 hours...
Why am I awake? .....

I have these absolutely horrible chest pains. So bad that I vomit... (Yes, yes.. Nasty, I know).
I don't know what causes them or even how to stop them.
I've been getting them since I was about 7 years old (I'm almost 23 now) and I've been to numerous doctors and no one can figure out what it is..
Sometimes they come randomly, sometimes it's if I eat too late or too early. (especially chocolate). It happens a lot when I run or exert myself.. Mostly it's random and it'll wake me up out of a dead sleep.
This is the second time I've had them this week. Last time, they lingered for nearly 3 days and I missed 2 days of work because I was so sick from them.

Sometimes they get so bad that I can't breathe at all and it's really.. really.. really scary. I get all clammy and start sweating cold bullets.

I'm completely at a loss for what it could be. Charles seems to think it's gastritis (he has it as well), but I don't have the same symptoms he does.
My grandmother thinks it's my gallbladder because she kinda had the same problem and it was fixed when her gallbladder was removed but all of that was checked the millions of times I've been to the doctor. =/

I just want to be able to sleep. lol. x.x; I <3 my sleep and this is killing me. >.<

... Sorry. I just had to rant about it. Charles hears it constantly. lol. I feel bad for him. :x He tries to stay awake with me.. Especially if I can't breathe.. But I feel bad. =( He needs to sleep too. I'm sure he doesn't want to stay up all night rubbing my back and re-wetting my cool washcloth! lol. :x

 

[mainelygeckos]

omg Krista I'm so sorry. I have random bouts of gastritis as well but haven't had it for many years. It is very painful in the chest tho mine never made me vomit. Isn't there some kind of med they can give you (forgot the name of what they gave me) that can take away the pain? They gave me some huge pink pill that took it away in like 20 minutes. Dang I wish I could remember the name of it. So sorry you have to go thru this hun. HUGGS

 

[Bellalee]

Wow.. so sorry Krista.. I can't even imagine what that is.. have they.. looked at your heart? But.. if you get it worse after eating there has to be some correlation.

How do you sleep? I mean is your head flat down, sleep on your back side ect.. Have you thought about putting an extra pillow to force whatever is making that pain come about down farther?


And I'm sure Charles would love to get some sleep but I bet he would much rather be up with you.. He's a good guy.

 

[T&KBrouse]

Oh, Krista, I'm so sorry.
You know, this sounds a bit like what my daughter was experiencing last year. She had severed pain in her upper abdomenal and chest area and lots of vomiting. She could only eat certain things and even then, the pain would sometimes be suffocating. It took months to find the right doctor that didn't tell her it was all in her head and tell her to take some Pepcid. It turned out to be Biliary Dystocia, a gall bladder condition that causes the "faucet" in the bile ducts not to work properly. She would either have a bile dump that would cause sever pain and vomiting, or the gall bladder wouldn't work at all and cause anything she ate to just sit in her stomach and literally rot.

I hope the doctors can find out what is causing this for you. It must be horrible to deal with.

 

[Kristi23]

(((hugs))) I'm sorry Krista.

 

[Barbel]

UGH! So sorry you have to deal with that! That truly sucks.
It does kind of remind me of something I saw on Mystery Diagnosis (Discovery Health Channel). A young woman was vomiting all the time and they couldn't figure out what was wrong with her. They removed her gallbladder and when that didn't solve it they took her appendix. Eventually they found out that a sphinctor (I don't know how to spell it!) in her digestive tract wasn't closing properly causing her to vomit. Once they tightened it up, all the symptoms went away and she was perfectly healthy.
I don't know.... just something to think about. Hope you start to feel better!

 

[Kitsune]

Thank you for your concern everyone. <3

Donna: Most of my boyfriend's family has gastritis and they're always shoving Prevacid at me. lol. It's pink and black... Not sure if that's the pill you're talking about. :3 It never works, unfortunately. =( lol.

Rachel: Yep. They haved looked at my heart and have found nothing wrong there. I do have a very very small heart murmur, but they said that isn't causing it.
Usually, I either sleep on my back or on my side. Usually laying down makes the pain worse. lol. I end up pacing a LOT when I get the pains.

K: That sounds a lot like what I experience. I'll have to write that down and visit some more doctors. Did your daughter have to have her gallbladder removed? Or what was the.. "cure" for it?

Kristi: ((((HUGS)))) Thank you. =)

Barbel: That's something else I'll have to write down and take to a doctor with me! I just want them to figure this out. I've missed so much school growing up over it and now work. It's just so frustrating!

 

[acpart]

It sounds as if there are some good suggestions for other possible diagnoses. It may be worth considering chiropractic and/or acupuncture to get some relief while you're figuring this out.

ALiza

 

[T&KBrouse]

They were going to remove her gall bladder if a couple different avenues didn't work. Another symptom she had was weight gain. So we talked it over and tried to eliminate the possiblity of food allergies.
Guess what. It was eggs. The protein in eggs couldn't be broke down properly because of a developed allergy that caused all the internal organs to swell, hence the weight gain, but this also caused the liver, gall bladder and pancreas to go completely nuts (as they are all three connected) because of the influx of this certain egg protein that couldn't be broke down. The long term affect was biliary dystocia.
Since we eliminated eggs unless they are baked in to something, all her stomach issues have gone away and shes shrunk 4 sizes.

While she was dealing with this, though, she couldn't eat anything with eggs, dairy, fried foods, spicy foods, sweets, caffeine and she couldn't eat anything before 9 am or after 7pm. A trip to McDonald would have her vomiting and writhing in pain for hours.

Biliary Dystocia can be detected through ultrasound. The test they give you is they give you an injection that replicates a very fatty meal. Then they watch how your gall bladder reacts through the ultrasound. Sometimes they can find the cuplprit behind the problem. Sometimes surgery is needed, though, and the gall bladder is removed.

I hope this helped some and I didn't rattle too much. (I seem to do that alot. LOL)

 

[Alusdra]

When my dad got gal stones, he thought it was a heart attack. So maybe it is that... or perhaps your pancreas? I don't know. Keep looking around for new doctors, I guess. On those Mystery Diagnosis shows that Barbel mentioned, that seemed to be the theme in them- that the person didn't give up until they found a doctor that could diagnose whatever bizarre thing they had.

 

[WftRight]

Have you been tested for sleep apnea? I was officially diagnosed with sleep apnea. I'm not sure that my problem is really that bad. Some people claim that when they sleep with the CPAP machine that they notice a huge improvement in how they feel. I've never noticed much difference, so I think much of what they thought they found was just a result of my discomfort with the testing.

One reason that I thought of sleep apnea is that sometimes I wake up in the middle of the night with my throat slammed shut. I can't get anything in or out, and I start choking and gagging. I have come close to vomiting on some occasions. One of those incidents is what caused friends to suggest that I be checked. Even with the machine, I've had one recurrence, but that one wasn't as bad. The machine almost kept my airway open, and I recovered much more quickly.

If your airway is closing many times during the night, your chest would be working much harder to try to make you keep breathing. That could cause the pain that you feel and might even cause gagging and vomiting.

Yeah, I know. I'm not a doctor, and the internet is just a vehicle for folks to pretend things that they don't really know. However, your situation sounds very much like sleep apnea. You'd be on the extreme young end of the spectrum for this illness, but sleep apnea in someone so young isn't impossible.

 

[Kitsune]

Thanks so much for the info, K!

Alusdra: I'm definitely going to write all of this down and find a doctor who can help me! =)

Bill: I have not been tested for sleep apnea.. yet. Do you happen to know if it is hereditary? My father was diagnosed with it quite a few years back.
Thanks for the info!

 

[WftRight]

I don't think it's proven hereditary, but I've never heard of anyone investigating that idea. I just hope that you can find some relief.

 

[malt_geckos]

Sorry to hear about that Krista! If you need anything, we're right down the road. What is gastritis? I think I have it. lol. I've had pains in my upper abdomen, chest and head. Such bad pains that I get dizzy and when I lay down it feels worse. I get them randomly and I've had them since I was about 10. Sorry to jack your thread, just curious if that's what is wrong with me.

 

[Saphira]

what about food allergies? have you ever been tested?

have you seen a naturopathic dr or just allopathic(regulard md's)

 

[Kitsune]

Here's a link to some info about Gastritis! http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gastritis
Hopefully you can figure out what's wrong with you as well. ; ; It really sucks not knowing! lol.

Rachael: Nope. Never been tested for food allergies. That's something else I should look into~ Also, I've just seen regular doctors and a.. um.. Asthma/Allergy doctor.. Forget what they're called. :x lol.

 

[malt_geckos]

Here's a link to some info about Gastritis! http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gastritis
Hopefully you can figure out what's wrong with you as well. ; ; It really sucks not knowing! lol.

Rachael: Nope. Never been tested for food allergies. That's something else I should look into~ Also, I've just seen regular doctors and a.. um.. Asthma/Allergy doctor.. Forget what they're called. :x lol.

doesn't sound like what I have...hmmm. Hope you feel better Krista. We need to go out soon before we move! Hopefully you'll be feeling ok. :main_yes:

 

[Kitsune]

We definitely do need to go out before you guys move! We'll have to set something up. And maybe this time we'll actually remember to give you your book back!! lol.

 

[malt_geckos]

lol, that's right! You still have our book. We can't leave without that.

 

[Grinning Geckos]

I'll add a vote to the biliary problem! I had gallstones and had my gallbladder removed, but still had tons of pain and had a few nasty boughts of pancreatitis. Everytime they would check for a stone, they wouldn't find one. Finally, they did a sphincterotomy (I think that's right...) of my biliary tract and I've been doing MUCH better. It's a rare problem, but it sounds like it could be possible for you.