I'd like to know what people's opinions are as to how strongly the mind can affect the gut...?I made a post yesterday describing my symptoms. After reading what other people are going through, my symptoms are very very mild. As I said in that post, mild abdominal pain that never goes away, along with increased BM's from 1 to 1-3 times a day. A little bit of gas, a little bit of gurgling and thats about it.However, because its always there its always on my mind. I've had it for a little over a year now and while the symptoms have never directly affected my life, my mental state as a result of the pain has, to the point where have less desire to do things, and I'm cranky towards people. I'm even more cranky at the moment because I'm on this stupid Vivonex liquid diet for bacterial overgrowth (which I'm skeptical about now...).ANYWAY, I'm also a pretty stressed kinda guy. I'm trying to get my green card, working for a company thats struggling, and I've never wanted anything more in my entire life than my green card. I started the process about a month before all these problems started, and I'm still a hell of a long way from being safe. I also had a car accident a few months before that was my fault, started getting a lot of dental work done (I had to be sedated) over a long period of time. I also entered my first relationship a few months before the problems started. Anyway... Eventhough I know I'm an anxious person, and I worry over every damn little thing (people at work scare the #### out of me when they walk into my cube and say Hi), I've always been skeptical about anxiety and psychological issues being the sole cause of my chronic abdominal pain. Is such a thing physically possible?- Douglas.
Posts by Automan
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Thanks all for the replies, and especially Mike for the really long reply.I really have to wonder about my symptoms though. My symptoms don't seem to get worse with food or better with going to the bathroom. Stressful situations (like going to the doctor) may have an affect but its very subtle if at all.Its just that constant 24x7 mild abdominal pain. I'd be wondering if I had CFAP except its my understanding that altered BM's would remove that as a possibility. Then again, maybe it could all be connected. I just don't know!!
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Hi Kari.Well, I could have entertained the possibility that food was causing/aggrevating the problem until a few days ago. I've been on a liquid diet of Vivonex Plus for a week now and the pain is still there. Its for bacterial overgrowth that I supposedly have, which I'm now quite skeptical of.- Doug.
Hi Kamie.Thanks for the support. Your damn right I'm frustrated. Its not so much that the doctors aren't giving me care, its that they take so long in doing it.I got referred from my local GI to an IBD specialist in around March because we suspected I might have IBD. Well, it took the IBD doctor SIX MONTHS to finally tell me that he can find no evidence of IBD. It initially takes a few weeks to get in and see him, and each time you try something new or he schedules a new test you have to wait around a month again to get in and see him! Arrrggh! I've just been referred to the Motility Unit.You'd think after a year I'd have a clue what was wrong with me! But no.
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And whats with doctors in this country not working weekends? I'm from Australia and doctors work on the weekends there!
Hi Kari.I've been on a liquid diet for 8 days now. Something called Vivonex Plus. Its an elemental pre-digested power that gets mixed with water. Its _all_ I have been eating since last Monday (and water). The theory is that it gets absorbed at the upper part of the small intestine and therefore starves the bad bacteria.I've been told by the doctors at the Motility Unit of Cedars Sinai hospital that antibiotics are only 40% effective at destroying bacterial overgrowth, and this Vivonex diet is 85% effective. I was also told people normally could expect to start to feel better after 3-4 days. Well, I'm on day 8 and I don't think I feel an improvement!I took flagyl a few months ago, and apart from making me feel horrible it didn't cure me. A graphs of the hydrogen breath test results taken a little while after the flagyl showed roughly a 20% decrease.They haven't brough up good bacteria at all. Its something I was going to ask them when I go back to get retested next week. Regarding if they are certain or not... I really don't know! The junior doctor I saw at the Motility Unit seemed convinced that bacterial overgrowth was the cause of my symptoms. I even asked him THREE times if constant mild abdominal pain was consistent with bacterial overgrowth and each time he said Yes. So, then when I spoke to the more senior doctor he wasn't so sure! He said that the gold standard is that the abdominal pain gets worse after eating, which isn't really what happens to me. Now THAT annoys the hell out of me. He even thought my symptoms could be caused by GERD which surprised the heck out of me, because I'd been down that path before and a 3 month course of prevacid and pepcid didn't get rid of my abdominal pain, I've never had a burning sensation, and the pain is in my abdomen not my stomach (although he said it doesn't work that way). Well, if it doesn't work that way, then ANY of my other internal organs down there could be causing the problems! Arrrghh!Candida... yeah thats something I'll be sure to ask next time I visit. I haven't really brought it up yet.- Douglas.
Zouave,Yes... but _ALL_ the time? I've always found it difficult to accept that my stress and anxiety could be causing abdominal pain that never ever goes away or fluctuates much.Admittedly, the things that I have to be stressed about are omnipresent (like my damn green card) but I'm not thinking about my green card every minute of the day, so why should my stomach hurt every minute of the day?Douglas.
I might be very ill?Thats the sort of stuff that really freaks me out. My mother died of stomach cancer (yes, I've been cleared on that) and to be honest nothing scares me to the very pits of my soul more than being sick.Cockroaches are a close second.
Kamie,What do I think is wrong with me? I don't know!I've had so many tests done and nothing has come up except some mild inflamation of the small bowel, which an IBD specialist and biopsies from 2 colonoscopies tell me isn't IBD, and small bowel bacterial overgrowth. My symptoms don't seem to be consistent with bacterial overgrowth, yet the tests show it is there. This implies that something else is going on behind the bacterial overgrowth causing abdominal pain. From my questions on here, it appears that constant abdominal pain (that never ceases) is not an IBS symptom. From my questions to people suffering bacterial overgrowth it appears that the constant abdominal pain is not a symptom of that either.So what am I left with? No answers and an ache that never goes away. I'm going back to see my regular doctor this week so I can start trying the myriad of antispasmodics and antidepressants to see if one of those has any effect.Do I think this is purely stress related? No. I'm a very highly strung person, and I have a lot to worry about every day, but I simply cannot accept the fact that my pain is always there as a result of it. Eight biofeedback sessions so far have had no effect.So while I'm at the mercy of the doctors ability to get me into their next appointment, I'm constantly thinking about the abdominal pain. It never goes away, and I never stop thinking about it. I'm obsessing over it. If I'm awake, I'm thinking about it, searching the net for answers, thinking about what else it could be, if there's something more serious that all the tests have missed, or what I can try because I want it gone!And before someone says I should see a new doctor, I've just started on my 4th Gastroenterologist last week.
Hi Kari.Don't stress over the pages. There's no rush!I really don't have a lot of faith in nurse practitioners. Once I had one who seemed certain I had Crohns disease because thats all she knew, and she linked a few non specific symptoms together. Really freaked me out.You really had trapped gas in there all that time? I think its amazing you could have air trapped in there for so long. I guess there was something causing the gas to be continuously produced, so it wasn't always the same gas... just a constantly replenishing supply!I went back to a bacteria retest on Monday, and while the bad bacteria is considerably down, at borderline overgrowth levels, they decided to keep me on the diet for one more week.
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Yuck.Yes, I've thought about food relationships the last 2 weeks. On the one hand I thought that food must not be a factor because the pain is still there. On the other hand, the white powder does have a long list of ingredients. I guess the only way to know for sure would be go to into hospital and get fed on a drip!Have I been thoroughly treated for Candida? No... I guess I haven't taken the possibility too seriously... yet. My doctor prescribed diflucan when he saw the coating on my tongue. I took it for 5 days instead of the 7 he recommended (stupid insurance!) and would you believe it was almost gone, and 24 hours after I stopped taking the diflucan it was completely back! I wonder what that means. Maybe its just part of the detox process.Do I feel any change? No yet... not really. Although you know... In the last day or two, I _MIGHT_ have started to feel better. I'm trying not to think about it because I don't want to jinx myself!Probiotics... Well... I had heard from someone else that the doctor I am currently seeing doesn't think they are useful. However, Pete on this discussion board recommended vsl#3 to me. I ordered some and it arrived yesterday. I'm going to start taking it when the liquid diet finishes. It has 450 billion organisms instead of the usual 5-10 billion most other probiotics seem to have.Could it be gas causing my pain? Maybe. Its a possibility. The bad bacteria may be causing that. I really don't know. It would be funny if it was something that simple. I never really got bloated... bloating didn't happen to me too often.Oh, and on the detoxification thing... yes... I definitely seem to be suffering from detoxification symptoms. I'm really tired, irritable, I have muscle and joint pains, that ikky stuff on my tongue, and I'm having some difficulty getting to sleep. Didn't have any of that stuff before I started the diet. Thanks for the link too. There's some interesting stuff there, especially in regards to getting tests for Candida.
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