Intense Inernal Pain

The Ender

Hi H/A,

For about... I'm not sure, perhaps 5-6 years now? I've had episodes of extreme internal pain (and am having such an episode right now). The pain lasts for about 12-20~ hours after it first sets in, then leaves without further symptoms / complaints until the next episode. Episodes used to happen about once or twice a month... lately they've begun to occur about once a week.

I'm not sure how to describe it; it's almost like a very extreme heartburn sensation, and it 'surges' in intensity for the duration of an episode (going from essentially annoying to crescendos of absolute torture). I'm also unsure of the part of me that is having the complaint - I'm fairly sure it isn't my stomach or anything below that, but it's below my heart & lungs.


It is not accompanied by any symptoms other than the pain itself (no nausea, etc), it is not triggered by anything obvious to me (occurs regardless of how well or poorly I'm eating for example, occurs regardless of how much sleep I'm getting or how physically active I've been), it is not impacted by antacid tablets, Advil or Tylenol. Stretching / exercising / showering likewise has no impact.


...Does anyone have an idea of what may be causing these episodes based on my admittedly vague description?


I realize this is not supposed to be 'Amateur Diagnosis: The Forum', but I've twice gone to the hospital during an episode and the doctors have essentially shrugged at me (in fairness, it is an ER and they have plenty of acute problems to deal with right then, so I get where they're coming from). I just want some semblance of an idea what is happening & if there's anything I can do to manage the symptoms or make episodes less frequent (or both).

Amaryl

Do you have a general practitioner? Because you should go to him/her, especially if its frequent for this long a period. or maybe if you don't have one its time to find one.

knitdan

This really seems like something that needs to be diagnosed and possibly dealt with by a specialist.

I could say it's chronic idiopathic neuropathy but all that means is "it hurts and it keeps coming back and we don't know why"

bowen

doctor

maybe GERD, maybe cancer, maybe you're already dead

Thundyrkatz

I had a similar sounding issue, I would describe the pain as the burning you get from extreme muscle fatigue that would go on and on, until it was over. It was impossible to get a comfortable position and nothing touched the pain, no exercise, stretching or advil or anything. It was most often happening at night also.

The answer for me was biliary fibrillation caused by gall stones, and the end result was surgery to remove my gall bladder.

I also went to the ER a couple times and was sent home, once because it went away while I was waiting to be seen. The last time I got an ultrasound to check for stones in the bilary tract and then I ended up becoming jaundiced and was admitted to the hospital for surgery.

So, my advice to you is go see a PCP and don't take no for an answer, when they shrug say now what, what is the next step to get resolution. you have to be your own advocate.

Enc

Go to your GP and not an emergency room. The amount of time is considerable and they can start to run some tests to identify the cause. You will likely need to be later refered to an ENT or other specialist to identify the issue.

Your health is the most important thing, without it you have nothing. Call your doctor and get started.

credeiki

Costochondritis? (which would suck as a diagnosis because there's nothing much to do for management, I think)

Heffling

If there's no blood in your urine, you can rule out kidney stones. But yeah, see your GP.

azith28

Have you ever noticed your urine was the color of dark apple juice? If so then your billyrubin is getting into your urine, and its probably gall bladder related. In my case i had stones that were embedding themselves into my liver.

Hahnsoo1

There are a lot of potential things it could be, and it is best handled by finding a sympathetic general practitioner who is willing to refer you to a GI specialist. Of course, everyone here's going to say "go to a doctor".

Note that the pain COULD be your stomach. Your pain from internal injuries/diseases can be represented by pain in a completely different area of the body (this is why some people who have heart attacks say that they felt pain or numbness going down their left arm, rather than their chest or in addition to chest). I would not exclude stomach problems.

Pain that comes and goes tends to lead me down three separate and non-exclusionary causes: Obstruction (a section of your gut is tight, and stuff has problems passing through... could also be a hernia of some sort, intestinal or stomach/esophageal), Gall-bladder issues (not necessarily gallstones... there are a number of gall bladder issues that can cause abdominal pain that do not involve stones), and Pancreatitis (which can also be secondary to gallstones). I assume that they did an abdominal ultrasound or CT when you were at the hospital last time?

The differential diagnosis for recurring, episodic abdominal pain is HUGE. So yeah, this is something to get evaluated. On that list are a lot of scary things.

SatanIsMyMotor

credeiki wrote: »

Costochondritis? (which would suck as a diagnosis because there's nothing much to do for management, I think)

That's where my head went too but he described it as severe heartburn. I associate my Costochondritis more with a "hey my chest is going to crack in half" kind of pain.

Artereis

Stones of any sort can definitely be excruciating. I had a kidney stone back when I was in high school. It was small enough that I never actually found any traces of it, but it was still enough to cause all the muscles in my back to convulse uncontrollably for hours and force me to vomit the pain was so bad even though there was no nausea. The GP I went to actually didn't believe that someone my age could have a stone, but the urinalysis had traces of blood which shut him up pretty quickly.

Paladin

What's your insurance say about urgent care

You should get a covered GP anyway, you have a condition

ceres

Go to the doctor.