Can someone help with these symptoms?

[emichaelr]

About a month ago I had hand, foot and mouth virus. It was bad, it lasted for 2 weeks. Our 2 year old daughter got it, then I guess she gave it to me.
We are traveling at the moment, we're staying in Australia with my wife's family. I went to the hospital and got this diagnosis to which there isn't really any treatment besides pain management.

Since getting over that, I just noticed a small, sharp pain in my abdomen. It seems to be local to the lower left side.  Occasionally I feel it a little higher in the abdomen, but it's been about a week now.
It started one night after I ate a really heavy pasta and bread meal. It was so bad, I couldn't sleep. Since then, I've avoided all carbs and sugar on the advice of dr google, I started to suspect it could be Pancreatitis as a side effect of the hand foot mouth virus.
This diet seems to help, I barely feel the pain now, it comes and goes.

I have also been peeing a lot, but I've been drinking a lot of water. Not necessarily because I'm super thirsty, but when I'm not feeling well, I try to drink a lot of water. I don't know if frequent urination is a "symptom" because I have been drinking a ton of water. Could be either I guess.

My other symptom is a weird, non-distinct dizziness. I have not been able to correlate any specific time or circumstance this happens, it's just all throughout the day. It has not changed since I changed the diet.
It's really hard to pinpoint or describe. I just know something "isn't right". I haven't fallen over or fainted, just a weird sensation like I'm starting to feel the buzz from a drink or something like that. This also comes and goes throughout the day. Doesn't seem to be related in timing to the abdomen pain or eating. Also, doesn't seem to be present in the morning when I first wake up. Only throughout the day.
I suspect this could be anxiety maybe, but I've always had anxiety and I've never felt this before. It's like my mind is slightly disconnected from my body. I can do everything I normally do, but it's just always kind of there.

I should see a doctor. But, where we are in Australia is in heavy lockdown and I can't see a doctor. I can go to the emergency room at the local hospital, but it's crazy Covid over there and I don't have Medicare, only my travelers insurance and health insurance from home, so this is a difficult situation as far as the "see a doctor" thing. I will if it seems serious.

What symptoms I don't have as it related to my google searches:
Stool is normal. Nothing strange or yellow.
urine is normal. no cloudiness or weird color.
No nausea or vomiting.
No Fever, No rapid pulse
No abdominal tenderness
Pain is pretty specific to the lower left abdomen.

Maybe someone can tell me what I should look out for if I need to visit the ER?
Pancreatitis? Cancer? Gall bladder? Kidney?

Any ideas are appreciated

[Paxiled]

No idea what it is, but it's most likely not pancreatitis.  That's a very very painful disease, and you'd be at the ER no matter what getting opiates if you had that, again most likely.  I assume when you say you stopped eating carbs, you meant stopped eating white flour.  Whole grains are the staple of a healthy diet, and all the most healthful foods are carbs, such as veggies, fruits, etc.  You surely wouldn't want to cut out these, as they are the foods you should be eating the most.  You should also know that if you had pancreatitis to any meaningful degree, you'd also have to cut out red meat for the most part, as the enzymes the pancreas excretes also help us digest that.  In other words, it's not just a sugar thing, it's also a fat thing.  Other than that, can't help you.  Pancreatitis does sometimes occur randomly without known cause, but the vast majority of those who get it are alcoholics and smokers.  It's possible you just tweaked something in that area, such as when doing abs or reaching.  If you're a relatively young, healthy person, that's the most likely thing that happened.  While NIH does report a case of acute pancreatitis occurring because of this disease you had, again, if you had that, you'd really really know it.  My best friend has recurrent pancreatitis, and he's likely to die of it, and nobody knows why he has it, but because of him I've had to learn a lot about it and it's very very painful.  On the other hand, abdominal pain is caused by the virus you had, so maybe it's a lingering effect of that.  For all we know, after you ate that huge meal you had a very difficult bowel movement and that tweaked your abdomen.  But you know, this is all surmise, and only seeing a doc will probably give you an answer.  Where you can't find a diagnosis but can find crazy anxiety is Dr. Google.  That's fine when you're checking a diagnosis a doc has given you or medication you've been prescribed etc., but the same symptoms are signs of so many diseases and no disease at all, so Google is just a road to insanity if you're trying to blindly diagnose yourself without some prior experience with what you're researching.  The dizziness as well can be caused by the virus you had or any number of viruses.  Again, don't have a clue except it's probably not acute pancreatitis.  Peace.

[emichaelr]

Thanks for the reply.
I'm pretty sure the pain isn't from exercising, as I haven't been doing a lot of that in lockdown.

And yes, I should clarify by "cutting out carbs" I mainly meant white flour, bread, rice and sugar. And no chips, fried stuff. I've mainly been eating vegetables, fruit, chicken breast, light cheese, hummus, beans. Stuff like that. Seems to make a difference.  I suppose the only way I'm going to be able to tell is to eat a pizza and see if it causes a flare-up of pain, but I'm afraid to do that.

So what you're saying is that there aren't really "degrees" of pain to pancreatitis? It's either really painful or non-existent?

The reason I feared this is because of the NIH report you mentioned but also, this happened to my friend's daughter. She had hand foot mouth and it caused an autoimmune response that damaged her pancreas, now she has full-on diabetes.

I found a lab that is still doing blood tests around here, so I'm going to order one online and then see if I can get a video appointment with a doctor to have a look at the results.
I can't think of any other steps to take right now as, like I said, my only other option is to go to the ER, and I don't think I've reached that point yet.

[emichaelr]

Also, I forgot this:
Male, 42yrs, 5'9, 160lbs, non-smoker, occasional drinker, no drug use, no prescriptions

[Paxiled]

Well, look at your friend's daughter.  Her pancreas was damaged, which isn't necessarily pancreatitis, but look where it ended up, she was so damaged she got diabetes.  But pancreatitis is a description of an inflamed pancreas, not what caused it, and you can damage your pancreas' ability to manufacture enzymes without getting pancreatitis.  I'm afraid one way or the other you're going to have to see a gastroenterologist if you want to get a diagnosis that tells you if you have a problem with your pancreas, and that will require a lot of diagnostics.  I was referring to an inflamed pancreas, which does produce a lot of pain and often leads to surgery.  You don't sound anywhere near that level of pain, but I can't tell you that nothing is wrong or what is going on.  I hope you get to the right specialists and figure it out.