Bloated for 3 months

[Melissa6204]

For about 3 months now I have been having some very bad pain and bloating in my stomach.  It isn't quite as bad now as it was initially.  When I get the bloating, it feels very tense  like I just did 200 sit ups or something.   The tension starts at the top of the center of my ribs and goes down to my lower stomach. Initially the bloating lasted 24 hours a day for 7 days, now it is about 12-18 hours a day, occasionally I have a day where I do not have it.  I have not noticed any difference in pain depending on what I am eating. I have tried a week with eating no fats and a week with no dairy and that made no difference. The tension basically stays centered, but I also have a sharp pain that I get on the right side, sometimes it is the very top of my stomach, sometimes the very bottom.  I went to my primary care doctor and he feels that it is gallbladder related, I went for an ultrasound of the gallbladder/pancreas and kidneys, they did not see anything wrong there.  My doctor thinks that maybe there are gallstones in the bile duct, so that is another test I am supposed to go in and try, but the ultrasound cost me $500 and this one will probably be more and I am not so sure that is the problem, so I don't know that it is worth the money and time off of work.  Some other medical problems for me that may or may not be related to this are:  I have always had irregular menstrual cycle-lasting longer and more frequent even though I am on the pill.  I have had G.E.R.D. for about 9 years now, I had an esophageal stricture that I had to have dialated twice, during which they also found chronic gastritis and abnormal mucosa.  I have had a lot of vitamin deficiencies recently: B12, Vitamin D and folic acid.  The B12 has been low for at least 2 years, the other 2 are recent.  One of the blood tests showed a slightly high white blood cell count (10.9, normal range is 3.8-10.8) and high absolute neutrophils (8,905 normal range is 1,500-7,800), but this was back in February and I had to recheck a few days later and everything was fine except for the deficiencies.  This is embarassing, but I have also been burping a lot.  I am 33 years old.  I recently went in to a gynecologist and had a check up, I did not mention the problems that I am having because I assumed that it was a GI concern, but now I am trying to look into all possibilities.  During my check up she said that everything was fine.  Any help being pointed in the right direction would be greatly appreciated.  At this point I am very frequently scared to eat anything because I do not know if it is food related or not and I am just so tired of being in pain that I would rather not eat to possibly decrease my chances of having problems.  I really feel like I need to ask the doctor to check me for H. Pylori, but with all of the GI issues that I have had I am shocked that they have not already done so because that causes so many GI problems.  My weight has been fluctuating weekly between 125-135 pounds which is an average weight for me, but it doesn't normally fluctuate so much, I guess it could have to do with the bloating.  I look like I am about 4 months pregnant, but there is no possibility of that.

[specialmom]

Gosh, I'm not sure.  Sorry you have been so uncomfortable for so long.  You need to keep being a squeaky wheel with your doctors so that you get proper diagnosis and treatment.  Don't give up.  I wonder about Irritable bowel syndrome.  IBS isn't what people often think and can follow different patterns.  Your symptoms do match one of those patterns.  You don't mention your age.  Bloating, filling with fluid in older people especially ban be a sign of kidney issues, ascites is severe bloating (almost looking like you are pregnant) that develops as cancer advaNces, it doesn't sound like that.  Heart issues can cause water retention.  But I'd guess all of these things have been looked at and your symptoms don't match.  So, all you can do is keep forcing the issue with doctors that this isn't right and you need help solving it.  good luck and please let us know how this goes, okay?

[Melissa6204]

Thank you. I am 33 years old.