Posted on 12/28/2013 12:27:09 AM PST by MacMattico
Check Celiac’s
I said that to my husband. Do I have to start screaming for them to listen to me? I had my daughter without pain killers. I’m just not a loud person when it comes to pain.
Here is a search for lower left quadrant pain via Mayo Clinic. http://www.mayoclinic.com/health/abdominal-pain/MY00390/DSECTION=causes
You will see there are several issues that can present on that side. You can rule out some or most but a few should give you a good idea of what is going on and with a bit of extra reading you should be able to get a more specific symptom/cause/issue, at least enough to give the docs more helpful information.
Good luck and don’t let them turn you away.
Under Obamacare this type of thread I will be our new healthcare, should I say, Period!
Do you have a GP or private doctor of some kind? If not, you need to get one.
Yes. I should have called today but I slept as much as I could because I was up all night.
That’s good to know!
You should get a referral to a GI. That is your stomach.
Right where the stomach is.
You have mail.
Besides the point, they should have never sent you home without doing further test to determine the problem.I agree. You need to go back to the hospital. So irresponsible on their part. My mother had pancreatis, and had pain somewhat similar, however, it moved into not being able to breathe well. It's a condition you want to rule out though. And pleurisy I've had as well. It does sound like that from your description. But geeez, you shouldn't have to be on Free Republic to diagnose your condition. Shame on your hospital's employees; I'll be offering up some aves (Hail Marys) for you.
Your gall bladder is on the right.
It could be a lot of things. Please follow up with your doc (horrified by the treatment you got at the hospital!)
In the meantime, check out this link:
http://www.webmd.com/digestive-disorders/hiatal-hernia
spleen
Just thought I’d throw in my two cents:
Just because you had your gallbladder out doesn’t mean that you can’t get them in the cystic duct. If that becomes blocked, you can have a ton of issues. (The pain is horrible.)
Another issue that can cause pain in that area is an inflamed spleen or pancreatitis. Stomach ulcers can flare and quiet. I had duodenal ulcers (it’s like acid reflux, but where the stomach goes into the intestine) a few years ago that hurt like hell and yes, the pain came and went. It took months to figure it out.
The problem with abdominal pain is that it can literally be anything and can radiate from anywhere. It’s very difficult to narrow it down.
I’d recommend getting in to see an Internal Medicine dr. Not a family practitioner who also happens to be an IM, one that does IM for a living. They dig harder than anyone else, in my experience.
One easy test is to do 30 days of Prilosec (20mg or one pill a day). If it helps, you’re looking at ulcers (stomach or gut). No, it may not cure the problem, but it does work well for diagnosis.
Follow up with your doctor as soon as you can.
He may recommend the CT. Not that much in Left upper quadrant.
Could be stomach, colon,Lung possible, spleen also in LUQ. Kidney and pancreas less likely.
If you go back to the ER expect to repeat everything, and them probably do the CT. They are not benign. The radiation from an abdominal Ct is 1000mRem. The radiation from a chest xray is 10mRem for comparison. Each abdominal CT increases risk of cancer over your lifetime by a fraction of 1%. And if you are a female of reproductive age there’s a significant dose to your ovaries.
I know its hard to hear this but the fact you’ve had the pain for weeks suggests it’s actually not emergent. Most of the problems we get really concerned about in the Er would not last that long before making you really ill or killing you. Doesn’t mean nothing is wrong, just not an acute process. The job of the ER is to identify those in immediate danger, we can’t diagnose every problem. The most common diagnosis of abdominal pain in the ER is “Unspecified abdominal pain”. We can only do so much in the ER. Trust me I kind of know what I’m talking about here.
Would it not make more sense to listen to the doctor and see the recommended specialist before demanding expensive, somewhat harmful in the case of CT, and possibly unnecessary testing?
The other thing that people don’t realize is that a CT scan isn’t a magic ball that allows a dr to see everything in super high detail.
I’ve had CT scans miss a kidney stone (that I passed the next day) and a massive ovarian cyst that ruptured a couple of days later and nearly killed me from bleeding. (For that one, I had gallons of fluid building up in my abdomen. Not fun.) My son had a CT scan that didn’t show cracked cartilage from his ribs to his sternum.
So many times, it can be a waste of money and, as you said, the radiation is no joke. Most drs that I work with like to go for an ultrasound, blood work, and other tests first.
The ddimer has a high sensitivity and low specificity. That means LOTS of false positive results. You need to identify patients based on age, illness, history, physical exam vitals etc to select the subgroup the test is useful in. If you shotgun the test you end up with a large number of false positives you have to then deal with. That usually means a CT angiogram of the chest which involves a very large radiation dose, and contrast which can shut down your kidneys.
Good ER docs are VERY selective in who they get d dimers on.
Shit...I ain’t no doctor...but i recommend....http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kkb8xre37F0
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