Stomach pains after surgery

[Guest guest]

Hello all,

Yesterday I said I would let you all know what my little problem was

that I am having. But I need to start with something totally

unrelated and at the end you will understand.

In 1993 I had my gall bladder out. After a couple of months I

started suffering from these horrible belches. I used to say it was

like satan crawled into my mouth and shit in there. It was that

bad. I was prescribed a medication called Propulsid (sp?). About 4

months after the gall bladder surgery and 2 months after the start of

the medication I started getting some pains in my abdomen. Pain

seems to be too mild of a word for it but let me describe what was

going on. It would start with a mild ache under my belly button.

Then a creeping pressure would start in my shoulders and feel like it

crept from my blades up and over my shoulder to my collar bone. The

pressure would increase and increase as if someone was pushing down

on my shoulders in the soft tissue harder and harder. Some time

while the pressure was building in my shoulders the pain would

increase in my abdomen to nearly intolerable pain. I had a small

child at home at the time and would know this was coming and put her

in front of the tv and pray nothing bad happened and then go lie on

my bed, writhing from the pain. The only other pain I have ever

expierenced like this was contractions when having my daughter. I

couldn't talk, I nearly hyperventlated from not concentrating on my

breathing and the weirdest part, they would come on slow, build and

build in pain then fade away. Then start up again after a few

minutes with no pain. This went on for about an hour.

I called the docs and they had no clue. I had appt after appt and

they couldn't resolve this but did take me off the Propulsid. The

attacks continued but after about a year or so they disappeared all

together.

Since this happened I will occasionally get the same shoulder pain

but never very bad. And it is never accompanied by the abdominal

pain, thank God. I finally was looking online one day and it sure

sounded like something called Esophageal Spasms. I called my doctor

and he said " that's it! " . I was simply to take liquid Benadryl at

the onset and they would stop. Guess what? It worked.

So why have I told you this? Because about a month ago I got a very

slight pain in my abdomen in the same place and the shoulder pain

came right after. I was driving and was able to continue driving but

this sort of scared me. I never got the bad " contraction " type pain

but I was just very wary. I didn't think about this again until it

happened a few days later again. But still very mild in comparison

to what I had expierenced years before. This has happened about once

a week (on average) for the last 5 weeks. Until this past Sunday. I

was sitting on the computer, doing basically nothing. I was in a

lazy boy so you know I was comfortable. Here it started coming on

but this time was different. I was totally in more pain than ever.

Or at least what I could remember of the pain. This was just like

the times 12 years ago. It was horrible. My husband just laid down

with me and tried to be soothing but I was unconsolable. He said I

was a bit disoriented during it, but I think that was just due to the

pain. I don't get a fever or even neasea. Just pain and that nearly

untolerable pressure in my shoulders. I had no liquid Benadryl in

the house so I just dealt with it for about 45 min or so until they

stopped. Over that time I had 3 really bad rounds of pain.

I have looked up esophageal spasms online and they are now treating

it with Nitroglicerin under the tongue. I find that interesting. I

have an appt with my doc but can't get in until next week. He isn't

here this week and I am off to Disneyland. I will be taking some

liquid Benadryl with me on the trip just in case, but so few people

have ever heard of this before.

Here is the kicker. I don't think it is bypass related but more

surgery related. I can't tie these to any food or situation that

leads to them coming on but they did start up again 5 months after my

gastric bypass surgery (or 4 months if you count the mild episodes)

and a couple months after my gall bladder surgery.

Has anyone ever heard of this or have any suggestions.

Thank you for getting this far, I really appreciate any help on

this. I want to be totally prepared when I go to the doc next week.