Gas pains, I just realized

So, for YEARS I've always gotten these pains... crampy feelings up at the base of my ribs, normally left side and toward the back. I've asked doctors about it and they either dismiss it or I think one even said "sounds like gas". I dismissed that, since I dont correlate the discomfort with farting 

 

Anyway, in the last few months its gotten a LOT more frequent... so I figured I'd try using Gas-X strips I bought for the hospital, and it seemed to help. I used em all up and bought a big box of the BJs brand Gas-X pills (simethicone). 

 

Again, seems to help the discomfort.

Anyway, this is like a daily thing now, morning and evening. 

Just curious if this is pretty common? What do others do about it? ...wonder if theres a patchmd for that ;P

Do you still have your Gall Bladder? If you do the symptoms I had when my gall bladder was bad was similar to what you are talking about. 

i do, but thats on the other side of the body?

I had pain through my shoulder blades in my chest. It was horrible. Just figured I would ask you. 

I would track everything I ate and do an elimination diet.  Start out very basic, eating "safe" foods that don't cause gas and gradually add back in food and monitoring if or when the gas returns.

It could be very simple but if you are like me and have a pretty stable eating plan it should be fairly easy to find the culprit and eliminate it.  Most gas has to do with food choices and you may not even be aware of what foods you eat that cause it.

I recently realized that I am most likely lactose intolerant.  I rarely have milk so it wasn't an issue but I have been using it more and realized that when I have milk I get gas.  It was easy for me to figure it out because milk was the most recent item I had that I hadn't used regularly before.

Gas, like other things, is pretty easy to deal with once you figure out the cause.  That is why I monitor my eating, so that I can connect any new issues with any new things I am eating.

Also, probiotics can really help so if you aren't using them you might try.  I have a lot of cultured food like yogurt and that really does help with digestion for me.

ya true, good idea. should be easy now that my coworker left the job and i wont be going out to lunch anymore. ill give it a try

That seems odd to get gas like that on the regular.  I had what I thought were gas pains that turned out to be gastritis brought on by too much caffeine.  This could have led to an ulcer which would have been trouble as I have RNY and a blind stomach.  It's probably worth your while to get checked out for h. pylori.

Jen

interesting. i have my follow up on the 16th, ill for sure ask :)

I'd call your doctor. If it's constant nagging pain...you should not wait 2 weeks.

Scott

You simply can be constipated. 

Even with daily BM - if we don't get complete evacuation - slowly we may get backed up.  

I was dealing with some pain...enough to call the doc and have a CT scan . Doc reviewed it and informed me that I was "full of it.."  2 days of heavy dose of miralax and mostly liquid diet ...and I was surprised how much better I felt after. It took 3 days to get clean. 

Now I take Miralx daily...and if I start having more gas pain - I increase the dose for 1-2 days to see if I was constipated. 99%of the time I was 

Even with no gas pains - once every 2 weeks I add an additional serving of Miralx. If I have more BM in the nextv12 hours - I know I am doing great... But if the "reaction" to the extra Miralax take 24 or 36 hours - I know I need to "get clean".

Chronic constipation is bad -really bad. It can lead to SIBO. That can cause things like IBS, leaky gut, Candida, food allergies and intolerances, fibromyalgia, rosecea, and many many more issues. 

Google SIBO. And the problem is once SIBO is there it is very difficult to completely get rid of it. 

I know from a personal experience. I am slowly healing... But it is a very slow and costly process.