Question:
help me with this pain!

Im having these pains about every three days , it starts lightly then gets so bad i can hardly breathe. It lasts about 3 minutes then goes away. It's like a charley horse in your stomach that gradually goes around to your back. I dont have a gallbladder so its not that and an upper endoscopy showed nothing. Now my doc wants me to have a colonoscopy...anyone out there that is having this pain? I am three years post op and have moved to florida so i cant go see my surgeon. :( I'm scared this is something serious so any suggestions anyone has would be great !!!    — sharwilson (posted on March 19, 2007)

March 19, 2007
Have them check for Kidney stones or your appendix. My fiance was having the same kind of pains and it turned out that the first time it was his appendix that needed to come out and then after a year he had the pains again and found that he had kidney stones. Be persistant with your doctor. It took us over a year for them to take out his appendix because they sd that the pains and blood tests didn't indicate it but we made them do a laperscopic surgery to just explore and that is when they found the problem. Good Luck.
   — hugger1021

March 19, 2007
Any chance it could be a spasm in your diaphragm? Those can happen if you are too active after surgery and maybe for other reasons and they are extremely painful. If the pains are in your lower abdomen then it's not the diaphragm.
   — SusanJH

March 20, 2007
Sounds to me like it COULD be colon spasms. I suffer from Irritable Bowel, which I never know when it will hit b/c I go through episodes. However, I do know after surgery, I started having BMs every 3 - 4 days, which is normal. Now, you say the pain happens about every 3 days. So, it kinda makes sense. Is your BM pattern about every 3 days? Do you notice that you have to go to the bathroom around the time or a while after the pain? If this sounds familiar, feel free to message me!
   — byHizgrc

March 20, 2007
Hi Shar, I am almost 3 years out and was experiencing the same type of pains. Mine used to come on once in a great while and I thought it was something I was eating. However, by the time of my next attack I couldn't remember what I had eaten. This past January I had an attack and it didn't go away. I ended up needing emergency surgery for a small bowel obstruction due to scar tissue adhesions. This is extremely common when one undergoes abdominal surgery. The colonoscopy is a great (uncomfortalble but...) test to have taken to see if this is happening to you. If they catch it now they may be able to do it laproscopicaly. I had two adhesions constricting the bowel and one that had completely kinked off the bowel. Needless to say I was not a candidate at that time for lapro. Good luck and God Bless you. Sonja Lima San Diego, CA
   — Son-Son