Play doctor for me

geepondy

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Ok, here are my symptoms. Severe adominal cramps in the middle lower belly. For the first roughly 12 hours they are so severe I wonder if this is what women in labor experience. then they will subside but often stick around for a couple of days in a more minor fashion. I also notice I have a slight fever 99.5, whereas my normal body temp is low, usually less then 97.5. Now I would dismiss this as a bug and wait it out but this is the third time this has happened to me in the past year. Do you think it could possibly be food poisoning? I think I will go see a doctor but wondered of CPFers opinions.
 

BB

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Food poisoning usually takes 12-24 hours to occur... Check what you ate during that time period. I believe many food poisoning symptoms also feel like the flu. Also with FP, others may have the similar symptoms:

Food Poisoning

Food poisoning is a common, usually mild, but sometimes deadly illness. Typical symptoms include nausea, vomiting, abdominal cramping, and diarrhea that come on suddenly (within 48 hours) of consuming a contaminated food or drink. Depending on the contaminant, fever and chills, bloody stools, dehydration, and nervous system damage may follow. These symptoms may affect one person or a group of people who ate the same thing (this would be called an outbreak).

For my money--I would suggest Kidney Stones (or possibly Gall Stones)... Could also be a hernia...

I had the kidney stones, once bad enough that I had to get them removed, second time I just "punched" myself in the belly a few times and actually got it to move out.

The first time, went to the hostpital with pain/cramps--sent me out with a piece of paper saying that I had pains in my abdomin (no sh*t) from an unkown cause (thank you very much). A urine test for blood led them to try xrays and ultra sound.

Now, why are you asking an engineer about a medical problem? :touche:

Good Luck!
-Bill
 

drizzle

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Okay, take this with *many* grains of salt. :)

I have experienced symptoms very much like what you have. I went to several doctors and never had it adequately diagnosed. I have found two things that seem to help. You might feel they are unnecessary, irrelevant and/or quackery but I believe they helped me.

First, I want to ask you if while you were in the intense pain were you not able to get anything down? Even water? That's how it was for me. I couldn't take anti-acids or anything at all. This made it impossible to take the usual remedies, and when I could get them down they didn't help.

After all the various (wrong) diagnoses by MD's, I finally I went to an alternative medicine practitioner and what he had me do worked for me. For the actual symptoms while it was happening I took a specific homeopathic remedy. It was the tissue salt Kali-Sulph. They are very small tablets of mostly sugar that you take, 4 at a time, and hold under your tongue to dissolve. You don't swallow them. I would take 4 and wait just a few minutes and the symptoms would be reduced for a while. When they came back I took 4 more. The idea is to wait longer and longer between doses. For example if you have to take the second dose 10 minutes after the first, see if you can wait 20 minutes to take the next, and so on.

The other thing I did was to stop eating meat of any kind (yes that means seafood too). This stopped the attacks completely and after about a year I began eating seafood again and years later eventually began eating all kinds of meat again.

I have never had an attack as bad as the ones I used to get but I keep the Kali-Sulph around just in case and it has been very handy on a few occasions where it felt like I was headed for another attack.

Just to repeat the disclaimer, I believe this worked for me. I would hate to have you do this and not get it looked at by a doctor. I did this after being told it was a variety of things by doctors that just wouldn't admit that they couldn't find anything. In your case, there may be something very serious that they will find.

Good luck!
 

a99raptors

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Firstly, are you a guy or a girl.

Secondly, how old are you.

Thirdly, diagnosis online is almost at good as no diagnosis at all, but I can tell you that if your belly has pain, there is change in stool (eg frequency, colour), feelings of nausea and vomiting, all these point to more sinister causes, although they equally be benign as well.

Bottomline, see a physician who can SEE you. There are many things doctors can pick up from a simple and good clinical history and examination. Believe it or not, about 90% of disorders are diagnosed accurately that way.
 

oldgrandpajack

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Why do we put off seeing the doctor?

Get to a doctor about this. My Mother put off seeing the doctor for months, about constipation, and died from cancer. Talked to me about it, and I kept telling Mom to see her doctor. She died 7 weeks after seeing the doctor. Nothing could be done.

oldgrandpajack
 

PoliceScannerMan

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You should go to a Doctor and get a order for a CT of the Abdomen & Pelvis WITH and without contrast. Its what I do for a living, people get CT's for alot less than you descibe..... :awman:
 

leadfoot808

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Could be appendicitis or something equally serious...go to the doctor or hospital!!! It's probably not food poisoning if you're not puking or getting the runs.
My advice is if you need to go to the ER take the ambulance to the hospital if you live in a densely populated area to avoid waiting...
Hope you feel better and let us know how you're doing!
 
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geepondy

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Damn HMOs.

I call my health plan affiliates to schedule an appointment only to find out I no longer have a primary care physician. Truth is I did know this as I had received a letter some time ago stating that he was moving on. Trouble is, none of their physicians were accepting new patients. This is an organization I have been a member of since 1984. So I hastily pick another health organization in the area, find a primary care doctor that accepting new patients, do a little bit of research, he seems to be ok so choose him. I was then told the earliest I could see him was August 17th! So I say what about someone else, I really don't care who it is at this point, I just want this current problem looked at. Well you're a new patient so that makes it tough. She did strongly suggest that if the symptoms get worse or didn't improve that I go to the ER and meanwhile I can see somethere to discuss the problem, next Tuesday.

It is getting better. I am still having the cramps but they are getting less frequent and less intense. I should have added in the original description that yes although I don't have the flaming runs, I do have very loose stools with some gurgling going on in that area. If past history proves correct then I will probably be back to one hundred percent normalcy by the end of the week. If they don't get better then I will indeed go to ER but like I said this is the second time this year this has happened and seems to happen to me once or twice every year. It's a very painful experience each time this happens.

Thanks for your posts.
 

dca2

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Get a 35w amondotech illuminator, allow it to warm up, place in small of back while standing in front of a mirror. Don't forget to wear sunglasses and have a digi camera--I want beamshots. :cool:

He did say "Play doctor for me" and I am by no stretch of the imagination a real doctor!
 

jpfaff

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Let me tell you dont play around.
You have similar symptoms I had. Finally one time I couldn't handle the pain. After an xray and a ultrasound they determined it to be gallstones in the gallbladder. Surgery immenent. So, get it taken care of now because you could die if it ruptures.
Jason
 

Greg

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Fever and abdominal pain are symptoms that should be investigated further. Could be many conditions including infections such as appendicitis and peritonitis as well as others. Do you find that your symptoms subside when you are in one position verses another? Eg: If you legs are bent while lying down, does this make the pain less intense? If so, see the doctor right away.

I suggest you go to a walk in clinic or Emergency Room and get yourself checked out. At the very least get yourself an ultrasound and x-ray of your abdomen. PoliceScannerMan's suggestions of an abdominal CT with contrast is also a good idea.

Mind you I am in Canada, and I am not aware of how much these procedures would cost, but non-the-less you should have this matter investigated further.

Wish you all the best and hope you feel better soon.

Greg
 

iced_theater

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I know you don't have what I had. I had stomach/low back pain that would come and go for no reason whatsoever. Would usually last 5-12 hours at a time and every few weeks or so. Had it for 10 plus years, I went to doctors but they never could find anything wrong with me.
After awhile they just believed it was my imagination, but a couple of years ago I had this pain and I went to the ER to at least get pain meds to make it subside, but they do some blood tests and find my white blood cell count extremely low and my bilirubin very high and realized something was very wrong with me.
I don't know how it came up, but they decided I needed surgery right then. Well I had gallbladder surgery and a roux-en-y when I was two and when they opened me up this time they found my intestine was pushing itself through this hole from that previous surgery and more or less was cutting itself off thus resulting in horrible pain.

You definitly need to see a doctor though, maybe your's wont be as elusive as mine was.
 

Brighteyez

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It sounds like you might be getting better. Actually I've had the same thing, it is a form of food poisoning, and you don't have to be alarmed about the posting that said you have to be vomitting to have food poisoning. That really isn't the case; it can come out either end ;). You should probably get a follow-up with a physician though. If you can't do that, contact your HMO and find out what options they have available to you for Urgent Care.


On a more serious note though, while I find it comical that people believe that they can get legal advice in discussion areas, and even more comical that some people think that they can offer usable legal advice on a discussion forum (people that really can offer such advice know enough not to offer it on a forum), I find it particularly dangerous for anyone to either ask for or offer medical information. While it's easy to ignore the need for PCP when you're well, it's probably a good idea to search one out now (or even ask members of your family, as physicians who do not accept new patients will often accept family members as new patients.)
 

Joe Talmadge

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I agree, not just get to a doctor... I personally don't like to let my primary care physician treat something like this; unless you're sure your doctor has it nailed right, I'd go to a gastroenterologist for a followup. This could be many things, from nothing serious to something like IBD that you want treated early while it's still easy to treat.
 

geepondy

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I did some research on gallstones and from what I've read in most cases the pain is more localized in the upper right adominal area. Was this the case for you? My cramps were in the more or less upper adominal area but widely spread out like someone was putting a clamp on the whole thing.

jpfaff said:
Let me tell you dont play around.
You have similar symptoms I had. Finally one time I couldn't handle the pain. After an xray and a ultrasound they determined it to be gallstones in the gallbladder. Surgery immenent. So, get it taken care of now because you could die if it ruptures.
Jason
 

geepondy

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Ha, ha, with my HMO, I don't go to any specialist unless the primary care doctor approves (unless of course I want to pay out of pocket). I can say though that in my experience, most of them have readily referred me to specialists.

Joe Talmadge said:
I agree, not just get to a doctor... I personally don't like to let my primary care physician treat something like this; unless you're sure your doctor has it nailed right, I'd go to a gastroenterologist for a followup. This could be many things, from nothing serious to something like IBD that you want treated early while it's still easy to treat.
 
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