I've posted only once before. In November of last year, I started getting some pain radiating through my right-upper ribcage, often through to my back. It wasn't severe, just very achy, burny, and constant. It would sometimes come on with fatigue.
As I used to drink quite heavily (I'm 35 and used to drink around 50-odd units in my twenties, per week) and was anorexic (for two years around about 2013 I was less than 7 stone in weight - I'm male, and 5'8. Nowadays I'm around 9st or 124lbs) I worried that my constant alcohol consumption had caught up with me. I still drink between 20 and 28 units in a week, but always have a day or two off.
The doctors referred me to a specialist. LFTs, MRI, the lot. Nothing showed up. They saw my common bile duct was quite inflamed for a time, but nothing else beyond that.
The pain persists. I've tried taking periods of 10-14 days without alcohol, I eat well (low fat, enough calories), but nothing seems to aid the situation. The pain is constant, dull, and occasionally makes my right ribcage tender to touch.
My gastroenterologist thinks I might have some referred pain from my colon from years of restriction (acidic imbalance), and has ordered an ultrasound to round off the tests (and potentially confirm his belief that my liver isn't the culprit, as the MRI showed).
But as we are, it seems nothing will stop the dull ache and constant fatigue.
Has anyone ever experienced a similar sensation? A dull, burning ache around where your liver resides? Can anyone let me know if it turned out to be another culprit causing the pain?
Thank you all so much in advance.
-Tom
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TotoMimo
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They did an endoscopy to check my duodenum, but didn't find anything abnormal there when they entered my small intestine (however I had to stop it prematurely before it got further into my bowel as I started to up chuck a bit... urgh).
The doctors are all quite stumped. It doesn't seem to be exacerbated by alcohol, as I thought was the cause (I take in something like 25 units per week, still higher than the government recommends, but it works out to maybe 4 units per night, never a "binge"), but having abstained for a week or two at a time I see no relief from it.
This will sound awful but, after my anorexia, I got severely brittle bones and had to take a lot of codeine etc to ease the pain - this in turn, along with my lazy colon from the restriction, has made me severely constipated. For a while I thought maybe it was referred pain from that.
A surgeon also thought it may be Sphincter of Oddi, but nothing else to that end has been discovered.
I had endoscopy twice. Both cases had sedation. You are brave to even try it without sedation! Stop drinking alcohol for a year? I've stop alcohol for 2 months, i know it is so hard! The Whiskey bottles are starring at me!! Aarrrgghhhh..
The endoscopy was traumatic, I won't lie - you were right to opt for anaesthetic!
As for alcohol, I won't deny its importance in my day-to-day life. After a tough day at work I normally have 2-3 light beers (bottles) except Thursdays and Tuesdays (I made a deal with myself to take those days off, which I do no bother). It helps with my bone pain and, of course, it's enjoyable!
But the longest I've gone without it in the past few years has been between 3-4 weeks, really, and lately by the point ive reached 3 weeks without it, I have myself thinking "nothing's changed, you're still aching, so it can't be that".
Maybe it's a case of perseverance, but even my GP seems stumped. He thinks the numbers don't add up, and given my relatively lean frame, clear MRI/LFTs and low-fat diet he genuinely thinks it's unlikely to be a liver fault. But as with all things, we know our own bodies; I know this pain is a throbbing ache around my right ribcage,which is where my liver/gallbladder are.
This is why I was wondering if anyone had experienced a similar sensation and/or been misdiagnosed etc before based on getting all-clear results but still experiencing pain and fatigue.
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