Spent most of this year chasing what the cause of this pain could be.
In a nutshell, I experience pain only at night when I wake up during the night, so it’s always when I am lay down for a long period of time.
The pain feels like it’s in my lower abdomen and I can’t take a full breath without a sharp pain. I have to sit up and take small gradual breaths to reach a full diaphragm.
The doctors have no clue what it is, I went to a&e four weeks ago as it was so severe (it’s gotten worse).
Awaiting a referral to see a specialist.
Has anyone come across this before? It is relieved when I pass urine.
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EmmaW80s
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When you say lower abdominal pain, just how low do you mean? My son had what he described as stomach pain because that was the organ inside in that area, but it meant the clinicians assumed it was related to his gastrointestinal tract and it wasn't. It was a nerve trapped between the layers of muscle and fat on the abdomen. Also when we lie down our internal organs can move around a lot. What they call positional pain.
So it could be something like that, positional pain that passes when you sit up, or maybe organs moving around so when your bladder is full it presses on a nerve and cases pain?
Just some things to think about before you see the specialist. They will want to know if it is related to what you eat, how much you are drinking (water I mean, not alcohol) and if it is always with a full bladder, or is it something else. Go armed with as much information about the pain as possible and hopefully they will get down to the bottom of it - no pun intended!
It feels very internal, and it feels like it’s below my belly button.
I had a baby last July & had to have the placenta removed surgically so it has crossed my mind that something is now out of position.
Initially it happened now and then but now it is every night, only at night. I also have constipation and loss of appetite. I’ve had two ultrasounds on my uterus/ overies and an ultrasound on my gastrointestinal area in the past four months and they’ve all been clear. The doctors, having no clue, keep saying it’s gynaecological but to me it doesn’t feel like that. My history being that I had a cyst the size of a tennis ball removed in 2015 from my left ovary and underwent a TFMR in 2021 - so their default is to say it’s gynaecological.
I have just recently got PMI through work so am persuing that route as it’s worsening and quite frankly I am worried.
Hopefully this explains a little further and I appreciate your response :).
Another possibility is that there is some scar tissue from the surgery that has become irritated. I hope you can find someone who will look at the bigger picture.
With my son we wasted so much time being pushed down the gastro route. At one point my son said to the gastroenterologist, 'I'm not the only one full of s**t' as a joke, and luckily the gastro too it as a joke and laughed. But it did feel that because the initial thinking was gastro, like it is with your situation being gynaecological, it can stop them from thinking about all the other things it can be.
He had an endoscopy which showed nothing, and the endoscopist said it was likely positional because he is hypermobile. Then the Gastro ordered a CT scan which showed conspitation and he thought it was just that. That is when my son said he was full of s**t. The gastro referred my son to the pain clinic and it was there that a consultant finally diagnosed ACNEs Abdominal cutaneous nerve entrapment. Basically the nerves run round from the spine between the ribs, then they take a sharp 90 degree turn through the fat layer under the skin and out and turn again to cover the skin. So for my son it was only painful when laying on his front, because that was when the organs in his body were weighing on the nerve and pressing it against the fat and it was getting trapped.
The thing is, there are only 90 different causes of abdominal pain, but once doctors have eliminated the first few, they seem to just through their hands up in the air and said it must be psychological. ACNES is the main cause of abdominal pain that isn't gastrointestinal related, so it shouldn't have taken them 2 years to figure it out!
Sadly he is going to have to live with it though because he doesn't have the pain all the time. The pain consultant said that if she did the injection it might actually make it worse, so she wouldn't recommend it for intermittent pain unless he really wanted to try it. He decided that if he could live with it for two years, he could keep living with it, because if the injection made it worse he might not feel he could live with it all the time.
Unfortunately sometimes it’s impossible to diagnose what causes chronic pain and pelvic pain seems to be the most difficult. As you have previously had surgery you will have adhesions and these can cause all sorts of issues as they tighten and stick to other structures.
I’ve had years of pains that haven’t been diagnosed despite all the tests being done over and over. I recently had a hysterectomy in the hope it would help but it hasn’t and my excellent and lovely gynae who I’ve been seeing for years has done all she can, she’s told me many times that sometimes they just don’t have an answer ☹️
I'm sure you have covered this yourself and with your doctor, but you said it is relieved by passing urine. Have you had tests for UTIs and /or H Pylori bacteria? I'm in a similar state and after 5 months of diarrhoea had a CT Scan. No help for chronic problem but discovered lesion in my adrenal gland. This also makes me wonder whether your kidney function has been checked.I'm waiting on H pylori test and contacting GP tomorrow, as my pains are worse.
I think it is essential to keep a diary for a week before you see the consultant, of time the pain starts what it feels like, where it is on your body and how long it lasts. Any shooting pain where does it go from and to? If it is below the tummy button it is Bowel, above stomach. Often get confused. Ask for kidney blood tests and ? special Xray as this can cause back pain. Also write down what they say, if you can.
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