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“Hi everyone

I had a lap chole in late Feb. A week later I had called an ambulance as the pain was so bad. Turns out I had another retained stone in my bile duct. Had a n ERCP and sphincterotomy and was promised by the surgeon that that would be the end of my troubles. Not so. Since then I have been back to the hospital twice, once by emergency ambulance as the pain is just so bad. It starts out as “”Ooh, I’m hungry”” and then within minutes it’s the most severe hunger type pain imaginable. Radiating to my back, then under my right ribs again. I feel sick with the pain. Not wishing to sound melodramatic, but the pain is so bad I think I might just pass out and die. It goes from this funny spasm to the right of my stomach which in itself is not painful, but unless I eat something immediately or drink milk or something it fast becomes out of control and I feel wobbly and quite ill. It seems if I catch it quickly enough it doesn’t progress onto the full blown attack of pain.

The last attack I had was two days ago, I had to fast for 24 hrs for another completely unrelated minor procedure. As soon as I ate something after fasting, I knew I was in trouble. Spent the night in the emergency depatment, having pethedine for the pain. Bloods all normal. When I told the doc my history and that I had spent four days in hospital after having this pain 2 months ago and that they’d found nothing wrong (USS, Bloods, CT, Xray all normal. They even compared my CT to the MRCP I’d had previously and nothing was different.) he kind of just looked at me as though I was mad or making it up, which I am not! He said that I had gastritis and gave me some PPIs, antacids and anti-spasm meds. They are helping and now I just feel as though I’m bruised in that area, but I’m worried there’s something else going on. Having read through this thread it seems that I am not alone.

No particular food seems to set it off, but I feel I tolerate spicy foods less well than I had prior to my gallbladder coming out. The only thing that is obvious to me now is that I cant alow myself to get hungry, which makes the mornings bad; having to shovel some toast or cereal down almost the second I wake. No doctor wants to venture an explanation for these odd stomach spasms. Also, without wanting to be too revealing, if I don’t eat, I get loose, very yellow bowel movements, which I assume is just excess undigested/digested bile that’s not been “”soaked up”” by any food. Doc, once again is not at all concerned about this.

The worst thing is people not believing the pain. My mother in law had her gall bladder removed and has been fine ever since. Therefore even my husband makes me feel like I must be exaggerating in some way, especially since my tests keep showing nothing wrong. I’m so fed up. Am I going to have to spend the rest of my life in anticipation of agonising pain?”