As I found, to my cost, there are several conditions that have similar initial symptoms like acid reflux, ulcer, trapped gas. I guess the first real symptoms that should have indicated to my GP that something else was amiss was when I started having crushing chest pains during the night. The pains lasted for hours and no matter how I placed myself I couldn't ease them, I was sweating a lot and also brought up a fair bit of wind in an attempt to obtain some relief. I'm still not sure why I didn't panic and assume I was having a heart attack as the symptoms were pretty similar. One thing that had stuck in my mind was an ex-colleague of mine saying she had gallstones and had thought she was having a heart attack because the pain was so bad. For some reason, though, I didn't make the connection, possibly because there weren't any other symptoms at that time. It seems that these dreadful pains were caused by the stones moving around. I think it was about that time I had an ECG to check out my heart but it was, thankfully, OK. Then towards the end of last year my stomach went into spasm and the doc decided it was gastritis and put me on medication which seemed to ease things for about 3 months (or was it just coincidental?
).
It was only in the last few months that I started to go off my food and often felt queasy. I also found I had a niggling pain in my right side/back after eating which wouldn't resolve with shifting around. Some days I had pain under my right rib cage which spread into my stomach area and other days I wasn't too bad. Oddly, just before we went on holiday, I had been constipated for a few days and, after taking a few Senokot, things suddenly started to move. I felt great relief then and seemed to make a miraculous recovery. It was during a flight delay in Kuala Lumpur that things went backwards and I felt pretty rotten and in pain again. Luckily it was the last leg of the journey and I was so happy to get to the hotel and climb into a hot bath to ease my pains. It's the only thing that worked but I can't help wondering if the heat from the bath encouraged the stones to shift into the bile duct because it was a few days later that my urine changed colour as the bile duct must have become blocked. It was all downhill from there and every day was an ordeal to be endured. I'd seen the hotel doctor a couple of days after we'd arrived but had told him about the diagnosis from my GP in Oman which must have clouded his judgement as he just gave me similar medication like she had given me. It was pure luck that the next time I went back to the clinic, another doctor was on duty and she immediately could see there was a big problem. Of course, I was yellow by then and my urine colour was a give away that something was wrong. First she was going to test me for hepatitis B but when I told her that I had pain in my right back, she diagnosed gallstones and sent me straight to hospital for tests and the rest is history. It would appear that all the symptoms I'd been having were down to the presence of the stones. Latterly my skin had started to itch and I couldn't tolerate keeping my feet in a hot bath, as the souls itched to a point where I nearly ripped all the skin off them. My mouth became extremely dry to the extent that I couldn't put a piece of bread in there without it sticking like I was chewing a piece of blotting paper. This must be the point where I was becoming dehydrated although I was trying to drink as much as possible. Usually dehydration shows itself on me with sticky, clammy hands and dizziness but I had none of that so I don't know why it was different. By the time I got into hospital I found I couldn't even speak on occasions because every part of my mouth was sticking together to prevent speech. I had to sip water before I could speak as I had no saliva at all. This effect gradually wore off after 3 days on a drip and drinking 2 litres of fluids a day.
Selchie, I've put all this down in the hope your friend's husband will be aware of the symptoms and what can go wrong. It seems I've been developing my personal rock pile for many years now and it just came to a head at this point in time. Even if he only has acid reflux or an ulcer, it still needs looking into. The 'worst' thing that might happen to him is that he gets treatment and can return to normal eating habits. The best thing is that, if it's more serious, he will get early treatment to prevent a life-threatening situation like mine. He could start off by asking for a simple blood test for Heliobacter pylori which is a bacteria that can cause stomach problems. If there is any chance he has gallstones, an ultrasound scan is very easy and painless (apart from the technician slopping ice cold gel on you). A lot of us think and hope that aches and pains will just go away but, when they don't and keep recurring, it's time to find out what's really going on and to help the doctor make a correct diagnosis by monitoring and noting all symptoms.
I'm not so sure about engaging the services of Dr. Taffy though. As I remember him, he was happier tinkering with the internals of a car engine than anything more human. If you're looking for a dodgy, incompetent GP, I can also lend you mine
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