Did not expect THAT

For the last 3-4 weeks I have been feeling slightly off – not particularly ill, just not feeling great.  

It started with abdominal pain which I assumed was all part and parcel of fibro so I just brushed it aside and continued with life but 2 weeks ago I noticed that whenever I was eating particularly if it was a big meal or when eating three decent size meals my stomach would bloat/swell.  At first I put it down to my Irritable Bowel and my doc and I agreed that we didn’t really want to introduce more medication so we decided to try some Mylanta for a week and see how we go. 

Over the week I noticed that the pain was increasing and I was in excruciating pain after one particular meal and since then I have not been able to stomach food nor tolerate it without any pain.  So I have been surviving on toast, crumpets or BBQ shapes.  Now I know I wanted to lose weight but this was not the way to go about it but even if I was trying to lose weight It wasn’t working as I was noticing that the swelling was still occurring – so to re-cap basically everything I was eating was causing some form of swelling to the point that I could have been mistaken for being in the FAMILY way again and to top it off my pain was increasing each day.

So back to the doctor and after declaring that despite the Mylanta was working to some degree with my digestive issues (no details required here) I was feeling pretty crap – it helped that today was the worse I had felt so she could see first-hand, and to help things along I drew over my stomach to highlight the areas of concern.  Now I honestly thought it was still my Irritable Bowel but no it’s turned out that I have a Stomach Ulcer!!! Now I was not expecting that at all – so now we are back on the “test merry-go-round” bloods, ultrasound and possibly a camera shoved down my throat yuck!!!!

I’ve gotten pretty good at pin pointing what is normal pain or balance issue for me and have been able to self-manage with medication, pushing through the pain or rest if needs be, but I’m still struggling with “when to seek medical advice” for any new or existing pain, I tell myself that if the pain gets too unbearable I will drag myself to the hospital.  Had I seek medical advice sooner I wonder if this Ulcer could have been avoided instead of me ignoring it?  I will never know the answer to this but all I do know is that I just need to get manage the pain and get through this next round of tests and hopefully they will all come back showing nothing abnormal and fingers crossed that the medication is working and to start enjoying food again and continue on my Weight Watchers journey :)

#downbutnotout