Sorry everyone! I know it has been a couple of weeks since I posted. It seems that my digestive issues were not caused by overdosing on gluten after all...(not that I really ate that much)
The Mystery Illness is Back!!!
Some of you may not be familiar with my "mystery illness" that I had for about 4 months in early 2009. The best way to describe it is alternating between a short period of semi-constipation followed by lots of mushy poop that has a really foul smell. There is sometimes cramping but not much. Sorry about the unpleasant description but it's no fun for me either. I hope nobody was eating when they read that. If you were I am sorry.
Ok I am done with the description I promise! This first started on March 17, 2009. I had not eaten anything unusual and I thought it was a one day thing. Well it wasn't. When it first started there was a lot of cramping so it did not take me long to see the doctor about it. My first visit was on March 30. Then on April 1st I was experiencing painful cramps and my doctor sent me to the hospital for an ultrasound. The ultrasound found nothing at all. I ate a lot of rice for a few days and I even see a note about having heartburn 2 days in a row which is really unusual for me. It appears after about a week on the rice I was ok for 2 days and then it came back. I went to see a Gastroenterologist. He ordered a bunch of blood tests and told me I didn't have Celiac disease and I should have a colonoscopy and a small bowel x-ray. I had the colonoscopy on April 22 and it was normal. About a week after the colonoscopy I believe I returned to "normal". On May 6th I had the small bowel x-ray and of course it came back normal. So for a while I thought I was better and then on May 23rd it started to come back and by May 27th it was totally back. I felt I needed to see a different specialist so I made an appointment with a different doctor and saw her on June 23rd. She ordered more blood work and I had to submit stool samples and a 5-HIAA urine test where I collect all of my urine for 24 hours in a huge jug. This urine test was the only test that came back abnormal. My levels were high so I had an Octreotide scan on July 28 to see if I had a carciniod tumor. The scan must have seen something so I had to have a CT scan of my abdomen on August 13 with and without contrast. This scan found a fibroid on my uterus. Now we all know the fibroid on my uterus was not the cause of these symptoms and at that point in time I was no longer having symptoms so I did not pursue it any more. I was never given a diagnosis or any possible explanation of my symptoms. I figured maybe it was just a virus or something and it was gone now so it did not matter anymore.
Well now it is back...and I want it to go away. I still have no idea what this "thing" is. I leave for my cruise in 4 and a half weeks and do not want to be dealing with this. I don't wish to see a doctor at this point since they don't know what it is either and will just order more tests that will show nothing. So for now it will remain a mystery and I will have to tolerate it.
On December 1st my weight was 122.0 which is .6 pounds higher than it was on November 1st but I was dealing with this problem (and prior to the problem starting it was still going down) so I plan on weighing myself again on Tuesday since it is the one year anniversary of that "horrible" weigh in at the doctor's office that got me started on this whole mission.
I will continue to not eat gluten for the rest of December. So far I am not seeing any improvements so there may be no intolerance. That would be great since it is REALLY expensive to buy gluten free foods.
