Does this sound familiar to any of you? I have been seeking answers for 20 years...

From: Robert Anderson (flatso100@yahoo.com)
Fri Jul 26 00:54:12 2002


I have suffered from a mysterious, intermittent, severe abdominal pain most of my life. It comes on suddenly, and feels like a stabbing, pulling, cramping pain and is very localized, almost like I can feel the length of nerve or intestine and it feels like someone is yanking on it. *Extremely* unpleasant - to the point where I laugh at all other forms of pain - even broken bones - as meaningless in comparison.

The onset has little pattern to it, but often does occur after a long day of vigorous exercise like skiing or hiking. It seems to have absolutely nothing to do with my diet. It often hits me while I am taking a deep breath, or "stretching tall." The most common way to trigger it is during urination - it feels like the bladder is contracting and pulling at the nerve or length of intestine.

When I was 16, I was diagnosed with umbilical hernia and I had surgery for it. The pain recurred afterwards but had changed in character significantly.

I have seen many doctors over the years, and they are consistently stumped, and usually blow me off as "having gas," or occasionally I will be accused of drug-seeking. I do believe doctors to be completely worthless at this point with respect to my condition.

Anyway, it seems as though this may be related to adhesions formed during the hernia surgery. I will probably not investigate surgery at this point, as the full-blown episodes have become far enough apart that I don't feel as crippled as I once did. But I would like to hear from others who have had similar symptoms, if you are out there. I have been searching for answers for 20 years and this feels like the closest I have come.

Thanks for listening, Bob


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