Please help diagnose DH

[foreversunny]

Will keep this as brief as possible.

Any feedback is very much greatly received.

DH has been having problems with his stomach area for apx 2 years now.

Rewind 2 years....he was getting bloating, feeling full, pain in abdomen, loss of appetite and nausea (nausea mainly in the morning).

Went to the GP several times, was given several different types of medication but nothing helped. After 6 months, he was finally given a blood test and he tested positive to H pylori, which was then treated.

The H Pylori symptoms mainly cleared but the fullness feeling and pain continued.

The last 18 months he's visited the GP so many times (14+). He's been prescribed so many different types of medication (including medication for IBS), but nothing has improved.

Last month he was given an endoscopy (after pushing himself for a referral) which showed up nothing. His stomach all looked normal.

Bowl wise, all is normal. No diarrhea, no constipation, no blood/mucous etc.

He passes stools regularly, however, he does feel an urgency to go. Once he feels the "urge" to poo, he has to go swiftly iyswim.

He also finds is hard to pass wind. He's always been able to pass wind fine but the last 2 years he just can't pass wind very well at all. I think as a result, he has trapped wind pain, fullness, bloating etc.

After a full meal, it seems to take him a very, very long time to feel normal again. For example, if he has a large, cooked dinner at 3pm, by 6-7pm he'll still feel very, very "full."

He's generally tired and exhausted (but works long hours so understandable).

There's no pattern to the pain. It comes and goes through out the day. It doesn't ease or get worse after/before food. It's very much random.

Yesterday was a particularly bad day where as today, he feels it's much better.

He's a lovely husband and a wonderful father, our DC absolutely dote on him but this ongoing problem is making him utterly miserable. He's irritable, cross and fed up. He's been suffering every single day for 2 years now.

I suffer terribly with anxiety and I'm worried it's something awful

Please can someone help. I feel desperate.

[amillionyears]

Have no experience of H pylori.

Is he seeing the exact same GP each time?

Does he have stress about something?

[foreversunny]

He's seen one of the GP several times (perhaps 7 or 8 times), other than that, he sees different GPs.

No stress about anything. He's a very easy going, laid back guy.

[Imnotaslimjim]

Has he been checked for coeliacs? As it does sound very similar! And it doesn't follow a pattern. But if it is, once he givesup wheat the symptoms will clear within a few short days

[foreversunny]

No he hasn't been checked for that Imnotaslimjim. Each time he goes to the GP he just seems to come home with more tablets to take.

I feel he needs to be armed with info to give to the GP other wise they just seem to fob him off with more pills.

[Marne]

Sounds like it could be an intolerance to gluten, this doesn't always show up on tests as its not a full blown allergy. Get him to try cutting out gluten for a week and see if it improves. I am similar (suffered a lot when i was a child) and my dd1 is now getting the same, we cut out the gluten (or cut down on it) which seems to help. It might not be whats wrong with your dh but its something he could try to see if it helps.

[YDdraigGoch]

I thought about gluten too. I would concentrate on diet, and cut out different food groups for a couple of weeks at a time and see if things improve. Gluten is a good place to start, followed by dairy I think. You might be able to get a referral to a dietician who could help with this, or find someone and pay yourselves.

[foreversunny]

OK will look into the gluten issue and give it a go to cut it out and see if things improve.

He's due to go up the GP again next week. Is it worth waiting until after the appointment to start the diet thing?

Thank you for your replies and for taking the time to read through my post.

[YDdraigGoch]

IMO - you might as well start straight away. I believe some people see immediate results (don't want to get your hopes up though).

[foreversunny]

Ok. Diolch i ti DdraigGoch

[LargeLatte]

I had similar symptoms but also lots of pain after appendectomy. Cutting out gluten and adding probiotic tablets and digestive enzymes has helped hugely - you can just get them in Holland Barret.

[YDdraigGoch]

Croeso x

[2madboys]

Hi Forever - my DH has coeliac disease. Please don't let your dh cut out gluten before a test as he will get a false negative (if he indeed has it). He should push for a blood test and if this comes back positive he may need a biopsy to confirm. He would need a proper diagnosis to get gf food on prescription, but also access to dieticians and other specialist appointments that he would need.

[greenfig]

Hi, sounds very similar to symptoms I was having. I was diagnosed clear of gluten/coeliac intolerances & given a sheet about IBS, which I ignored as I didn't think I could cut out so much & didn't have faith that it would help at all! I went on a lo carb diet for weight loss & my symptoms disappeared! I can't believe the difference, I feel so much better. I feel it's not just the gluten for me as rice & potatoes etc have the same effect for me. Would agree don't change diet until after the tests. I sympathise, it was miserable.

[Badvocsanta]

Has he tried cutting out wheat and dairy?

[digerd]

Has he had a bowel endoscopy, or only the one into tummy and upper small intestine?

[foreversunny]

2madboys - I've been reading about coeliac today since this thread, and have read exactly what you said, it can lead to an inaccurate test results. Thanks for the heads up!

Badvocsanta - No he hasn't tried anything diet related tbh. No one has ever spoken to us regarding that, the GPs haven't even suggested anything to do with diet. We feel really in the dark about the whole thing.

digerd - The endoscopy he had was via his mouth to check his tummy and upper intestine (duodenum?). All came back as normal.

Although we're obviously pleased it came back as normal, it's now put us right back to square one with no idea where to turn to next.

[2madboys]

Just noticed you said your DH was irritable. Mine was diagnosed with mild depression a couple of years before the coeliac diagnosis. In retrospect we now believe that it was caused by the coeliac. He gets pretty miserable if he's eaten something that's contaminated. The good news is that we found a big improvement pretty quickly once he went gluten free. It can be a bit of a pain, but not as bad as we expected and so worth it for the change in symptoms.

Hope you get a diagnosis of something soon.

[Afsana1]

This sounds like me! I've had h pylori had antibiotics but still not better. Everything you gave described is what I am going through. I have recently been retested for h pylori and I have a scan next week. Hopefully will get the answers. I hope you do too

[foreversunny]

Thanks 2madboys, I don't think he's depressed but the whole thing has made his general day to day life pretty uncomfortable. He still goes out, see's friends, works hard, very family orientated and so on. Overall he's OK but I will defiantly mention it to him.

Afsana1, good luck with the scan, do come and report back if you can! Hope you get some answers. DH often says its just the not knowing that annoys him the most! A diagnosis will lead to action being taken, but of course without a diagnosis, we're just stuck in limbo. Sigh.

[ilovemydogandMrObama]

could it be a food allergy? DS is dairy and soya allergic, but his symptoms initially were thought to be coeliac.

If he is dairy allergic, they can do a test for it, try and make sure that he has some dairy before the test as for some reason it isn't effective unless there is presence of lactose.

[megandraper]

Definitely have a coeliac test (i have two coeliac DSs) - but DON'T CUT OUT GLUTEN BEFORE THE TEST - the blood test only works by detecting antibodies in your blood made by your body in reaction to gluten. So if you cut out gluten you'll potentially get a false negative.

Contact the Coeliac Society (google them) if you need info to arm yourself with for the GP. But the symptoms you mention are very much coeliac symptoms (including irritability), so there should be no problem in insisting on a blood test. The test should include a full blood count (looking for anaemia, common with coeliac due to malabsorption).

A bit too much info, but if your DH's stools tend to be pale in colour and float rather than sink, then that is also a very strong coeliac symptom (it's due to malabsorption - fats not being absorbed).

Did the endoscopy check for coeliac villi flattening?

[Theala]

Has he been retested for the h pylori since the treatment?

[foreversunny]

No idea about the food allergy Obama, your guess is as good as mine tbh! The GPs have never mentioned anything to do with food/diet/allergies to us during the last 2 years so we just don't know.

Thanks for the info bedhopper. I don't think the endoscopy checked for coeliac villi flattening. After the procedure they just told DH that all was normal and they sent him home.

No he hasn't been tested since Theala. In all honesty, our GPs do seem pretty useless thinking about it. It was more than 6 months of constant appointments before they tested him for H Pylori to begin with, and even then, it was because a friend suggested it and DH basically demanded he be tested for it himself! Same with the endoscopy, DH had to push for it.

I feel its good to be armed with knowledge so thank you for all your advice, it's really helped.

[Theala]

Hum. Sounds to me like the first round of antibiotics didn't get rid of the H Pylori in that case. Apparently, this is very common. I had it myself recently and had to get retested a month after finishing the first round of antibiotics to see if they had succeeded in eradicating it. If they hadn't succeeded, I would have been given a second round. (Thankfully, in my case, the first round was enough to get rid of it, although not to cure the gastritis it gave me.)

I think he should definitely push to be retested before you go down the allergy etc route. His symptoms sound very similar to mine. (So I have lots of sympathy for him - it's bloody miserable.)

[CheeseandPickledOnion]

Crohn's maybe?