Severe pain, told to “forget about it”

Thankfully I've never come across this attitude. I have on occasion left an appointment upset due lack of sympathy although to be fair they are clinicians trying to solve a multitude of physical & mental health issues often difficult to diagnose which is more important than sympathy.

I've had worse. Absolutely believe that a minority of GPs would say such a thing.

With all due respect to your pain OP which sounds awful, I find it hard to believe any GP would use the phrase 'just forget about it' This type of attitude could put their whole licence in jeopardy. Apologies if indeed it is true, just difficult to believe.

Same here though I've not needed hospitalising. Commiserations!

For the OP - Tietze is the same as slipping rib syndrome.

Ive suffered with similar most of my life, intense pain around my ribs on the right side, I was diagnosed with Teitze syndrome.

Then I was diagnosed with Elhers Danlos Syndrome a few years ago.

I get what I call "organ pain" intense pain in my bowels, ovary pain, leading to hospital stays, I have a number of "small" issues with various parts of my body/organs. It can last anything between an hour and weeks and occasionally months.

I sympathise, its utterly crap

It won't show on an x-ray. Not saying you definitely have this of course but an x-ray doesn't rule it out unfortunately. Your other investigations are the priority as you need to know if it's an internal issue but if they come back clear it might be worth a rheumatology referral. Do you have any other symptoms of hypermobility?

This is a good call. I have this problem (it was the first real sign of my hEDS) and it is incredibly painful and took a long time to get to the bottom of. Unfortunately, once diagnosed there was no interest as it can't be fixed, just medicated, but at least I knew by then that it wasn't a problem with my internal organs.

there is medication to reduce heavy periods - speak to your GP or pharmacist x

Just wanted to come back on and say when your GP dismisses you please ask them to write on their notes, no action taken. It’s serves as a record of their actions, they aren’t keen but you can ask for it to be added.

Abdo pain and dizziness. Has anyone checked your cortisol levels? It’s very rare but they’re symptoms of Addison’s disease and it is a medical emergency.

I think endo only gets diagnosed by laparoscopy so I'd push for that with your heavy periods. It can impact every organ, including bowel and cause a huge amount of pain. I've had two surgeries to zap endo on my bowel, it was only found because I'd a bursts ovarian cyst so had emergency surgery after years of pain. If your last ovarian scan was 2 years ago, another would be a good idea. Cysts can grow and twist in that time.

Sending you a hug. That GP needs a kick up the arse.

Hoping you can see another GP. It's not normal to bleed like you do and for ig to cause amnesia. I too was fobbed off about periods every 2 weeks lasting a week and horribly heavy - female doctor no less! 10 years later I found out I had a prolapsed womb. Hysterctomy later frlt 10 years younger. The same female gp referred me eventually....

Pain all in lower abdomen to left though so not the same as yours but all the comments show how much women are discriminated against in healthcare. It's disgusting.

Good luck xxx

I have to say incase it helps you I had pain on the lower right sort of waist height and it was constipation though I had no idea as I was not constipated as far as I could tell! But it was as there was a semi blocking effect I think - it was sorted with liquid senna taken on two or three consecutive evenings - after being really quite disregarded in A&E in the middle of the night since vitals blood and urine we’re ok so I didn’t appear ill
to them but the pain was awful. Since then I have discovered too much bread is a trigger for this pain though I am coeliac negative. I can tolerate a bit but not every day. So the diagnosis for me is IBS. Post menopause now but did have severe endometriosis which was never treated and if you think it might be that the please get a gynae referral as not only is it painful it can lead to complications. There are regional centres which might be better a diagnosing this.

My friend has Endometriosis and hers showed up on MRI. I’d go back and ask them to send you for one of those. Hers really affects her too. She struggles so much with ways to control the pain to be able to go to work and look after her child. Her MRI showed that the endo is now in her uterine muscles, which is why she’s in so much pain. The ultrasound and CT didn’t show the extent of it.

Your GP is so out of order telling you to just forget the pain, as if it’s just that easy! I hope you get things sorted and are able to get the pain under control OP. Sending hugs. 🤗

This sounds exactly what my friend had, OP, and it was a twisted ovary. The doctors kept insisting it would be kidney stones but a scan of her ovaries showed the problem. She needed an operation and is absolutely fine now.

Good luck. I was told some stones don't show up on scans. It's really hard if the gp doesn't believe your in pain

Yes your GP is horrendous. I would specifically ask not to see that one ever again and I would complain to the practice about them, once you get an answer.

It's all too common to read on the Daily Fail about how someone was dismissed over and over again by their GP only to discover something awful, once actually properly diagnosed.

Good luck this morning OP and do so hope they find out what it is.

Just to say that you can get biliary colic caused by your gallbladder without hard stones - mine was full of “sludge” but no solid kernels and still had to be removed asap.

And please do make a complaint about your GP's 'forget about it' comment - this is absolutely typical of the way that women's pain has historically been dismissed, an issue which is finally getting some attention and will be on the radar of the practice management/NHS England/your Integrated Care board.

I say this partly because that's a shitty response at an individual level and s/he should be pulled up on it - but also because if more women make a noise about this kind of thing there's a chance of it (slowly) stopping, as with menopause.

Just wondering with all the abdominal surgery if scarring might twisting your insides somehow. A friend had that recently, a year of in and out of A&E before they finally opened her up and saw the scarring around her intestine which caused it to twist. Fairly simple to cut free and I think they put a mesh in place. But it hasn’t showed up on any of the many scans and tests she had had.

Definitely a different, female GP

I had a friend with similar symptoms & it turned out to be an unusual presentation of kidney stones. She said it was as bad as labour pain. They suspected everything from Gall bladder to bowel then all tests proved nothing. Eventually a brilliant young GP sent her for kidney stone investigations & he was right.