Everything makes me feel sick! WTF is wrong with me?

[cookingthebooks]

I had a few ibs style issues pre kids but since having kids (youngest is 3) it’s just got so much worse!

I had hyperemesis in pregnancy so was brutally nauseas and unwell the whole time.
It cleared up briefly post giving birth then came back when my cycles re started.
Pretty much everything makes me feel rotten. To the point I starved myself so badly last year they wanted to hospitalise me for anorexia with a 16 BMI.
I have a high dose of anti acids daily, I take really good probiotics daily and I’ve already tried cutting out dairy, gluten, eggs, wheat….honestly the list is so long and non of if helped. Eventually the NHS Dieticians’s told me to just stop cutting stuff out.
I’ve had investigations and despite my calprotectin being raised (showing inflammation in my gut) they never found cause and said it wasn’t high enough to be very worrying.

Im currently on a UPF free diet after spending months now with any sugar making me feel like I’m gonna throw up.

Im just miserable. I think it might be linked to hormones tbh but I saw a gynaecologist and they basically said ‘yeah sounds like it could be but nothing we can do at your age’. We saw them privately and DH is a doctor too and felt their advice was correct. I’m just miserable.

Sometimes it can be worth trying a low residue diet to manage symptoms.

Do you get bowel symptoms? Blood, mucus, frequency? Any stomach or back pain? Mouth ulcers, joint pain, or skin lesions? Do you know how high the calprotectin was?

I did low fod too, it didn’t really help, maybe a tiny bit but not significant and I lost so much weight on the particular diet the dietician told me to stop as was doing more harm than good.

I get bad mouth ulcers based around my hormones. Also got them really badly post natal. I’m attached to my hot warter bottle as get cramps and period paid but it’s more uncomfortable than excruciating and gyne didn’t think it was endo, despite me thinking other symptoms fitted.
It was mid range high, not very worrying but ‘above average’.
No skin lesions, blood or mucus.
I burp a lot and feel very nauseous but was checked for sibo and didn’t have that.

It makes no sense

Low residue and low fod are different? Low residue is about easy to digest low fibre food - I find it easier with chronic nausea and vomiting.

Nausea, at first morning nausea, and then all day nausea... and then into nausea and vomiting was the beginning of a big Crohn's flare for me. Have you tried ondansetron and prochlorperazine? I've found them to be the better antisickness meds.

If you've never had an endoscopy and colonoscopy I'd push to have them to at least rule things out. Preferably with biopsies to rule out microscopic colitis even if appearance is normal. It might not be a gastro problem... but definitely worth looking into with a raised calpro

Have you had an abdominal scan?

Are you on contraception? Being on the pill made me feel like this, as did being underweight. Gaining weight by force feeding myself helped a lot.

Constantly taking ant acids won't help. They relieve in short term, make things a billion times worse when taken long term.

Of course this might not be relevant to you but my son had:

Ulcers in his mouth: a big one that required antibiotics and regular smaller ones,
A blood test that showed raised platelets,
Regular nausea after eating particularly after fatty foods ,
Low weight,
A raised calprotectin test (think it was 500 odd)

Also offensive wind and a couple of other embarrassing/uncomfortable symptoms.

Now diagnosed Crohns. His diagnosis involved endoscopy and biopsy as well as the symptoms and tests.

Have you been tested for gastroparesis?

I had similar, except that when I did manage to eat something, I'd vomit most of it back up again. By the end, I weighed less than 6 stone, and less than my then 11 year old DD!

Eventually I was diagnosed with a redundant stomach, along with stomach ulcers (caused by taking Naproxen, prescribed by GP but no advice on how to take it was given, and even if it had been, I couldn't get food to stay down long enough to protect my stomach from them anyway!).

In the end, I was fitted with a PICC line, which is a semi permanent line into your body, through which I was "fed" a nutritional mixture called TPN. It was a real faff, but because I was getting nutrition that bypassed my stomach, it had time to heal properly. After 6 months, I was able to come off the TPN and eat fairly normally again, but the best thing was that the pain and nausea were gone!

Like you OP, I was surgically attached to my hot water bottle, and had semi permanent marks on my stomach from it, which Drs were always fascinated by the first time they saw it!

If you haven't had an endoscopy, it's definitely worth pushing for, as is the food transit test, where you eat some (very mildly) radioactive porridge, then they watch it transit through your system in the CT/MRI scanner (sorry, I can't recall which it was).

You don't say how old you are? Are you anywhere near perimenopausal age?

I'm 52 and have had IBS and functional dyspepsia since I was 25. It wasn't until I reached 45 that I started experiencing awful nausea. It seems to be cyclical and getting worse as each year goes by. I'm nauseated most days now, it's horrible you have my complete sympathy.

I've had lots of tests too but nothing found. My gastroenterologist has just prescribed me Zofran for the nausea. I've also been making fresh ginger and lemon tea which is helping too (especially when I cool it and add crushed ice).

Just seen your update. I also have endometriosis (and adenomyosis). I was only diagnosed 18 months ago despite having awful gynae issues for decades and being under the same gynae department since 2013. I never had period pain (did suffer from terrible ovulation pain though but that was dismissed) but have deep endometriosis and diffuse adenomyosis. I have however had all of these digestive issues for so long and live with my hot water bottle 24/7. I'm certain it's all connected.
Endo is so under diagnosed.

My stomach issues also go worse with cycles and as I got older.

I was eventually found to have a large gallstone which is why I asked about the scan.

I have had my gallbladder out which has not resolved everything so am now looking at possible endometriosis. However the gallbladder vomiting has gone - this too was worse around my period..