(almost) constant abdominal pain,- gall bladder?? have coeliac & hashimoto's disease (thyroid)

[ernesttheBavarian]

I was diagnosed with coeliac last august. Went GF. At same time was dx with Hashimotos disease (type of thyroid under function).

Couple of months later, I started getting abdominal pain at the centre right underneath my ribs. It wakes me up and then I can't get back to sleep. Happened again last night. Feel exhausted. My gp suspected gall bladder, and did an ultra sound but found nothing so has ruled out the GB.

I went to the doctor who did my coeliac. Around the same time as the coeliac dx I was founf to have Helicobacter pylori. Took antbiotics and it's gone. They also double checked to make sure that's not the cause.

Not he doc is saying it's likely to be transferred pain from spine and says he can't do anything else for me as he's ruled out everything. But it seems clearly linked to eating, I'm just not sure what.

I'm worried it's an ulcer or gall bladder problem or something.

Last night I had an omelette and woke up at 3.30 (typical time, always 3,30/4 am - why?) and I've been in pain all day. It's almost daily now the pain. Not severe but certainly uncomfortable and always at the same place at the top, central under the ribs. It's worse if I eat late (after 6 pm) and yes, clearly my omelette didn't go down well. Oh, and I am badly constipated atm (sorry tmi) but this doesn't seem to affect the pain in any way.

Any ideas? (apart from find another doctor!) Does it sound familiar? I am really suffering with this.

Could be acid reflux? It is very similar to the gallbladder pain I had. I had my gb removed but still got the pain, albeit not as bad. I am now on lansoprazole once a day and along with cutting a lot of things out of my diet, it is much better. I stilloccasionally wake in the night with an attack, but it goes within 5 minutes of taking gaviscon.

I can no longer eat or drink coffee, wine, mint, mayo, peanut butter, chips, and can only tolerate small amounts of cheese or eggs (would fit with your reaction to omelette). I have to eat smaller portions more regularly to ward off getting any pains.

It might be worth seeing if you have any triggers. HAve you tried gaviscon? If it responds quite quickly to it then I would think it was a reflux type issue.

Hi
I'm coeliac + have thyroid disease - Graves which is slightly different and I had my gall bladder out last year. The gb pain I had was in a similar place but very severe - the first time I had it I thought I was having a heart attack as it also went across my shoulders and I ended up in A&E twice... But it could be gallbladder related. Tricky if the ultrasound hasn't shown anything. Mine reacted to high fat meals so I would have been OK with an omelette (no cheese!) but couldn't tolerate any kind of fatty food at all.

If you're still in pain go back to the GP and it might be worth going completely fat-free (I know - no fun at all when you're already gluten-free!) to see if the pain goes away. This was the only way I managed it while I waited for my op date.

thanks. my pain is normally like i said under my ribs, but last week I did have a pain up the front of my chest, like all up the sternum. It was severe enough for me to be sitting there in class wondering if I was having a heart attack and also wondering if I were going mad. Until my DX I swear I never had anything wrong with me. Now I feel like a I'm faling apart, it feels like 1 thing after another, and the doc thinks I'm a total hypochonriac or something. Bt my pain is realy and frequent.

My omelette was very cheesy btw.

Dotty, could you possibly suggest some things I can have e.g. for breakfast and packed lunch, being an experienced coeliac. ( am also (again, just dx!) allergic to nuts. Up till now Ive been taking a home made banana yoghurt smoothy for breakfast (don't have time at home) but no gluten, no fat, no nuts, I honestly don't know what I can eat anymore, esp to bring along, as I daren't eat in the cafeteria.

I had this problem, excruciating. ultrasound like yours totally clear. gp described it as epigastric pain and prescribed lansoprasole high dose at first and then lower dose. After three years I've stopped taking it and bow only get the pain when really really stressed. Personally I'm convinced it was an ulcer.

sorry, meant to say, definitely not acid refulx. I had heartburn a lot when pg, and I'm assuming AR would be similar? But what I have now is not at all the same heartburn feeling.. It feels like at the top of my stomach under the ribs and also feels painful to the touch as well as internally.

mine didn't feel anything like heartburn. It felt like I'd cracked a rib or damaged my back. At times it was so painful it took my breath away and I couldn't sit or lie comfortably.

Hi there - yes of course - it's really tough trying to find enough variety but these were the kinds of things I had last year when gluten and fat free...

Breakfast was pretty much the same as it is now - doves farm gluten-free cornflakes with semi skimmed or skimmed milk. Sadly, I've had this every morning for the past 7 years..!

Lunches - fat free muller or aldi yoghurt with lots of chopped fruit. I pretty much have this every day as well... . Sometimes I buy packets of fresh prawns from the supermarket and have those.

Or I take left overs in to work for lunch - piece of chicken + rice, jacket potato with prawns, fish and rice.

No cheese, butter, cream, chocolate, full fat milk, no oil to cool with - everything boiled, steamed or dry fried. And I couldn't tolerate red meat either when my gb was playing up .

Treats were confined to Haribo and thankfully I tolerated red wine very well!

*cook, obv..!

Thank goodness I prefer a jelly teddy to a posh truffle any day. so all is not lost. I'll aim for a bottle of red wine and a couple of bags of haribo for dinner. (not really)

not sure what I'm going to be able to take with me - wish I could just buy a bag of cat food and eat that. I can't get GF cornflakes here, well, oif I went out of my way, but I don't esp like and don't have time for them anyway. SO should I avoid eggs, or was it probably the butter for frying and the loads of cheese?

Still hurts now off last night :(

Yes - I was ok with poached eggs - had them at the weekend - but no bread,butter or cheese with them!