Hi all, i have been suffering from horrendous stomach pain for well over a year now. Coupled with this i have mouth ulcers, blood in stool, mucus, red rash on face, hands, neck and upper arms (this comes and goes), bloating and extremely painful stomach cramps which can leave me lying on the bathroom floor. So i got a sigmoidoscopy yesterday, the doctor explained that the parts he looked at seemed relatively fine but he took 10 biospies.
So i am wondering, if that many normal? what is he looking to find? and should i be asking for further tests such as colonoscopy and small bowel ct?
Any help would be really appreciated
Blood tests to rule out something like Coeliac Disease? Quite often its accompanied with a skin rash, intensely itchy mind you. Lots of auto immune conditions are accompanied with rashes. Have you seen any allergy specialists? Or had any blood work done ?
Yeah have history of it in my family. Blood work came back negative for coeliac but postive for B12 defiency, been treated for that and symptoms no better, progressively getting worse infact
Unfortunately only 1 in 20 blood tests will come back positive for Coeliac so blood work is not always accurate. Even more so if accompanied with the gluten rash Dermatitis Herpitiformis, Sometimes a biopsy of the lesions/rash can provide a positive result, other than that a gut biopsy. You really need someone who knows what they are looking for. If the rash is consistent try see a Dermotologist. You could try a gluten free diet see if things improve but I would suggest not to if you are wanting to find out since what ever is aggravating you will need to be aggrarvated to get positive results.Unfortunately it can take a while before any diagnosis can be definitive as these types of illness can be tricky to diagnose. However you are clearly not well so I think you need to keep hassling your GP. Take care of yourself hope you get some answers soon.
I will certainly look into it, I assume cause the blood work was negative I was fine with gluten. Thank you!!