Thinkbig,
I have offered a quite unorthodox alternative in an earlier post. I'm not a fair representative for your complaint, older and male, but my point was intended to encourage a different approach.
Seems that as we describe our symptoms to either our doctors or our friends and neighbors, we all desire our ailment to fit within a category or subset of maladies so we can apply some anecdotal remedy. That is well meaning and quite frankly not much different than the physician who must pretend to have some crystal ball.
Here's the truth. You have an event or time when you can first recall feeling something. It's sort of important to reflect on the history of your pain or illness.
Next, you began some sort of treatment or behavioral change to counteract that feeling.
You are now checking off all the potential ailments you don't have, based on tests, images and medications. There is a list and it's not endless, but as you eliminate the potential suspects you may be trying new medications or altering your diet etc. , just don't forget that the pursuit of the cure can create its own side effects.
To sum up my earlier post. I was diagnosed with everything from A to Z and during this past year I've suffered greatly from all sorts of bowel, bladder, urinary stomach, nausea, you name it and I thought I'd die including great pain, dizziness, I could go on. Miserable and debilitating life.
After all tests performed (twice) and realizing I was now suffering from not only my original illness but a host of others, I stopped.
My doctor and I concluded I had simply suffered a torn muscle in my abdomen. Really no big deal, except for one thing, I didn't know it. All my efforts to treat and diagnose my pain for a year had failed to do anything to address the tear in my muscle which got worse.
I believe I now have the right diagnosis but all the others seemed right too. If we approach your pain by a process of elimination, we must remember to begin anew and not blend or confuse our treatment plan with a variety of meds or strategies.
Give your body a chance to heal one illness at a time. Every prospective medication has its side effects, just is inevitable.
Keep a good record of your daily routine and effort and pain and treatment and eliminate the suspects one at a time.
If you can, try and take your diary of events to a good older general practitioner. You are more than a test rat for the numerous imaging tests and once these tests serve to eliminate the suspects, you can treat the illness directly and successfully.
I'm going to defy numerous doctors and get well by treating my torn muscle with rest.
I hope you can discover your core problem and treat that issue. Pain meds often create irregularity so try an alternative and give your body a break.
Good luck.