It can start up at any time but it tends to show up late evenings or even late night/ early morning.
Stomach contents do not appear to play a role at all. I can have eaten a large spicy meal or I could have not eaten for hours.
It begins with a slight burning feeling in the center of my upper stomach. I will take some antacids with gas relief (simeithicone--spelling?) or some charcoal pills. Sometimes I try a Carafate pill and/or metroclopromide pill to move the stomach contents along. Sometimes one of many of these work and the pain or burning feeling subsides. Other times this doesn't help at all.
The pain will slowly get worse. And I will begin to feel belchy (although I NEVER burp).....but it burbles and gurgles up my throat. Little bubbles of frog croak sounding air rolling up my throat but never escaping.
So now I consider. Is this gas? If I make myself throw up will it help (it didn't the one time I tried it) or is this gassy, gurgling from the anxiety of the fear of the pain getting worse?
I will suddenly need to poop. I am often constipated so a sudden need to poop is strange. Especially because I will often poop again pretty soon after the first poop.
I will try squatting to work up the air but it just bubbles up and never escapes.
Lying down flat on back or left or right side is no help at all.
The pain is meanwhile climbing and climbing.
It is now extreme pain and it feels most painful under lower ribs on both sides. I often feel like I want to press on the area. It is directly at the root of each breast and in the middle of that same level of breast roots.
Pain is a 10. If there is pain past a 10 it is really that. You can't sit still or be quiet. I begin moaning and trying to sway as I stand. I try walking to make my digestive organs move things along. It doesn't help.
The pain is so bad that it is now in my back. Just at the same level as the front except across my back. The pain is a level that makes me break out in a sweat. I can't concentrate. I can barely even speak. Breaths become shallow. Movement hurts. The mind cannot be moved about to try and not pay attention to the pain. It is simply the worst pain I have ever known.
Heating pad sometimes takes the edge off. But doesn't last long. This will go on for hours. Hours and hours when 1 minute feels like it will kill you.
And then after a few hours it stops and doesn't return for a few weeks. A day or two after an attack my stomach feels achy and tender.