Pain Management for Hiatal Hernia?

Digestive health
1

Hi All,

im new to the group and am in the US. I have noticed that many of you are Australian. I’ve been trying to find online support for my sliding hiatal hernia condition. I have a completely nonexistent LES (caused by heavy lifting at my job) and am thoroughly and overwhelmingly tortured by reflux, nausea, bloating, vomiting, chest pain, back pain, shoulder pain, neck pain, vertigo, and headaches but mostly chest pain (under my ribs) back pain and unrelenting reflux even though I take 40 Omeprazole and Ranitidine, plus sucralfate every day. It has made my life a living Hell. I went from being a vibrant, healthy and extremely active 48 year old woman to a broken down old woman of 52 who can’t keep a commitment, who has lost her jobh of 13 years, and who rarely leaves the house. I hardly eat anythingn eggs, cottage cheese, rice cakes! Fruit, vegies, and only a fistful at a time. My eating needs alone keep me housebound quite frequently. My GI doc is taking his sweet time getting me hooked up with a surgeon for fundoplication and I feel like my stomach is moving farther up into my chest cavity every day. It hurts so much it makes me cry and sends me to the ED at least once a month(where they won’t give me anything for pain). I know the pain is caused by the stretching of the diaphragm and the stomach moving into my chest cavity and pressing on my vagus nerve. My question is have any of your doctors addressed your very legitimate pain with anything other than PPIs? 

I feel like if it just didn’t hurt so much I could actually be productive on some level. But here in the US there is now a war on opioid based pharmaceuticals and if you even ask for them you are labeled a ‘med seeking’ drug addict. Have any of you had nerve blockers of any kind for the pain from the Vagus nerve compression?

This pain is making me feel extremely depressed and my PCP has put me on an antidepressant, which helped for a while and still helps a little but there are days that I just wish I was dead; that I want to be dead. It is such a hopeless feeling knowing that there is a potential scenario in which I could feel like this for the rest of my life with no help from the medical profession. I have become someone I no longer recognize physically, mentally, or emotionally. That is no life at all.

i sure could use a friendly word of support and some clue as to how to deal with the pain.

thanks all for reading... 

My best to all of you who suffer as I do.

Martha

2

Martha

I have replied to another of your future posts.

You need your operation ASAP and you need to keep pushing for that now, there is no other way as if you are in so much pain generally Opiate type Medications by tbs or pump needs to be given to get you through your pain.

However bunker injections may help you the will need to be given in hospital or GP Surgery ?

Nerve pain can be controlled with some AD Medications in small doses, that is a side affect some of these drugs have.

You need the operation I feel and that falls back to your GP and His choice of Specialist, Have you had various tests of been given a referral yet

How long have you been waiting ?

BOB

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Thank you so much for responding Bob. I wish that the process could be sped up. I am scheduled for one pre surgical test (Manometry) next week and a surgical consult in three weeks. I am prescribed 50 mg of Tramadol, one tab 4xday but I have these flares with massive bouts of pain that the Tramadol doesn’t touch. I’ve been housebound and bedridden for 5 days now and I still hurt. The doctors here won’t prescribe unless you are literally in surgical emergency. And if you get insistent about it, you are labeled a med-seeking drug addict in the hospital system. It’s brutal.

the other problem is that there are two different types of surgery to consider, both of which come with quite a bit of (terrifying) risk, so I have to meet with surgeons for consult. Its all a very slow process here. Frustrating. My whole life has stopped and I can only imagine how miserable I must be to deal with for those who love me.

i am to meet with my GI doc late next week and will ask for nerve block or whatever else I can get to get me through until the surgery. 

I am so sorry for your chronic pain. It is the very worst thing to have to deal with. At least you are cared for humanely in your country. I am glad that you are getting what you need.

thanks for lending an ear. Sadly, it does help to know I’m not alone.

Martha

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this problem started for me about 5 years ago and has gotten progressively worse.