Stomach pain is controlling my life. Still no answers.

Digestive health
1

Hi my name is Kayla and I’m desparate for some answers.

I have an empty hollow feeling in the upper middle section of my abdomen, exactly in the middle right below my chest between my ribs.

I’ve had this for 13 years off and on since I was 17. These past couple years have been really bad. It’s not going away and if it does it comes right back. I cannot eat anything but white bread to keep it at bay.

I also cannot flex the area, so no exercising.

I learned about the vagus nerve involving the digestive system last night and decided to try some vagus nerve exercises to try to heal it. It wasn’t feeling bad last night last night so I tried deep breathing exercises and it’s SO irritated this morning just from expanding the area with deep breathing. 

It hurts when I physically move the area and it hurts when I eat anything wrong, especially fruits and vegetables.

I cannot eat healthy and cannot exercise and now am losing hair because I am not getting nutrients. My quality of life is severely diminished & cannot keep a job.

I’ve seen a specialist. She put me on omemprazole and I took it for a month and no changes. I’ve had an endoscopy done and just showed mild irritation but normal they said. H pylori test negative. Had my gallbladder removed last year.

Symptoms:

- acid taste in my mouth and get reflux once in awhile.

-empty hollow pain in stomach

-burp a lot

-food comes up with burps a lot

- flexing or expanding the area or pushing on the area agitates it for weeks!

It just feels miserable.

I cannot function like a normal person. Any help would greatly be appreciated. I can’t live like this anymore and it’s effecting my relationships too.

Thank you.

2

I forgot to add that I feel like I need to constantly eat to try to comfort the feeling, but it doesn’t make it go away. It’s a gnawing empty, hollow pain. I wish this was as simple as an ulcer like the internet says it should be. 

3

It may be complications from having your gallbladder out which can cause digestive symptoms and pain.  Nerves can get disturbed during surgery and cause neuralgia.  Ask for a gallbladder diet.

4

I’ve had this problem since I was 17 (way before having my gallbladder problems) I had my gallbladder removed when I was 29 just last year and this issue still remains.

5

That wasn’t supposed to be an eye roll face lol 🙈

6

Maybe try some milk for the acid reflux and burps or bicarbonate of soda. When you don’t have a gallbladder, it is better to avoid anything greasy and follow a bland diet.

7

Hi, I have reflux/gerd/hh and have this knawing feeling off and on.  PPI's are, IMO, a waste of time and just make things worse giving more reflux.  I refused them after my specialist put me on them.  I take H2 blocker instead.  What have you tried other than PPI?.  It sounds like you need to heal and line  your stomach.  There are several things out there that will do this. 

I also like to exercise and find that just something like gentle sit up can really set it off which makes you very frustrated and in turn anxious, then the anxiety makes to knawing worse.  Nightmare, but I find doctors of no help at all.  It is forums like this that will help best.  The things I suggest to my doc she has never heard of - it is just PPI to her or she can't help.