I am not sure where to start with this.
My boyfriend of just over 6 months has
been having gallbladder type symptoms.
The background information on his
situation is as follows. We work together
and have known each other just over 1
year. In the 6 months prior to us getting
together, he would miss a day or two of
work on average of about once per month.
We all thought that he was getting drunk
and having a bad hangover. We got
together in April, approximately 2 weeks
after we started seeing each other, he had
an episode. He missed 3 to 4 days of work
and I actually witnessed the episode and
knew that it was not self induced by
getting drunk. He had symptoms consistant
with a stomach flu, nausea, vomitting,
diarhea & fever. He slept almost
nonstop for 3 to 4 days, each time he woke
up, he was having to run to the bathroom.
He refused to go to a doctor as he did not
have medical insurance. We treated it as
though it were a flu with tylenol for the
fever, immodium for the diarhea and
chicken noodle soup and gator aide to keep
him from getting dehydrated. After 3 or 4
days, he woke up and felt fine. However,
within a month, it happened again, this
time lasting only a day or two. We
started to think that maybe he was getting
food poisoning. Both of those episodes, I
had been with him almost constantly and
knew that he had not been drinking. In
terms of his food and drink intake, we had
lunch together and generally ate the same
things and dinner together at night. His
drinks consisted of bottled water,
mountain dew and coffee. Again, he did
not consume anything that I hadn't. Since
that time, these episodes have occurred on
average of once per month and have lasted
a day or two at a time. Then on September
11, it happened again, this time it hadn't
been only a couple of weeks since the last
episode and I insisted he see a doctor.
He went to the doctor for the first time
on September 12. The doctor did not do
any tests, instead told him that he
thought he had a viral infection and that
antibiotics would just make it worse. The
doctor told him to remain off work the
rest of the week, drink gator aide, rest
and he gave him prevacid to help with the
stomach acid and reglan to help settle his
stomach. The doctor told him to return in
one week. He did as the doctor told him
and by Saturday September 15, he was
feeling better. However he only had a day
or two of feeling better and he became ill
again. All of the same symptoms,
vomitting, constant nausea, diarhea and
pain in his right shoulder which he
thought was due to a pinched nerve in his
back. When he went back to the doctor,
the doctor ordered an ultrasound, did
blood work and told him to take it easy.
He went for the ultrasound 4 days later,
when the technician pushed on his stomach,
it hurt terribly and he almost vomitted on
her. I called his doctor, his doctor said
that his white blood count had been
elevated and indicated infection and gave
me an antibiotic for him to take. When he
returned to the doctor that week, the
doctor took him off work until further
notice. The doctor seems convinced that
the problem is with his gallbladder. The
ultrasound did not show stones. The
report did say that the pancreas and
several other organs could not be viewed
because of overlying bowel gasses. He has
not worked since. He is in constant pain,
has a constant feeling of nausea. When he
vomits, it is violent. He has diarhea
almost constantly and when it gets bad, he
goes on average of once per hour. If he
uses immodium to help it, he goes the
opposite direction and gets constipated.
He saw a surgeon on Monday for the results
of his HIDA scan. The surgeon told him
that it showed that his gallbladder was
functioning at 35% and that 48% was the
norm and the gallbladder wasn't the
problem. The surgeon wants to do a
colonoscopy but can't get him in until
November 1, he said that if the
colonoscopy didn't show anything that he
would then perform a CT scan and if that
didn't show anything he would wait 3 or 4
months and do another HIDA scan. This is
a man who is 6'6 and at the start of this
weighed approximately 240 pounds. He
worked 8am to 5pm Monday through Friday,
8am to 12pm on Saturday and still came
home did yard work, helped with housework
and cooking (we have 5 kids between us),
went grocery shopping with me, etc and
still had energy left over. Now he barely
functions, he is sick all the time and has
lost about 10 pounds, he is living on dry
wheat toast, chicken broth and gator aid
and even with a bland diet like that is
still sick. He is seeing another surgeon
today for a second opinion. I am in
desperate need of answers. Would greatly
appreciate anything that anyone can tell
me to help.
