carbonel

So last night I fell asleep around 1 am (the new normal), and woke up sometime later. I have a bad habit of discovering that I've pulled off the APAP in the middle of the night and waking up much later without it, so I looked at the clock. It was 3:30 am, so I left the APAP on, and tried to get back to sleep. That was when I realized that I'd woken up because I was having abdominal pain, and it was really pretty nasty. I dozed a bit, but never really got back to sleep.

In the morning, I did a few work-type things, then told Bruce I was taking a sick day and crawled back to bed. The pain wasn't letting up, and it did feel better when I was lying down.

Around 3 pm, I decided this wasn't going to stop on its own, and called the Park Nicollet nurse line to see what they recommended. The nurse said that for pain of this location and duration, for someone my age, I should go to the emergency room.

So I did, for the second time in two months, after over 30 years of avoiding such an experience. I got there around 4:30, and didn't have to wait at all to be seen. The doctor tried me on something called a GI cocktail, which if it relieved the pain immediately, would be indicative of a stomach problem. It made my mouth and throat numb, but didn't help the pain at all.

Next I was sent down for an ultrasound of the pancreas, gall bladder, kidney, and liver. Then I waited for the doctor to come back with the results. He said they were all negative, which I guess is good, but didn't help with the pain. That's when the doctor told me that 50% of all abdominal pain goes undiagnosed.

He gave an injection of Toradol, which is a non-narcotic NSAID, and that did help, plus prescriptions for Zantac and an anti-nausea drug.

At this point, I guess the only thing to do is treat the symptoms and see what happens.