Yesterday morning I found myself in the emergency room. I woke up at 3:30 in the morning feeling awful. I couldn't quite describe it at first: a vague nausea, slight stomach pain, thirst, but I just thought my stomach was a bit off. I got up for a glass of water and went back to bed.
Then I started to feel worse. My stomach started churning. I thought it was the Indian food I had eaten for dinner upsetting my stomach. I ate a packet of Rolaids. That was when it got interesting. My stomach started growling and rolling and at about 5 a.m. I began a series of throwing-up sessions. I still thought it must be the Indian food and continued to think I'd feel better once it was all out of my system.
With all the food gone, I then started to feel really bad. I laid in bed writhing from the stomach pains. I kept getting up, pacing around the house, trying to throw up, and going back to bed to continue writhing and screaming. I felt so alone in the house all by myself.
I made it until about 6:45, when I called my parents for help. I was crying and screaming on the phone. I'm not a big fan of the doctor even, but when my mother suggested the ER, I didn't argue.
We arrived at the ER at about 8 a.m. The nurses gave me an IV with anti-nausea medicine, strong painkillers and fluids. They took blood and began a barrage of tests. They thought it was a stomach virus or food poisoning.
The tests all came back negative, so that ruled out the viruses and food poisoning diagnoses. The doctor then ordered an x-ray. Somewhere during all of this, I vomited Exorcist-like neon green bile. The doctor couldn't find a definite cause for the pain and vomiting, but hypothesized that my diet of rich foods over the weekend, combined with the Indian food could have triggered something in my gall-bladder. He wants to refer me to a gastro-specialist to do an ultrasound. Once again, I'm not going to argue. I don't want to go through that pain again. He told me to stay away from rich foods for the time-being, so I'm heeding his warning, staying away from large amounts of saturated fats, meats, and spicy food.
Since returning home yesterday afternoon, I've felt fine, and I resume my healthy eating regime. I now have yet another reason not to stuff my face with unhealthy food!
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Wow, that's pretty damn scary Miss B! It does sound just like what the doctor said, since the viral/bacterial causes were ruled out. When you have much more fat than you're used to having, some people just can't tolerate the switch. Bile emulsifies fat to aid fat digestion, and the gallbladder is the store house for bile. So when you take in much more fat than usual, bile production has to go into overdrive. Many people are admitted with inflammed gallbladder (cholecystitis, for the terminology nerds) that is caused by eating very high fat foods. It's kinda crazy, but it's the body's way of saying "Oh no you didn't!"
ReplyDeleteI'm glad you're feeling better now. As far as my prior advice about occasional weekend splurges being acceptable as long as you compensate for it... just ignore that. In you're specific case, you're tummy is a bit sensitive to handle several days of that stuff. A meal or snack sure, but just be careful.
Doesn't the ER suck without health insurance too? Yuck!!