Four years later they still do not know what is wrong with my stomach. I was in 7th grade when it first started. My stomach had been gurgling all day but that night I was on the floor in the fetal position, screaming, because it hurt so bad. I ended up in the hospital that night because I just could not stand it. They took an x-ray of my stomach looking for I do not know what but did not find anything so they sent me home. The next day, I was fine. My stomach was still gurgling and I was not hungry at all, but I felt way better than the night before. Since that night, I have been in the hospital two other times for the same reason, just not as severe.

I have been to my family doctor multiple times and he continued to be baffled by it every time. The pain I get is just a constant rumble. It is sort of like how you feel when you are ready to get sick but it just never ends up with my head in the toilet. I get it about two or three times a week, on average. My family doctor recently sent me to a gastroenterologist. From there he performed multiple tests on me to see if he could find out what was wrong. Some of the tests I had done included an Upper GI, an endoscopy, a hydascan, an ultrasound, and blood testing at least five or more times. During all of the tests, they took various pictures of my stomach in different positions. The worst was the Upper GI. They made me drink this disgusting barium stuff. The other ones weren’t bad, besides getting an IV for the hydascan and the endoscopy and being deathly afraid of needles.

The whole situation is very frustrating. The pain comes out of nowhere, all the time and ruins my day. I can be fine in one moment and the next it hurts like crazy. I miss a lot of things because of it like school, parties, sporting events, etc, or I go and am just miserable the whole time. I was recently diagnosed with functional dyspepsia, meaning everything on the inside works fine but my stomach just hurts anyway. It is annoying because I have a hard time believing that there is nothing physically wrong, it does not make sense to me. Why does my stomach hurt? Four years later, they (technically) still do not know what is wrong with my stomach.