What Is It?! Help!!!
My name is Melanie, my grandfather has been in the hospital with abdominal pain for months now. Hope your ready for this one its pretty incredible!!
He had hip replacement surgery last summer in July which is right around when his pain started. He swears that it was Augmintin but im not sure..i think it started even befor that. The pain is located in his upper right quadrant under his ribcage. He initially came to the hospital for the abdominal pain but ended up having tripple bypass surgery for congestive heart failure. This did not aleviate the pain. come to find out his gallbladder was in pretty bad shape so that was removed via colectysectomy. The pain still there...then he had stints placed in his mesenteric artery and in one of his renal arteries as well as the removal of significant amounts of fluid from both lungs...still in pain. The doctors suspected pancreatitis but the tests do not add up-his amylase and lipase levels have been slightly elevated but only occasional, never consistent. His hemoglobin levels run low and he has needed oxygen from time to time. His blood pressure, blood sugar, and temp have been running normal to his standards. He has "good days" and bad days but he says his good days are only tollerable. He has been in constant pain and nothing really relieves it and is very sensitive to the touch. The doctors had him NPO for several weeks to see if that would help the pain but I feel that his situation has worsened. He cannot keep any food down hardly, the most I have seen him get down is a Boost shake and two bites of pudding- then he gets sick. He has lost a significant amount of weight and does not have an apetite whatsoever. He is nauseated all the time and has minimal bowel movements of course and irregular urinary patterns (no infections though). The doctors now have him on a TPN (since begining of last month). He has had numerous tests done (negative): CAT scans, angiograms, endoscopy, colonoscopy, blood tests, and he is having an artiriogram done this morning. We can not seem to find any answers. If you have any suggestions or hints as to what you think it might be please help! Your time and Advice would be greatly appreciated.
Thank you so much,
Melanie
Answers:
Update:
well... my grandpa was rescheduled for his arteriogram this morning instead of yesterday. This whole thing is so frustrating.
He was very sick today. He had dry heaves, he had to be put back on lasix because he started swelling as a result of not really getting out of bed the past four days.
His potassium level was below normal (a first) as well as his hemoglobin so he was given potassium intravenously as well a unit of blood this morning (I've already lost count of those).
Will update after arteriogram
melUpdate:
The arteriogram didnt tell us anything new... his stints are still in place and functioning the way they are supposed to.
The cardiologist cannot seem to see anything else that they can do.
My grandpas gastroenterologist has ordered an ERCP this morning. Hopefully he pulls through this one and we find something helpfull because so far its just been a guessing game. I will update shortly
Again if anyone might have any clue as to what is going on or have had experience with anything like this please share.
mel
I willUpdate:
The ERCP was canceled because his bleeding test confirmed that his blood was to thin for the procedure. His doctor did not want to do this test anyway as there were too many risks to my grandfathers health given his condition.
I did forget to mention a few other details of my grandfathers condition (its hard to keep track): he has an abdominal aorta aneurysm, a hiatal hernia, and 50% blockage of his other (un-stented)renal artery (the doctor does not think that these are bad enough to cause any complications at the time)
My grandpa did have an MRI yesterday but everything looked fine (as usual)
Doc is now saying that it could possibly be abdominal angina so they are going to try a nitroglycerin treatment to help him get some nutrition down orally and maybe put on some weight ( he is 5' 5" and 106-109lbs). Hopefully this works because they tried to give it to him last night but it didnt work, but they are going to give him slow 5min dosages so we will hope for the best.
feel free to reply
mel
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