Pain: The Overlooked Symptom
While many healthcare providers are under the impression that gastroparesis doesn’t or shouldn’t cause pain, my informal Gastroparesis Survey indicated that it’s actually one of the most commonly experienced symptoms.
In addition, I recently came across an abstract for a study entitled “Pain: the overlooked symptom in gastroparesis,” which was published in the American Journal of Gastroenterology over 10 years ago. The study evaluated gastroparesis symptoms as reported by patients. The conclusion was that nausea and pain were the most common complaints, with 89% of patients reporting abdominal pain.
If your doctor isn’t informed about this aspect of gastroparesis, consider printing out the abstract and sharing it with him or her. This increased awareness may aid in timely and accurate diagnoses for other GPers.
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2 Responses to “Pain: The Overlooked Symptom”
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The April 2004 conference at the NIH on Gastroparesis also discussed Pain when it comes to the impact of quality of life for GP sufferers ( http://tinyurl.com/yavv2r6 to see the entire report).
Considering that the common treatment for pain is narcotic pain killers and those very same pain killers are known to CAUSE Gastroparesis we are in a unique and troublesome quandry.
Do we take the narcotic pain killers and have a little relief knowing that the medication will increase nausea and have hard rebound pain as a result or do we abstain from the pain meds and suffer in silence?
Thanks for sharing the link and your thoughts. I posted this mostly with awareness and diagnosis in mind, so I appreciate the perspective on pain management. I tend to rely on heating pad or ice, rest and liquids when pain flares up since, as you noted, pain meds exacerbate my GI symptoms.