Yes this is a medical question. Please bear me out.

In My Humble Opinion
1

I began vomiting profusely one day out of nowhere in late April. Could hold nothing down. I would just vomit up the newly created bile every 20 minutes or so. I went to the ER and was admitted due to being dehydrated.

They said everything was inflamed. Gall bladder, pancreas, liver. They concluded it was gall stones and removed the gall bladder. They found a marble sized stone. I was fine for a while.

But now I keep having nausea, sometimes to the point of vomiting again. Usually, after I vomit I’m fine.

Then I had an episode again. Vomiting until I was dry heaving like before, although this time I did try to keep liquids down. Didn’t work. I tried all day to hold something down and then finally had to to back to the ER. Again.

They said T-cells were high like the last time which led me to believe it was an infection. They took a CAT scan and determined I had colitis. Then they took a stool sample (very dark liquidy, TMI sorry), and determined I had C. Diff. Pancreas and liver were fine.

The problem with all of this, now that I have looked it all up, is, none of that causes dry-heaving vomiting. It’s all stomach pain and diarrhea. What were they treating me for? I still have bloating and nausea, and pain in my abdomen right up under my ribs if I push on that area.

And every doctor that came to see me was like, “so I hear you have severe abdominal pain?” Um NO, it was the severe VOMITING that got me here. I have said so the entire time. It’s just the vomiting. Although now today with the bloating, my abdomen DOES hurt.

What is wrong with me? I was in the ER twice, I can’t go back. I could go to a doctor again, but we’re flat broke and barely making payments on bills. I can’t be out of work any more.

2

IANAD and I have no idea what could be causing your problems, but I do suggest you read a little about Cyclic Vomiting Syndrome (CVS) and see if you think that matches your symptoms. What you describe seems quite similar to what happened to a friend of mine, and CVS was ultimately the diagnosis.

Here’s a link to get you started, but just Google “Cyclic Vomiting Syndrome” for more. Good luck.

http://digestive.niddk.nih.gov/ddiseases/pubs/cvs/

3

Have you been checked for pancreatitis?

Other than that, I got nothing, I just recall my spouse did a lot of vomiting when he had it, and the diagnosis was missed by the first couple of doctors.

Although I warn you that if you do have pancreatitis you’ll be accused of being an alcoholic over and over even if you’ve never swallowed alcohol in your life.

4

IANAD either, but my reading of a 1950’s-era medical textbook mentions that patients with pancreatitis etc. may suffer from nausea and vomiting because the organs affected are inflamed, and with nowhere else to go things start to push up against the stomach.

Just a point on the graph for you.

5

Did they check for celiac disease?

6

Any chance it was something you ate? Food poisoning? Someone at work playing nasty pranks?

7

if all they do at the hospital is hook you up to an IV to hydrate you , you could try getting some ORS in. (Oral rehydration Supplement) a mixture of sugar and salts that can be bougt at the drugstore. Gatorade is an approximation of it. That might at least keep the bills down.

On the upside, you have an interesting case. Couldn’t you apply in a free teaching hospital or something like that?

Not to hijack the thread, but how on earth can Americans think of themselves as living in the no 1 country in the world if their citizens have to fear going bankrupt or losing their jobs if they are legitimately sick?

8

Might it be post-cholecystectomy syndrome?

I had heard of this, and asked the surgeon who was doing my chole last year, and I seem to recall that he said it was more common in people whose gallbladder problems were less clearcut (less obviously gallstones, in other words). Sounds like that might be at play for you, since as you noted you only had a single gallstone. My own case was far more clearcut.

What diagnostics did they do in deciding you needed to have your gallbladder yanked? I have heard stories of gallbladders yanked with the rationale of “she’s in that age group, can’t figure out what else it might be, won’t do any harm”… leaving the person no better off than before the surgery. Discovery Health had one of those medical mysteries shows that mentioned a woman in that same boat; turned out to be sphincter of oddi dysfunction.

9

I’m not a doctor, but I have noticed that, in some people, if they have nausea, they will throw up–even if there’s nothing to throw up. Whether this applies to you or not, that might be what they are thinking with the diagnoses.

10

A C. diff infection can cause nausea/vomiting, even though the most prominent symptom is the horrible diarrhea. Nobody can really tell you what’s going on when nobody here has examined you and the majority of folks here have no medical training, but that’s where I’d start looking into this. There’s a good chance that your GI symptoms are related to that nasty GI infection that you’re recovering from.