Thanks to all my wonderful friends and family for your advice and supportive comments. They truly were a ray of light during this dark time. I wanted to answer some of your questions and give a little more insight into my health problems. First, Noelle, I think you hit the nail on the head. I somehow forgot to add anxiety to my list of theories. It should have been close to the top, so to speak. I think there is a very real possibility that switching up my meds at the first of the year caused my anxiety to not only return but to return with such a vengeance that it's actually making me physically sick to my stomach. However, the sickness often comes right after meals, and daily, whether or not I feel anxious at all. I know I could be subconsciously anxious and it's only showing itself through stomachaches, but that scares me because then we've just reached a whole new level of anxiety that I don't know how to deal with. How do I stop anxiety that I'm not even feeling? So...I am going to eliminate the physical stuff first, at least narrow it down. I am going to insist on having an IgG food allergy test done (thank you M-A for enlightening me about that) and discuss my celiac tests from 4.5 years ago. (Wow, has it really been that long?) To review for those who know about this and fill in those who don't, 5 years ago I got the flu and it basically just never went away. From the end of May '07 clear through to October of '07, I was miserable: nauseous, sick to my stomach, dizzy, etc. My dr. tested me for celiac. Shockingly, it came back abnormal (one part showed negative for it, the other positive for it). She said it was a pretty good indication that I had it. So she told me to go off gluten right away and scheduled me for an upper GI. After a few weeks off gluten I felt much better, but then the symptoms came back. However, there were a few glutenous things that slipped in my diet that I didn't realize had gluten. Anyway, when the month passed and I went to a gastroenterologist for the upper GI, he did blood work again. It showed it was still abnormal. Then they did the upper GI (sent a tube with a camera on the end down my throat into my stomach). It showed no signs of celiac, but definite signs of acid reflux. But we wouldn't know for sure until the biopsy results came back. They showed negative as well. Then I get a phone call later from the gastroenterologist's office saying they wanted to test me again, because I'd been off of wheat for a month before the test which could screw up their findings. I was so furious and so not willing to go back to the whole celiac possibility that I said "yeah...no. Not gonna happen." Oddly enough, within the month all my symptoms disappeared. All was well, celiac was dismissed forever.
Fast forward to my stomach issues now. Very similar to that summer of gastro hell. It's been going on for months, no rhyme or reason to it, no explanation, same symptoms. So tomorrow I am going back to my dr. and asking to go over all the paperwork from that whole ordeal, have her walk me through it, and see where I'm at now. I'm sure they'll want to run the blood test again, which is totally fine by me. (M-A, are you just bursting with pride right now? ;) So please, cross your fingers, say a little prayer that this time, for real, once and for all, I'll actually find out what's wrong with me. And if this proves ineffective, I am definitely going to look into the naturopath/reflexologist/bio-energetic route. If NONE of these pans out in any way, then it's off in search of a therapist who actually gives therapy, and back to the psychiatrist for another med adjustment, which I'm actually going to do anyway.
Whew! That was probably way beyond more than you ever wanted to know about my health situation. Thanks to those of you still reading. It's friends like you who make me smile even as I'm curled up in a ball of pain in bed. And that's saying something!
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