Hi guys
I’m going to ask you all something but I’m not holding out much hope of a successful resolution as I haven’t managed to achieve that in more than 30 years!

Ever since I was 10, I get terrible stomach pains (and I mean in my stomach, not bowel or kidneys, but right up in my rib cage). They almost always start after eating and go on for hours. Paracetomol and codeine are the only painkillers that have any effect on it. I have had many explorations done, lots of theories from period pains (!) to indigestion. The doctors have been useless (if we have any doctors in the forums I’d love to hear about any other possibilities). The only thing I can get any correlation with is eating fatty food – cream always sets me off the worst. But I have had an ultrasound for gallstones (which I had to beg for) and that came back clear.

I have done ok so far on this programme, perhaps because I have stuck to mainly unsaturated fats. Until yesterday that is, when, in my quest for ketosis, I had scrambled eggs made with butter (even my dog was salivating) and then salmon with veggie mash with butter. Boy, did the pain come back with a vengeance! I eventually fell into a codeine-induced sleep at about 2am.

As this is the biggest and most diverse group of people I have ever had the privilege to communicate with, I thought I’d ask, is it just me? Or do other people have a similar intolerance? I have never met anyone else like me (no surprise there) but 30 years of the same undiagnosed pain is getting a bit boring now. Are there any nutritionists, doctors, healers of any kind or fellow sufferers out there who might be able to shed any light?

I’m thinking I might have to try sticking to unsaturated fats so butter and other dairy fats may still be off the menu for me. Shucks.

Hello. I’m not an expert but have lived for 30 problems with a lot of digestive problems, you do in the end just think well this is it and I have to live with it. I was told I had IBS at 20 and they just took out my gall bladder just for the sake of it. I continued with many problems after eating foods from severe pains and upset stomachs. Since finding out yes certain foods are related to IBS, like onions and garlic, major pain. Also saturated fats, at Xmas friends cooked lovely roast but all in duck fat, well we do live in France, they love duck products. Dire problems and very sick. With IBS they say fats cause you major problems, saturated ones that is. Look at Fodmap diet, very restrictive but some things really help if you cut them out. I have a gluten intolerance, again you could look into intolerances too, especially lactose if cream causes you pain, it might not be an allergy but intolerances are different, but are still very painful. I have never got to the exact cause of issues, but also stress and depression cause a lot of these pains too. Anyway I hope you get some answers soon, good luck.

Meant 30 years with digestive problems, not 30 problems!

Thanks Larpent, yes I can identify with a lot of what you are saying. I never get sick, I just get pain that makes me want to cut out my own stomach. And as you say, stress and depression start to make a vicious circle of the whole thing. Thanks for sharing, I wish you many pain-free days!

I wonder if you have an allergy/ intolerance to one of the components of milk eg casein or whey? There is very little casein in butter but if you added milk to the scrambled eggs as well it might explain it. Check the non fatty, non dairy foods that also give you problems to see if they have milk protein or whey added.
I think if it was lactose intolerance you would have been diagnosed sooner because that is more readily recognised. You would also have wind, bloating and diarrhoea but you haven’t mentioned any of these.
Pain without known cause is tough on you psychologically, as well as physically. If the pain is of the colicky, crampy, coming on in waves type you might get relief from Buscopan more than codeine. Hope you can get help for this soon:)

Hi Cherrianne
Thanks for sending me your thoughts on this. I didn’t use milk at all in my scrambled eggs. I seem to think its more the fat than the protein that are the issue as full fat milk and cream both cause pain but I have no problem with skimmed milk. As you say, I have none of the usual symptoms for lactose intolerance so I ruled that out. The other symptoms you described – I don’t have any of them either – just a heavy pain that doesn’t go away unless I can get to sleep somehow. I recently tried buscupan just to try to get away from the codeine – it made me violently sick! Thanks again, I’m in no pain at all tonight even though I persevered with the higher fat today. Maybe I can butter my stomach into submission!

Hello Janet1973. I don’t know what your chances are of reading this, but hopefully if you’re still forum lurking and/or struggling with the stomach pain then this might help. I’ve only just stumbled across this post quite by chance whilst searching for something else.

As a child I always had stomach issues. This really flared up a couple of years ago until I was hospitalised. To spare boring details and keep it simple, my pain was in exactly the same place, high in the ribcage. Tests for everything, found nothing. I was fine…. unless I ate. I used to dread eating. And it did seem sometimes fatty foods triggered it off.

Well a year or two down the line with still no formal diagnosis. However I have discovered a few things and am a lot happier for it, the awareness helps. I have issues with my ileocecal valve, and this never explained the high up pain UNTIL I discovered that there were probably also issues with the pyloric valve, google on this, it is the transfer of food from the stomach to small intestine. When it isn’t operating properly, it causes untold trouble. I sometimes wonder maybe lots of fat causes it to malfunction on some people, including nuts and seeds, and its always worse in stress. Again, google will tell you more and keep this post shorter!

Once known about and treated with respect, it really helps 🙂 and it really helps when the pain comes to know what might have caused it. I eat small amounts little and often so it doesn’t get an overload.