Hello everyone , I've just joined up to the forum after reading many threads here and coming to the conclusion that regardless of your digestive health problem this seems to be one of the most informed and friendly forums to visit.
Firstly sorry for the long post but it would be hard to explain my situation briefly so I hope you could kindly take the time to read my post.
I'm from the UK , I'm male and am now aged 21. From birth and being on milk I have always suffered from quite severe constipation with no known cause. This is still the case to this day despite an extremely healthy diet.
Between the ages of 12 and 15 I had an ongoing health problem that was near impossible to get diagnosed , I missed many years of school due to severe pain in my pelvis and passing water that never seemed to let up. It turned out however after seeing numerous urologists that I was suffering from prostatitis and prostate enlargement which as I'm sure you can imagine is very rare in children, it was diagnosed after they actually used a camera to take a look. The urologist I was under was fantastic and a urologist who had previously shunned me actually came to me personally and apologized. Finally getting diagnosed with something was great but little did I know the treatment of prostatitis isn't always helpful. Needless to say I was put on a long term course of various antibiotics and pain killers and was ( and still am ) under the care of a pain doctor. My urologist had come to the conclusion that severe constipation may have in part caused my prostate issues by putting excess pressure on my prostate gland.
After around two years on the treatment which was then discontinued the prostatitis seemed to be getting easier to manage but different health problems started to pop up. I was suddenly deficient in vitamin b12 , b9 and was developing acid reflux which in part was causing breathing difficulty at night. I was also suffering from night sweats and extremely vivid dreams. Later on acne started to appear on my face which was very bothersome and I was always very fatigued.
At the time I hadn't linked any of this to antibiotic uses and after discussing with my doctor that the acne was bothering me he prescribed me a months course of tetracycline. Taking that drug in particular was the biggest mistake of my life.
I finished the months course and over the next month I suddenly dropped two stone in weight , developed severe stomach burning , extreme reflux that made me nauseous all day long, food allergies to wheat , dairy , nuts and fish, worsened constipation, my mal-absorption problems worsened and on top of the b12 and b9 I also developed a severe vitamin D deficiency.
My GP was very un-supportive and wouldn't refer me to a gastroenterologist despite my worrying symptoms. I ended up paying privately to see a doctor who was shocked at how underweight I was and performed an endoscopy and colonoscopy. The colonoscopy came back fine although the endoscopy found stomach and esophagus erosion with no known cause. I was given acid blockers and sent away.
Over the next year the symptoms were worsening , I dramatically changed my diet. I no longer eat gluten , dairy , fish or nuts and have a strict zero sugar diet apart from the sugars in sweet potato and occasionally gluten free bread and sweetcorn. I only drink filtered water.
Whilst the diet made me feel a little better still my health problems were worsening , I was loosing more weight and at this point looked skeletal. I was always fatigued and couldn't gather the energy to do pretty much anything. My stomach was constantly on fire regardless of what I ate , I was always constipated despite my diet , the reflux was terrible , very severe joint pains started to pop up which I now suffer with on a daily basis.
I had to do something so went to see another private doctor who turned out to be much better than the last. He performed another endoscopy which took a look at my stomach and the start of my small intestine and found a stomach ulcer and " evidence of H.pylori " , they took some biopsies and I was told to wait for the results. My small intestine despite the absorption issues apparently looked ok.
Of course the treatment of H.pylori was antibiotics and I did not want to take them. I spoke again to my doctor about how I was positive it was antibiotics that had triggered all of these health problems and also paid for a stool sample to be performed by genova diagnostics. The stool sample found no trace of H.pylori whatsoever and found that I had zero growth of lactobacillus acidophilus ( no surprise after that many antibiotics ). No parasites were found but high levels of streptoccoccus were found and also high levels of betaglucronidase which is an enzyme induced when anerobic bacteria ferment.
We took a look at the biopsy results from the endoscopy and it turned out that H.pylori wasn't found there either. My doctor came to the conclusion that H.pylori wasn't the problem at this point with which I agree.
Just in case H.pylori was present though instead of taking the antibiotics I decided to take a course of the controversial natural H.pylori treatment matula herbal formula for one month , I had another stool sample performed by my GP after the treatment and as expected it was negative.
Over the last two days I've had another endoscopy performed which again found no evidence of H.pylori but that my stomach ulcer was looking a little better ( although the test was performed by a different doctor and honestly it seems to be hurting just the same ). I also yesterday had a small bowel CT scan which I'm hoping worked ok since I only managed to drink 3 cups of the barium before I had quite bad stomach ache and couldn't drink anymore as much as I wanted to. They performed the scan and told me my results would be with my doctor shortly.
At this point despite much speculation I still have no diagnosis as to what's going on. My symptoms now consist of stomach burning ( likely caused by the stomach ulcer and gastritis with no apparent cause ! ) , nausea , extreme weight loss ( I look like a walking skeleton at this point regardless of how many calories I eat ) , malabsorption of b12 , b9 and vitamin D , terrible joint pain which worsens upon touching my skin ( I'm guessing this is some type of auto immune issue related to my digestive problems ) , the acne is still present although much better since avoiding the foods I seem to have allergies to , extreme fatigue , the continual constipation and various other bothersome symptoms. Obviously the vitamin deficiencies all come with their own symptoms and supplementing doesn't seem to help my levels , as my doctor says " if you aren't absorbing them taking more isn't likely to help anyway ".
So what do I know for sure ?.
I've had celiac ruled out and I avoid gluten strictly anyway , H.pylori is now ruled out as are parasites, colitis is extremely unlikely as is Crohn's disease although both are still being considered a possibility.
I know for a fact that antibiotics were the cause of my ill health. My doctor has taken into consideration that my stool sample shown evidence of fermenting microbes and no growth of lactobacillus species but doesn't think this alone would cause such severe symptoms.
I'm at a loss of what to do now , if these recent tests come back again with practically nothing I can't think of much else to do , I just want to gain some weight back at least !. It's horrible to look and feel like this. I've tried carb free diets but without much to soak up the acid in my stomach the burning becomes unbearable and honestly I just seem to feel worse without carbohydrates in my diet, more tired and nauseous.
I'm thinking SIBO could be a possibility considering my stool sample results and past experience with antibiotics and am going to request a breath test although it seems to be usually diarrhea and bloating that is symptomatic of this and although I suffer with occasional bloating I don't really suffer with either. Could SIBO really cause stomach ulcers , extreme weight loss and so on ?.
I can't think of anything else I can do to help myself.
I don't expect any miracles but if any here has had any similar experiences with antibiotics or anything similar at all any comments would be appreciated.
Again sorry for the extremely long post and thanks for reading if you've taken the time out to do so.
Firstly sorry for the long post but it would be hard to explain my situation briefly so I hope you could kindly take the time to read my post.
I'm from the UK , I'm male and am now aged 21. From birth and being on milk I have always suffered from quite severe constipation with no known cause. This is still the case to this day despite an extremely healthy diet.
Between the ages of 12 and 15 I had an ongoing health problem that was near impossible to get diagnosed , I missed many years of school due to severe pain in my pelvis and passing water that never seemed to let up. It turned out however after seeing numerous urologists that I was suffering from prostatitis and prostate enlargement which as I'm sure you can imagine is very rare in children, it was diagnosed after they actually used a camera to take a look. The urologist I was under was fantastic and a urologist who had previously shunned me actually came to me personally and apologized. Finally getting diagnosed with something was great but little did I know the treatment of prostatitis isn't always helpful. Needless to say I was put on a long term course of various antibiotics and pain killers and was ( and still am ) under the care of a pain doctor. My urologist had come to the conclusion that severe constipation may have in part caused my prostate issues by putting excess pressure on my prostate gland.
After around two years on the treatment which was then discontinued the prostatitis seemed to be getting easier to manage but different health problems started to pop up. I was suddenly deficient in vitamin b12 , b9 and was developing acid reflux which in part was causing breathing difficulty at night. I was also suffering from night sweats and extremely vivid dreams. Later on acne started to appear on my face which was very bothersome and I was always very fatigued.
At the time I hadn't linked any of this to antibiotic uses and after discussing with my doctor that the acne was bothering me he prescribed me a months course of tetracycline. Taking that drug in particular was the biggest mistake of my life.
I finished the months course and over the next month I suddenly dropped two stone in weight , developed severe stomach burning , extreme reflux that made me nauseous all day long, food allergies to wheat , dairy , nuts and fish, worsened constipation, my mal-absorption problems worsened and on top of the b12 and b9 I also developed a severe vitamin D deficiency.
My GP was very un-supportive and wouldn't refer me to a gastroenterologist despite my worrying symptoms. I ended up paying privately to see a doctor who was shocked at how underweight I was and performed an endoscopy and colonoscopy. The colonoscopy came back fine although the endoscopy found stomach and esophagus erosion with no known cause. I was given acid blockers and sent away.
Over the next year the symptoms were worsening , I dramatically changed my diet. I no longer eat gluten , dairy , fish or nuts and have a strict zero sugar diet apart from the sugars in sweet potato and occasionally gluten free bread and sweetcorn. I only drink filtered water.
Whilst the diet made me feel a little better still my health problems were worsening , I was loosing more weight and at this point looked skeletal. I was always fatigued and couldn't gather the energy to do pretty much anything. My stomach was constantly on fire regardless of what I ate , I was always constipated despite my diet , the reflux was terrible , very severe joint pains started to pop up which I now suffer with on a daily basis.
I had to do something so went to see another private doctor who turned out to be much better than the last. He performed another endoscopy which took a look at my stomach and the start of my small intestine and found a stomach ulcer and " evidence of H.pylori " , they took some biopsies and I was told to wait for the results. My small intestine despite the absorption issues apparently looked ok.
Of course the treatment of H.pylori was antibiotics and I did not want to take them. I spoke again to my doctor about how I was positive it was antibiotics that had triggered all of these health problems and also paid for a stool sample to be performed by genova diagnostics. The stool sample found no trace of H.pylori whatsoever and found that I had zero growth of lactobacillus acidophilus ( no surprise after that many antibiotics ). No parasites were found but high levels of streptoccoccus were found and also high levels of betaglucronidase which is an enzyme induced when anerobic bacteria ferment.
We took a look at the biopsy results from the endoscopy and it turned out that H.pylori wasn't found there either. My doctor came to the conclusion that H.pylori wasn't the problem at this point with which I agree.
Just in case H.pylori was present though instead of taking the antibiotics I decided to take a course of the controversial natural H.pylori treatment matula herbal formula for one month , I had another stool sample performed by my GP after the treatment and as expected it was negative.
Over the last two days I've had another endoscopy performed which again found no evidence of H.pylori but that my stomach ulcer was looking a little better ( although the test was performed by a different doctor and honestly it seems to be hurting just the same ). I also yesterday had a small bowel CT scan which I'm hoping worked ok since I only managed to drink 3 cups of the barium before I had quite bad stomach ache and couldn't drink anymore as much as I wanted to. They performed the scan and told me my results would be with my doctor shortly.
At this point despite much speculation I still have no diagnosis as to what's going on. My symptoms now consist of stomach burning ( likely caused by the stomach ulcer and gastritis with no apparent cause ! ) , nausea , extreme weight loss ( I look like a walking skeleton at this point regardless of how many calories I eat ) , malabsorption of b12 , b9 and vitamin D , terrible joint pain which worsens upon touching my skin ( I'm guessing this is some type of auto immune issue related to my digestive problems ) , the acne is still present although much better since avoiding the foods I seem to have allergies to , extreme fatigue , the continual constipation and various other bothersome symptoms. Obviously the vitamin deficiencies all come with their own symptoms and supplementing doesn't seem to help my levels , as my doctor says " if you aren't absorbing them taking more isn't likely to help anyway ".
So what do I know for sure ?.
I've had celiac ruled out and I avoid gluten strictly anyway , H.pylori is now ruled out as are parasites, colitis is extremely unlikely as is Crohn's disease although both are still being considered a possibility.
I know for a fact that antibiotics were the cause of my ill health. My doctor has taken into consideration that my stool sample shown evidence of fermenting microbes and no growth of lactobacillus species but doesn't think this alone would cause such severe symptoms.
I'm at a loss of what to do now , if these recent tests come back again with practically nothing I can't think of much else to do , I just want to gain some weight back at least !. It's horrible to look and feel like this. I've tried carb free diets but without much to soak up the acid in my stomach the burning becomes unbearable and honestly I just seem to feel worse without carbohydrates in my diet, more tired and nauseous.
I'm thinking SIBO could be a possibility considering my stool sample results and past experience with antibiotics and am going to request a breath test although it seems to be usually diarrhea and bloating that is symptomatic of this and although I suffer with occasional bloating I don't really suffer with either. Could SIBO really cause stomach ulcers , extreme weight loss and so on ?.
I can't think of anything else I can do to help myself.
I don't expect any miracles but if any here has had any similar experiences with antibiotics or anything similar at all any comments would be appreciated.
Again sorry for the extremely long post and thanks for reading if you've taken the time out to do so.