Unfortunately, every doctor wanted to quickly throw me under the IBS bus. Once you get this label, it seems to follow you to every doctor visit and there seems to be no such thing as a 'true' second opinion.And now you don't even hand-carry your medical records- everything seems to be available electronically wherever you go.
Besides a colonoscopy, some bariums and sigmoidoscopies, I had several CT scans and ultrasounds. I started asking for an MRI instead- telling the doctors that I'd already had the other 2 scans with no results so why not try something different. And too many CT scans aren't good anyway because of the radiation. They flat out refused- even when I offered to pay for one myself. It wasn't until I saw a chiropractor a few years ago and a sports doctor this year that I finally got to have an MRI. A right abdominal wall lipoma was mentioned. For the chiropractor one, I only read it on paper and it was made to sound like no big deal. When I had the 2nd one this year, the doctor let me see it on the screen so I got to see it with my own eyes. It looked like a whale- with the head near my lower right chest, wrapped slightly around my back, and the 'tail' went inward and downward. This looked like exactly the same path of pain and pressure I had complained about so much for years but I was made to feel like a nutcase- every doctor insisted there was nothing there.
So now, 27 years after the pain began, I had it removed about 3 months ago. The surgeon said that it went deep into my abdominal wall. There is still some fluid there and the wrap-around feeling is still there. But what I notice the most is how that mass affected my entire body and threw things out of whack- even on the left side. So now it feels as though my body is trying to correct itself but I sure can feel the adhesions. During this 27-year period, I had a hysterectomy and myomectomy, neither of which did any good and probably created the adhesions. And I figure that my body had to heal from those surgeries while my body was so out of whack anyway so things are more stubborn than they otherwise would have been. The removal of the lipoma was fairly simple and I don't think it caused any adhesions- they just make a slit and slifd the whole thing out, big as it was.
It makes me so mad that because of the unwillingness to do an MRI that I ended up having surgeries I otherwise probably never would have had. I now wish that I'd pushed for an MRI with the gynecologist who did the hysterectomy when he asked me how sure I was about getting one. I should have said that I wouldn't be satisfied until I had an MRI but by that time I was just so worn out from uncooperative doctors.
Since the hysterectomy, I have also had a foul drainage near my lower left vaginal area. The drainage also goes down the back of my left thigh and I can feel what I imagine is a fistula into the thigh. No doctor- and I've been to several over the past decade- has been able to diagnose it but my massage therapist who is pretty knowledgeable about these things swears that it is an abscess coming from the left buttock. I feel a very tight small, twisted area on the left side of my vagina and wonder if it could be a small, stubborn patch of adhesions that is causing the abscess. I also have stitches in my left pelvic area from my hystectomy 13 years ago but the doctor I saw recently didn't think that that would cause any issue. At any rate, when it drains it burns and has a smell that others notice. The swelling also causes sciatica down my left leg.