Hey bandster friends,

I was banded in April 2011 and so far the ride has been rough, but new and exciting. I have a question for any of you nurses, doctors, or generally 'health knowledgeable' folks out there. For about 3 weeks now i have been having horrible pain in my lower right side. It started near my belly button and has progressed around my hip and up under my rib cage. I went to the ER 2 weeks ago worried about my appendix ( I have had low grade fevers, nausea, and constipation as well). They told me that my appendix looked fine on a CT, but my white blood cell count was high and I still had a fever. They sent me on my way anyway. I'm very concerned because all of the symptoms have just continued to get worse and I read that a lot of CTs looking for appendicitis get misread. It's to the point where I'm doubling over if I have to walk more than 1/4 mile. I will also add that my twin sister had an emergency appendectomy last Saturday and the surgeon said that they couldn't believe how bad her appendix was when they finally got into her abdomen because it was tucked and almost the whole way behind her liver. I'm just wondering if my anatomy could be the same as my identical twin and if they just rushed me out of the ER? I made an appointment with my pcp for tomorrow and had my CT scan results sent to her. I'm just wondering if I should wait or if this could be something port related. I've read that a lot of people end up with appendicitis after LB surgery. I'm scared, hurting, sick, and don't know what else to do... I almost keep trying to convince myself that it's all in my head and I am fine because they would have seen it on the CT. I truly appreciate any and all opinions. Thank you kindly for your time.

At risk of being "yucky" I forgot to say that today I have developed blood in my stool as well so now I am getting very scared. That's what made me finally call a new pcp.

Sounds like you need to get to a dr ASAP and insist that they listen to you! Good luck and please let us know how you are.

Def sounds like appendicitis to me. Get back to dr. U don't want it to rupture if it is appendix.

Hope you feel better soon. Like the other posters said, get yourself to a doctor asap.

Please let us know how you make out.

Best wishes.

Sue

Please get yourself to a doctor and get it checked out again - it could be so many things other than appendicits and blood in your stool is NEVER ok. I ignored blood in my stool for months (not in any pain) and had cancer, I was extremely lucky that I didnt ignore it any longer as it was rather advanced, and its a miracle that it was not into my lymph nodes yet. It had almost completely blocked my rectum, and I was also ignoring symptoms like frequency and very skinny stools, thinking I was constipated. Now, that's frightening and its of course my story, not yours but you really have to follow this up until you have an answer, dont leave it.

Remember they would certainly have seen a large tumour on the CT scan, so dont panic, but blood in your stool means there's something wrong and it needs to be treated. The last thing you want is some sort of intestinal injury which will result much more serious problems and surgery. It could be any number of serious but not cancer kind of problems - they may indeed not have diagnosed appendicits, you could have diverticulitis, crohns disease, colitis, all problems that can be treated satisfactorily but if you dont know they're there, they can do a lot of damage, and you certainly dont want to end up needing an ileostomy.

One thing to tell the doctor - is it red blood or not? If its red and only when you wipe, its coming from relatively near the opening - like from haemorrhoids or something, but what I had was a funny smelling stool - kind of metallic, and it was very dark in colour, sometimes maroon when I finally realised it. I dont know about you but I dont spend a lot of time looking at my poo, and I noticed it didnt smell right, but attributed that to eating something or whatever. That smell and dark colour means you're bleeing significantly deeper into your digestive tract.

I wont apologise for being dramatic and frightening you if it gets you to a doctor!