Stress and Stomachaches

Warning: this is a post in which I talk about medical issues. Don't read if that bothers you.



I've been getting weird stomachaches since I was in fifth grade. Intense pain that made me double-over and made it hard to walk. They always seemed to be stress-related (although really, how much stress can a fifth-grader be under?) They were sporadic for most of my life.

In my senior year of undergrad, they became more frequent. I went to a doctor. I had a scope done. He told me I had an over-production of acid in my stomach, and prescribed medication. It seemed strange to have to take medication daily for pain that struck mysteriously, so I stopped taking it not long after I started.

Then, nearly two years ago, I started getting a different kind of stomachache. A different part of my abdomen. Also potentially stress related. Also with such intense pain that I double-over, unable to walk. Sometimes the pain gets so bad that I can't speak. Or think. Every ounce of energy I have becomes focused into managing that pain.

I spent 9 days straight in bed that summer, taking 800 milligrams of ibuprofen and praying it would stop. But even when I wasn't in pain, I was so weak from trying to manage the pain that it didn't make sense to get out of bed. I went to a few different doctors. I had blood work done multiple times. And a cat scan. And an ultrasound. One by one, each hypothesis was ruled out.

The best guess my doctor could take was something about having spasms. He gave me anti-spasm medication and told me that I'd have to take them when I had the pain, and if they worked, then we'd know what it was.

But then -- mysteriously -- the stomachaches disappeared, just as quickly as they had arrived.

I don't know when they're going to strike. Sometimes, I go for months without getting one. Or I get one relatively mild one in an isolated incident, and then nothing. I take the anti-spasm meds, but I honestly don't think they do anything. Sometimes the pain goes away, but usually it doesn't.

In September, I started getting them daily. But then they stopped again.

And about a week and a half ago, I started getting them again. During a dress rehearsal for the show I just opened, I had to take off part of my costume because it was putting more weight on my abdomen and causing me a lot of pain. A few days ago, I had to tell my stage manager during a matinee that the pain was unbearable, and there was a chance I might have to miss the evening performance... but then the pain vanished, and I was fine the rest of the night. Go figure.

I'm in bed now. I have been for most of the day. The pain comes in spurts. But I feel too weak to bother doing anything. (And, unfortunately, I chose to give up blog-reading this week for Lent, so I can't even catch up on my Google Reader.)

I don't know if it's stress-related or not. I have stress in my life right now, but there have been plenty of times when I've had stress and no pain.

Maybe it's the stress of trying to get to London. It's not a hopeless situation, but it's a frustrating one.

Or the stress of Showcase, which is a month from today in New York City.

Or the stress of being in two shows while understudying three other roles.

Or the stress of being in a long-distance relationship.

I don't know what it is.

But I want the pain to go away. And stay gone.

I don't even see the point of going to a doctor any more. I'd have to have the doctors in Connecticut send records to the doctors in Florida, which would involve me doing some faxing and mailing of request forms and the like. It would just add to the stress. And I wouldn't even know what sort of doctor to go to. So far, my mysterious maladies have stumped a general practitioner, two gynecologists, and two gastroenterologists.

I'd better stop writing. I'm giving myself a headache. And that's really the last thing I need at this moment.


May your pains disappear... and not reappear.

~A~

Woes in a Hurricane

Everything negative is raining down on me at once, and I'm drowning in the flood.

I need to vent, so I'll do it in list format.

- The Filmmaker dumped me. (SIDE NOTE: I am now rehearsing a play called "The Filmmaker's Mystery". And God is giggling.)
- The Filmmaker called me, post-dumping me, to verbally abuse me. And, because I have a history of abuse and always fall back into the spot of being the victim despite how many times I reassure myself that I'm never going to let it happen again, I let him attack me. I let him. I thought it was me doing something nice for him. I LET IT HAPPEN. Which just makes it MY fault, and makes me feel even worse. - My brother had swine flu. (He's fine now, but it's just one more thing on the list of badness).
- I got bad casting for my season. Which I'm actually okay with... But I'm not okay with not knowing WHY. My auditions and callbacks went well. I've had nothing but positive feedback. Did they plan the season and forget about me? Did I do something to offend someone? What went wrong?
- The thing that my professors wanted me to work on above all else this year? Confidence. (Yeah, really easy to do that when you show so much faith in me).
- My 1st-year acting professor said that he hasn't seen "me" in any of the work he's seen me do this year, and implied that I'd forgotten everything I learned last year in his class, and that he's disappointed in me.
- A classmate of mine who got good casting (actually, unfairly good) insensitively said to me (TO ME!), "Not everyone deserves a lead." (And THIS is the kind of person who is getting REWARDED??? I wrote a very angry poem to her and was going to perform it at an open mic night, but then my roommates said that I shouldn't because it was too harsh and everyone from my school would know who I was talking about.)
- Same classmate tried to tell me today that she thinks ADHD is misdiagnosed in children, and that I should really just add more protein to my diet. WHY DO PEOPLE TRY TO INVALIDATE MY F***ING DISORDER??? I was NOT misdiagnosed! I wasn't even diagnosed as a CHILD! I wasn't medicated until I was 18 YEARS OLD. WHO THE F*** ARE YOU TO TELL ME HOW MY BRAIN WORKS???
- The only guy who has shown any interest in me since my break-up? A pothead who was in the army for 8 years (Why do I attract military men?) who has worse social anxiety than I do. No thank you.
- I overdrafted my checking account twice last week.
- My car insurance company took away one of my discounts because my paperwork didn't go through properly and now says I owe them an additional $60.
- My beloved laptop (and best friend -- and I mean that in a non-ironic way) Lady MacBook died yesterday. I got her on October 3rd, 2006, and I was told I had 3 years worth of AppleCare coverage... but for some reason, Apple says that it expired on September 27th. They think the hard drive is gone, and apparently I have a "warped battery". And if everything that they think is wrong ends up actually being wrong, then I don't have the money to fix her.
- I keep having blindingly bad pain in my stomach, and no one can tell me WHY. Today, it was so bad that I think I literally BLACKED OUT from pain in the middle of class. When it started to subside, I was shaking, light-headed, and tears were streaming down my face, and four of my classmates had their hands on me, trying to help or calm me down or something. I JUST WANT IT TO GO AWAY!!! Or, at the very least, I WANT TO KNOW WHY IT'S HAPPENING!!!

I think that's a pretty solid list of BAD STUFF ALL HAPPENING AT ONCE.

And there are more things. Some that seem lesser. Like the fact that the karaoke bar I used to go to now has new people running the karaoke, who arrange their (terrible) collection BY SONG TITLE instead of by artist.

Or that the classmate that I used to go out dancing/karaoke-ing with on Sunday nights has now picked up a Sunday night shift working as a bartender, so I haven't been able to do the things that make me forget a bad week (and I can't go alone because of my social anxiety).

Or that I had such great plans for my Golden 25th birthday next month (wear a gold dress and karaoke to "What's Up" by 4 Non-Blondes because of the line "25 years and my life is still/trying to get up that great big hill of hope/towards a destination", and also a Katy Perry song since she and I have the same birthday in the same year), but they all have to be cancelled because my birthday falls on tech weekend for the play I'm in... Which means both the day before my birthday and my birthday itself, I will be in rehearsals from noon to midnight. And I can't throw a party post-midnight, because my roommate has to sleep before her matinee at 10:30am the next morning.

It all just sucks.

I've started going to church regularly. I keep praying that things will suddenly get better. But I just feel so unsatisfied by life right now.

I like to think that everything happens for a reason, but right now, it's really hard to see the reasons.

Please, if you have any compliments for me, I'd like to fish for them right now. I could use some.

~A~

Health Update

In case you were wondering...

My second blood test came back totally fine, so I'm in the clear on brain issues.

My ultrasound was completely normal.

I've had stomachaches all day.

So basically, now they have no idea what's wrong with me, but something is definitely still wrong with me. In some ways, it's more frustrating and disappointing than having a real answer.

My doctor wants to put me on birth control to regulate my cycle, but I'm not into that idea. I really don't want to add more hormones to my body. Especially since I'm trying to be healthy and lose weight right now.

I've already lost a good chunk of weight. 17 pounds since November. Today I stepped on the scale, and the number I saw was lower than I've seen in two years. I'm a size 6, which is skinny for a normal person, but still pushing it for an actress.

I'm doing exercise videos and I've given up french fries. I'm just trying to eat other bad-for-me foods in moderation.

Why do I always feel like I'm fighting against my body?


May you find a way to work with your body instead of against it.

~A~

Pain from the Brain?

I had my blood drawn a couple of weeks ago because of all the weird pain I was having coupled with my freakish cycle.
My doctor told me that "no news is good news", and that I'd only be getting a phone call if something was weird.
So it freaked me out when a phone call came.
My mother got a phone call when I was at work, and the doctor said to call back... but by the time I had the chance to call, the office was closed for the day.

My logical side, of course, said that if it was urgent, they would've tried my cell phone... So nothing insane.

A nurse called me the next day on my cell while I was at work.

My cholesterol was fine. I'm not gluten intolerant. Things looked pretty good.

But one level was high, so the nurse said that I had to get my blood drawn again, but I had to be fasting before getting it drawn.
I said, "Um, I fasted last time before it was drawn. For ten hours."
The nurse seemed surprised.
She said I might need an MRI, but that my doctor would be out of town for a couple of days, so she wasn't sure.

Yeah, that's so not what I wanted to hear. If something is wrong with you that requires an MRI, the last thing you want to be told is that you have to wait.

I talked to my father (who, conveniently, is a gynecologist). As it turns out, having this one level high might be a sign that I have some sort of growth in my pituitary gland in my brain.

My doctor is now back in town. She's having me repeat the blood test this week, fasting again. If that level is still high, then we'll go the MRI route.

Weird brain growths and cysts seem to run in my family, so I won't be shocked if that's the case. But don't freak out on my behalf. According to my dad, it's not as bad of a problem as it sounds like.

I'm going to have an ultrasound tomorrow morning, and I'll probably get blood drawn again on Tuesday.

All that said, I haven't had any stomach pain for about a week now... So maybe it was just a weird fluke of a month? Or, as someone suggested in my comments section, maybe it had to do with anxiety after all?

I just hope it gets figured out soon.


May you know what's ailing you.

~A~

TMI: My Body Hates Me

I was trained in undergrad to have a concept of "body-mind" to better myself as an actor. Most people address their thought patterns as being a state of "me" and the body being something separate. This is especially evident when it comes to body image. How often do we hear someone say "I hate my thighs/nose/elbows/etc."? The nature of this statement is that the elbows in question are somehow not a part of the entity of "I"... or at least, that's what my professor said. For actors, it's incredibly important to not be splintered in that way. Mind and body need to be connected in order to better portray anything through acting.

But I can't do that when I'm sick or in pain. I feel like somehow my body is attacking itself, or trying to disrupt my plans. My body is not me; my body is the enemy.

So here's a little trip into my body.

WARNING: If you don't want to read about my pains, potential medical problems, stomach acid, or reproductive cycle, stop reading now. I'm about to bust into some sketchy TMI Territory.


Okay, truth be told, a lot of my pains start out from a really strong body-mind connection. I break out in hives when I'm nervous. I get back pain (connected to my lordosis) when my self-esteem is low. I get headaches when I feel sad. And I get stomachaches when I have high levels of stress.

I've been getting the stomachaches since I was about 10. I finally had an endoscopy when I was 21. The doctor told me that I have gastritis, but no sign of anything else wrong. I have an over-production of acid in my stomach, but instead of having heartburn, it just eats at my stomach lining and duodenum. (See, this is why I threw on the WARNING up above.)

I was put on medication for awhile, but I didn't like the side effects. Since I wasn't getting them all that frequently, I decided to take my chances with Zantac 150s. I've been off prescriptions since around April 2006.

Around April of this year, my "stress stomachaches" as I call them (although they're not always related to stress) started coming more regularly. And one of them was excruciating -- easily in the top 2 most painful of my life (the other high-ranking one was around 1998 and was bad enough that I literally could not stand up).

I was in so much pain that I took my Zantacs, climbed into bed naked (because when my stomach hurts, the last thing I want to be wearing is underwear), and crying so hard that I induced a migraine. I felt so weak that I could barely talk or focus. It was awful, to say the least.

I chalked up the stomachaches to it being the end of the school year (stress). When they continued, I blamed them on the whole situation with Daniel being released from grad school.

In May, the days with pain far outnumbered the days without.

I have a low threshold for pain, but a decent tolerance for it. I think people often confuse the two, so I'll explain. I have a very strong sense of physical sensation, and I can feel things physically that are more slight than other people (if you don't believe me, ask my movement professor). I'm the kind of person who can feel an ant crawling on my foot. This is probably why I crave physical comfort and cuddling so much. It's also probably the reason that I have a low threshold for pain, which means that the point at which I feel pain comes much sooner than most other people.

That said, my pain tolerance is pretty good (far better than most, considering how easily I feel pain). For example, a friend of mine would take a day off from work if she had a headache or a cold, whereas I got hit by a car and showed up for work 32 hours later. I may be in pain, but I'll deal with it. If there's ever a time that people around me (aside from people I'm living with) can tell that I'm in pain, the pain is probably pretty significant.

When Daniel and I were in Disney World, I was having stomach pain all day, but I kept going. It somehow turned into chest pain, which I told Daniel, but we kept going. When it got so bad that I said I needed to sit down, he knew I wasn't messing around. After a call to my mother (a registered nurse), a visit to a health station, and an EMT hooking wires up to my chest, they determined that I was fine. The chest pain and breathing trouble probably occurred because I have asthmatic tendencies, and the fact that my heart was beating so hard and strangely was probably just because of the panic I went through because of the breathing issues. I spent some time in a wheelchair (with Daniel pushing me around and me feeling miserable) and was advised not to go on Expedition: Everest (I think Dan was disappointed, but he acted like it wasn't a big deal). But by the end of the day, I was an extra on stage in the Indiana Jones show and had taken my first ever drop in the Tower of Terror (what can I say, I'm a daring woman).

By the end of my time in Florida, I was having a lot of abdominal pain, but it wasn't in my stomach (by the way, your stomach is up near your diaphragm, under your ribs). It didn't really feel like cramps, either, although it had been a long time since my last period, so I assumed it must be something like that.

I won't go into specifics, but my menstrual cycle is freaking weird. Thank goodness I'm not sexually active, because if I were my life would be filled with pregnancy scares.

Anyway. So I came to Connecticut, and had my mother (i.e. my personal assistant -- my mom is awesome) schedule me all sorts of appointments. Gynecologist. Internist. Dentist. Ophthalmologist. Dermatologist. The works.

My cycle has continued to be really freaking weird since I've gotten home. Meaning that I got it the day after I got home (May 25th) and, guess what, I have it now (June 9th).

I've had stomach pains every day since I've gotten home. Bad ones that won't go away. I've talked to my gynecologist, internist, and father (he's an ob/gyn) about them. The pains move around. Sometimes it seems like an ovary, sometimes my pancreas, sometimes my bladder. My internist suggested that I might have a "spastic colon" (which, up until this point, I thought that Tennessee Williams had made up for Cat on a Hot Tin Roof).

My gynecologist said that I seemed fine, but that due to just how irregular my cycle was, she wanted me to have blood-work done to see if I have a thyroid problem or Polycystic Ovarian Syndrome (as soon as I told my dad that, he said, "Yeah, I've thought that you might have PCOS for awhile."). My internist added a blood test to check for gluten intolerance.

I woke up around 6am this morning with stomach pain and my period. I was supposed to have an ultrasound today, but they won't do it now because I'm on my period, so I have to wait for another week. Fantastic.

In the meantime, I've been told to take 800 mgs of ibuprofen with food every 6 hours (which, so far, are doing nothing). And I've spent most of the day laying in bed.

I wish I knew what was wrong with me. I wish I could make it go away.

If I do have PCOS or a thyroid issue, I'll probably have to go on some sort of hormones or birth control or something (which is not something I want to do, but it sounds like it's my only real option).

Anyway. I'll keep you posted.


May your body not mysteriously rebel against you.

~A~


P.S. Despite being in bed all day, I booked another stage managing gig for Thursday-Saturday (let's hope I'm up and about by then!), and I got an interview tomorrow for a jewelry store that's just about to open (wish me luck!). Maybe my bed is a lucky place to be when it comes to employment? I'm going to chalk that up as a Feng Shui win!