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My wife has bouts of intense stomach problems about twice a year. We try to eat paleo as much as possible, but nowhere near perfect. Let's say, 70/30. She has a burning or pinching stomach pain, very similar to an ulcer. She has had two scopes and blood work showing she has no ulcer. This last scope, the doctor biopsied part of her stomach to check for celiac disease. She'll take a prescribed antacid, and other pain killers but it doesn't seem to help anymore. I was hoping anybody might have a similar experience and can help point me in some direction. I'm fed up with her current G.I. doctor as they can't come up with any reason, or any relief for her. If anybody knows of a good doctor in the Cincinnati area I would appreciate it.

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 Something that infrequent sounds like it has a trigger for it. No ideas? 70/30 is pretty loose paleo, so if it was something in that 30% I'd expect she'd have more episodes than just a couple times per year. – Matt Apr 30 2012 at 14:08
Yeah, we're not perfect especially on the weekends. We're definitely going to be more strict over the next week and see if we can figure something out. – Adam Apr 30 2012 at 15:26

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Hi Adam,

It's hard enough for doctors to diagnose celiac disease, so please take any well- meaning diagnosees from this forum with a healthy pinch of salt :)

It's possible she is gluten intolerant, or has celiacs, but if she only is noticing these issues twice a year it could be something more acute. (personal note: I was diagnosed with an ulcer early in my 20s, before I was incorrectly diagnosed with IBS and finally celiac)

Does she keep a food journal? It would be great for her to track what she is eating and take notes as to what she's feeling. I'd recommend she also take note of her menstrual cycle and stress levels in this journal.

At the end of the day, if she feels better not eating gluten, she should cut it out of her diet, regardless of what the test results come back as. Other digestion culprits are dairy, sugar, nightshades, legumes, eggs.... Has she tried an elimination diet?

Finally, I also recommend she see an obgyn... This may seem out of left field, but if nothing has helped all avenues are worth exploring.

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So the doctor is going to try and give her some different meds. He said that it's probably not celiac because Asians don't usually have that...Not sure how accurate that is. I'll wait to hear from the doctor that did the scope. It's a bit more than twice a year. I'd say this kind of really intense pain is twice a year but occasional reflux is once a month or so. A food diary is a good idea and I've told her this week we're going to try and cut out many things to try and figure out what could be the culprit. And yeah, she is going to see the obgyn soon as well. Thanks! – Adam Apr 30 2012 at 15:28
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Eliminate typical problematic food items and see how she feels.

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I am also Asian and I used to have symptoms like that. I experienced chronic sharp pain in the stomach, went to my GI doc who performed endoscopy and found no ulcer. But my stomach did show mild irritation. That got me thinking that maybe the culprit was the pro-inflammatory foods that are known to be "healthy." I ate strictly paleo and now I am symptom-free.

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Thanks for your input. She did a CT scan, everything is normal. We've gone waaaay strict for the whole week. So far it's getting just a bit better. We're going to go slow and see what we can reintroduce and how it impacts her. So far, fatty meat is out. – Adam May 4 2012 at 18:38

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