Stomach bloating and weight gain

[kiki2574]

Hi everyone-

I've just read through all the posts, dating back to last year, and I feel your pain. I have been dealing with this now for 2 years. I'm 33 years old, exercise regularly (4-5 times a week), lots of cardio and some weights. I have always been an athlete. I don't stick to a strict diet but try to eat under 1500 calories a day. Have gained 30 pounds in the last 2+ years. I am very frustrated. Last Dec. my gyn found fibroids- 8 total, 2 were as big as grapefruits. I thought, at last! Problem solved. Not so much. My stomach has gone back to being bloated all day, every day. Anything I eat or drink makes me look 6 mos. pregnant.

I'm finally going to go back to my doctor for help b/c I know this is not normal. Thanks for all the feedback. It's very frustrating when your doctor can't help, or doesn't want to help. If I find anything, I'll let you know.

Thanks,
Kiki

[summerskiss2002]

I guess I have kind of the same problem as some of you. I wake up in the morning and my stomach is as flat as a board. I work out a lot and I'm really tiny to begin with, but the minute I eat or drink ANYTHING ... I'm bloated! I can eat a grape and my stomach puffs out. It's so frustrating. Then, after dinner, when I try to get ready to go out it's HORRIBLE!!! I look about 3 months pregnant!! I think I eat pretty healthy, but even on days when I eat completely healthy, I'm just as bloated. I thought for a while that getting good stomach muscles would help ... so I've been working out for a while now and I've definitely improved my stomach muscles, but haven't helped my bloating issue at all!! It really sucks too because I work out so hard only to look pregnant and feel fat all day long from the minute I eat until I go to bed. I don't think gas or constipation is the problem because I don't really have any issues in that department. I mean I know they say you should go twice a day ... and I rarely do that, but I like to think I'm pretty much regular. I have been on the pill for 4 years now and I don't really remembering having this problem when I started taking it. I'm not so sure it has anything to do with it because I haven't really had any side effects from the pill. I'm just looking for any suggstions or anything to fix this problem. It really sucks when i pride myself on working out and looking good ... and then I end up looking pregnant!!

Please help...

[Final_King]

i dont know im new at this type of stuff but im an asthmetic and i know that it really has nothing to do wiht this type of problem im a male so i will not encounter this problem but any way i was thinking is there any way that from eating food can causes the swelling, growth or whatever iis causesing this growth like an alergic reaction, like the body is taking what it needs it recieves it but it sdoing something else with it.

sorry for the anoyence but just figured i throw sometihng out there to help get the possiblities flowing, because i know first hand some illness people experience are caused from the body doing something wrong and not bacteria or viruss. like asthma.

[Final_King]

ok ive jsut realized your all on diets ok well maybe you should say the name of the diet and what you do maybe if there is a common thing among the diets, we can figure out "or you guys as of im not on much " you can try eliminate it from your diets and see what happens.
i know this sounds crazy. but you klnw that old proverb,

Its so crazy, that it just might work.

[TT]

I'm another sufferer of the dreaded bloated stomach. Same as so many others here - by mid afternoon, I feel awful, stomach distended etc.
I'VE TRIED THE FOLLOWING THAT HASN'T WORKED FOR ME:
1. Weight / fitness - Lost weight and am now extremely fit,
2. Daily ab exercises in the hope it was weak stomach muscles
3. A "healthier diet" such as more fibre, fruit & vege, less sugar.
NEW THING I'M TRYING
4. Supplements - I've just started taking magnesium, vitamin B, vitamin C - too soon yet to tell
HAVEN'T TRIED
5. Elimination diets
6. Herbal drinks,
7. Degas medications
Note that I'm still fit etc (points 1,2,3) and won't stop those
PLEASE LET ME KNOW IF ANYTHING WORKS FOR YOU. THANKS.

[wiseman184]

I also suffer from bloating and stomach discomfort, weight gain. I do not eat junk food and actually eat very little each day. It all started about one and a half years ago. I had been watching my carbs intake for a couple of years. Stayed slim and had no problems. Over a period of one week I developed bloating and severe pain. Doctor said it was gallstones and removing gallbladder would eliminate bloating. After the gallbladder was removed, I suffered worse bloating then ever before and have been suffering with it on a daily basis. I have tried many different things and nothing seems to work. I am going to try the candida thing now and see what happens. They say Candida can come from antibiotics and as I recall I took antibiotics the week before all my problems started. I am at a loss. This problem has consumed me and I am tired of it.

[ladykat324]

A gluten/celiac allergy or an STD may both be possibilities. What concerns me is what you said about elimination diets. Are you just referring to cutting out certain foods to test for a food allergy? Or when you refer to elimination diet are you referring to a diet to help clean out your colon? One possibility that you may have overlooked are parasites (worms) in your intestine. Tapeworms can distend the stomach making the afflicted person look pregnant. They can also cause other symptoms because they live off the nutrition that you eat. This can cause vitamin deficiencies and other problems. If your doctor hasn't ruled this out as a possibility, I would recommend that you ask for a colon cleansing and see if that helps. Most people are disgusted by it, but it is not uncommon for worms to come out in your bodily waste, along with other toxic substances that build up in your intestine, when you get a cleansing performed.

[ladykat324]

I just looked over my original post and realized something. You said you are gaining weight, not losing weight. That changes things a bit. Tapeworms can cause distention of the stomach, but they usually cause weightloss, versus weight gain. Since you said that you have weight gain along with the other problems, limb swelling, distended stomach, etc., it sounds more like celiac sprue disease than a possible parasite.

I work as a server in a restaurant that was one of the first to offer a gluten/celiac free menu in the U.S., so I am quite familiar with this allergy. People who have gluten sensitivity and/or celiac allergy both can't have products that contain wheat/gluten, such as bread, pasta, and crackers. People who have a gluten sensitivity usually can have products that contain very small amounts of wheat. People who have celiac sprue cannot have any product that contains even trace amounts of wheat. This is a big problem because there are trace amounts of wheat in many products. Even sauces like ketchup, soy sauce, and cocktail sauce are big issues because they usually contain starch (wheat product) as a stabilizer or they contain food additives or preservatives that have wheat products. These products can even be in very odd places, like the adhesive on stamps or envelopes, in your vitamins, or in some medicines. The swelling that you described from your stomach is your immune system damaging your intestine! The other swelling that you described in other parts of your body is a hive reaction to the allergy. If a number of the following symptoms sound familiar, I would recommend immediately switching to a completely celiac free diet.

Gas, recurring abdominal bloating and pain, chronic diarrhea, constipation, pale, foul-smelling, or fatty stool; weight loss/weight gain, fatigue, unexplained anemia (a low count of red blood cells causing fatigue), bone or joint pain, osteoporosis, osteopenia, behavioral changes, tingling numbness in the legs (from nerve damage), muscle cramps, seizures, missed menstrual periods (often because of excessive weight loss), infertility, recurrent miscarriage, delayed growth, failure to thrive in infants, pale sores inside the mouth called aphthous ulcers, tooth discoloration or loss of enamel, itchy skin rash called dermatitis herpetiformis.

Celiac disease is surprisingly common, but most people don't realize that they have it. It's a genetic disease, so you may have also transmitted it genetically to your child. The disease can sometimes lay dormant until some kind of stressor to your immune system kicks it into high gear.

Note: pregnancy, childbirth, surgery, viral infection, and in some cases extreme stress alone, can cause this immune response.

If you are found to have celiac sprue disease then you will have to read food labels closely, ask questions in restaurants, and be very, VERY careful about what you eat.

[mith]

The only gluten free restaurants I know of are in the Bay Area.

[naybelline]

Hello.....

I can across this site by searching for bloating and pelvic pain etc....

I'm also having a similar problem.
I have pain on my left side in the pelvic area, it feels like a stretching pain but niggling also...but this pain isn't a constant one it comes and goes. I have alot of bloating that doesn't go down through-out the day, doesn't matter what I eat or if I don't eat it will still bloat up like I'm with child.
Also when I orgasm I get pain on my right side which isn't pleasant.
I have put on 14 pounds in weight in the last few months.
I feel very miserable. I hope maybe someone could shed some light on what could be wrong.

Much appreciated.
Nay.

[ladykat324]

Hey Mith. I live in New Jersey, and the restaurant company I work for is a chain, but they only operate on the east coast. I wish I knew more about restaurants in other areas of the united states that are gluten free. Most restaurants overlook gluten allergies or allergies in general, and most doctors don't know how to properly diagnose celiac disease because they are taught that it's rare when it actually affects millions of people.

Right now I'm kinda stumpted. I'm no doctor, but if I can provide some kind of information that might help someone, I'll provide it. In the end, there can be a number of reasons for the various posts about the abdominal bloating/pain/weight gain. It could be IBS, thyroid problems, STDs, endometriosis (which can cause fibroid cysts in various areas of the body including: pelvic areas, gastrointestinal tract, bladder, etc.), celiac disease, or any number of other GI disorders.

The specific symptoms can sometimes help your doctor, but symptoms alone can't always determine what disease a patient may be dealing with. Certain diseases are extremely difficult to diagnose (endometriosis in particular). The most reliable way to determine celiac is a biopsy of the small intestine, because blood tests can be inconclusive. Unfortunately, with endometriosis the most definitive diagnosis is surgery, which is invasive. Other methods of diagnosing endometriosis involve blood testing, MRI, ultrasound, or CAT scan. But even these methods can provide false negatives. Most GI disorders can cause major health problems, especially for women.

Here are some websites that might give some more information about some of these conditions:

This website gives info about various digestive diseases:

http://digestive.niddk.nih.gov/ddiseases/a-z.asp

This website gives info about endometriosis (click on the banner What is Endometriosis):

http://www.endometriosis.org/

This article shows just how easy it is to misdiagnose conditions like celiac disease:

http://www.usatoday.com/news/health/200 ... liac_x.htm

[mith]

http://www.eastbayexpress.com/news/slic ... oid=524089

Don't know much about this but here's a recent article.