My Path to Diagnosis

Today I found out I have somatization disorder. I am 19 years old. It all started October 9th of this year when I was put in the hospital for a UTI that spread into a bladder and kidney infection. My kidney had already been operated on at age seven due to an obstruction and so its function was not what it should be. I stayed two nights in the hospital, where I missed a midterm, and then was sent home and told that the pain would get better. Five days later it hadn't gotten better so I returned to the urologist who did tests and basically thought the issue was my kidney. I had a procedure to place double J stent to help the emptying of my kidneys. It was supposed to help the pain but I ended up back in the hospital where they told me they wanted to put in a nephrostomy tube and bag. They also told me they most likely wouldn't know the results of what was wrong with me until after the last day to withdraw from classes. That meant I had to withdraw and return home. I'm lucky enough to say that my friends were more than incredible. I couldn't have dreamed to have been more supported by both them and my family. I returned home to Los Angeles and went back to my doctor who performed my procedure when i was seven. He told me that the pain was from the stent and prior to that had been from the infection. I corrected him and told him that I had been infection free for 10 days prior to having the stent put in. He basically told me to stop overreacting and that I should tough out the pain and that I would have to get the stent taken out anyway. I knew in the last comment he was correct so I went ahead with the stent removal and to no surprise to me the pain remained. I went to his associate five days after the removal as he was out of town and his associate basically wrote in my file that it was psychological. I'm not a complainer at all. I have had irritable bowel syndrome for eight years now so I live my life in pain already. On top of that, I've had back and neck issues my whole life. I have an extremely high tolerance to it and I hate complaining so when I do complain those who know me know that it's pretty serious. I went to a different doctor who believed I had pain and put in the nephrostomy tube and bag which only made the pain worse. They decided it could be a pain disorder. I went to an internist a week ago who tested me for a bunch more things. Although I have chronic kidney disease and my kidneys are only functioning at 85% total, that's not a source of pain. It just means I have to take care of them. The pain, she said, after speaking at length to my psychiatrist is coming from Somatization disorder. I'm a strong person and always have been but I'm scared. The thing I'm most scared about is that after doing lots and lots of research on the topic, I see a few things as ways to help: antidepressants and therapy. The thing is, I'm on antidepressants for my irritable bowel syndrome and I am also in therapy because of IBS. I'm nervous that they're not going to know what to do to help me. I am an always positive person no matter what but I'm definitely having a hard time. I have an appointment with a pain clinic on Wednesday and am calling another pain specialist tomorrow to see who I like better but does anyone have any suggestions or even just helping words? At this point I'm on morphine sulfate and have been for a week. before that I was on Norco for two weeks and before that Oxycodone for four weeks. I really want to get off of the narcotics because the last thing I want is to be addicted to them but I'm not sure how with still controlling the pain. Any suggestions or words of encouragement would help immensely. I know there aren't a lot of people out there with Somatization disorder but this is the right place to look for people with it thanks guys

Hi I think you should look into using mindfulness as a source of pain management. There are courses called mindfulness based stress reduction which originally were designed for people with chronic pain as well as other sources of stress.

Jon Kabat Zinn is the guy who designed this program. He has books, videos on youtube and so on and so forth. He is a doctor of a sort i always forget. And was a zen buddhist.

The thing to understand is that this therapy comes from the buddhist practice of meditation but MBSR takes all the religion out of the practice. If i were you i would look into both models of learning though if you follow the buddhist route, there's no need to get sucked into religious aspects that don't suit you. There is now secular buddhism and they (I am one) take most of their teaching and methods from the Theravada tradition. There is a great deal in the buddhist sector of teaching and practicing that can help you but you will get the best quick training from doing a MBSR course. psychologists do it and various others do it. If you are in america you are lucky as there are many opportunities to get the training. And there are retreats.

You can also go and do a 10 day training retreat in a vipassana technique which is used in the MBSR training. It is a good quality course and you only pay by donation whatever you feel like. But its very rigorous. Ask me questions if you want to know more about this.

The thing to remember is that to get the most benefit from such a training is that it has to become daily practice and that is the hard part.

If you want any more info. ask.