Can you help me figure out what happened last night?

[Nettierud]

Good morning people: I'm at work so I better keep this brief. Last night I had a bout of severe cramping and bloating that started around 8 o'clock and lasted until almost 1. It encompased my entire abdomen but would travel and worsen in waves of pain. I felt like I had gas but could not pass it and no position was comfortable. I would rate the pain at an 8 and almost woke my husband up to take me into the hospital a few times. I have been in remission since my last flare up about a month ago and no diarrhea this morning either although not Norman either. My history has been painless diarrhea so this took me by surprise....the only thing that I ate different yesterday was a small handful of dried apricots and I would have thought that if I had been glutened from something else that I would have reacted with diarrhea.

Please weigh in on what might have caused this if you have any ideas and also if you think I need to have this checked into further? Also if those of you who have had similar pain, have you found any remedies that have helped during the crisis? I'd do almost anything to not go through that again.

[tex]

Hi Nettie,

Sorry to hear you had a bad night. 3 possibilities come to mind:

1. An intestinal virus that may be going around

2. Some sort of bacteria that might have been on the apricots (IOW, food poisoning)

3. A histamine reaction (dried fruits are high in histamine, and among other things, excess histamine can trigger the overproduction of gastric acid in the stomach, which could lead to the GI issues you experienced)

Obviously, those are all just guesses, and may or may not have any merit.

I hope it was just a one-time event.

Tex

[Nettierud]

Thanks Tex, I hope it was isolated too. It really felt like trapped gas cramping but in a severe way like diverticulitis or something...dried fruits do cause me a lot of gas issues so I do suspect the apricots had something to do with it. I've eaten them before but only one or two and this was a large handful.

Anyway, it's always nice to come here and get support. You guys are the best!

[MBombardier]

I ate some dried cranberries and raisins the other night and had exactly the same reaction. I should know better. I remembered about the histamine after I ate them...