Question: Hello, I am a thirty year old female and have been experiencing chronic lower left abdomen pain and bloating for nearly 3 years or so. I have seen a gastroentorologist, a gynocologist, had an ultrasound and have even been changing my diet every few months. I feel as though I have tried just about everything to narrow the possible cause of the persistent pain. It's not a debilitating pain so much as an annoyance and discomfort. The pain can get worse which then causes my entire lower stomach to bloat quite a bit. My bowel movements are normal. No bleeding, loose stools or irregularities with them. I eat healthy, exercise and am at a normal weight. I am also on a budget and uninsured, so I have not been able to be seen as frequently as I would like, to put a final end to my persistent discomfort. Thank you for your time and help!

Dr. Nsah, Thank you for the thorough reply. Would you recommend I seek a visit with a gastroenterologist again? The one visit I had was over 2 years ago, and the doctor did a quick physical exam with nothing too conclusive, other than essentially having me determine if my symptoms get bad enough to follow up with a colonoscopy or other invasive procedures. So I have been in a sense waiting things out, but feel at this point, that having any kind of symptoms regularly for years, necessitates some sort of test to determine what is going on. To be more specific, the pain seems as if it is shaped like a hard ball in my lower left abdominal/pelvic area. Almost as if it were cystic, which is why I thought perhaps a gynecologist would be able to determine the presence of something in my ovary or tubes. Does this sound like a pain that is prevalent in neuralgic type pains? If you were to locate the area, you would literally feel a small hard ball in what should otherwise be a smooth surface. I did read that some people are born with their appendix on the left side. Could it be possible that if that is the case, these symptoms are similar to needed my appendix removed? I'm sure it's possible that I somehow injured the area, but I can't think of a single moment that I distinctly remember injuring the area and having immediate and long term pain associated with it. It seems like a number of things may exacerbate my symptoms, such as shortly after sexual intercourse, and certain types of exercise or stretching. I have not had a food allergy test, but have been systematically eliminating and reintroducing foods into my diet, to determine whether or not that plays a role and it seems, if so, it is a minimal difference. I was also even curious to think that my intake of Accutane for 3-4 months had anything to do with it. It seems as if, when I took it back in 2009, a few months after, I started initially getting these symptoms, but it was interesting to have the symptoms show after and not during the medication. One of the requirements to be on this medication is to have a monthly blood draw (which also looked at kidney function) and all of my tests showed normal results. The other main requirement was to be on birth control. My acne cleared up for a while and returned. I started a second bout of the medication from Nov 2012 - May of this year, also following up on kidney function. The tests were still normal. At the same time I noticed the pain and bloating initially in 2009, I had a lot of vaginal bleeding going on in between my cycle, as well. The only thing that worked to stop that was eventually finding the right birth control. There were times when I would still have the random in between cycle bleeding. I have not been on birth control for a few months now and have not had the bleeding issue, but the pain and bloating persist. So you can see how finding the distinction between what specific XXXXXXX disruption is going on is seemingly 50% gynoecologically related and 50% gastro related. Thank you again for your help and understanding.