Belching, abdominal pain, diarrhea - can't find a cause

Over the last probably 6-7 years or more, I've had episodes where I've gotten very ill from anywhere up to 24 hours.

Symptoms including a foul smelling / tasting belch, diarrhea, and abdominal discomfort / pain. I thought for a while I had narrowed this down to an allergic reaction to soy protein concentrates and possibly even developing a peanut allergy as well. However, it has happened several times for which I can not make an account of this.

Typical progression of symptoms:
1) Very foul smelling / tasting belching which lasts throughout the entire episode.
2) Abdominal discomfort that seems to be focused to the left of the belly button area.
3) Diarrhea then follows, usually starting VERY dark, thick, floating stool as well.
4) As progresses, the diarrhea becomes more and more liquid, and becomes paler / yellow in color. During this process, usually break out in a cold sweat.
5) Gradually lessons as becomes almost totally liquid with only extremely small confetti sized light brown fragments in the bottom of the stool. Belching slowly begins to lose it's "fragrance".

Any suggestions / help would be greatly appreciated. I just had another episode today that lasted approximately 12 hours. Other information: I am obese (5'10" 285 lbs), am NOT diabetic (tested last year with extensive blood tests - low testosterone was the only abnormality), and an ultrasound showed no gall bladder stones.

I have recently suffered from the same symptoms. Everyone in the house has had a turn with it. We took our 4 year old to the doctor when she had it and the doctor told us it was a very aggressive stomach virus.

I don't know if that's what you have, but the symptoms you're describing are spot on.

stomach

Check out MSG poisoning

You have described my symtoms to a tee. I have been experiencing these bouts about once a month with no ryhmn or reason to what I eat or drink. I am diabetic and am worried about stomach nuropathy however the symtoms do go away for a while and then return. If it was nuropathy I would think I would have them all the time. Have you had any luck with a diagnosis?

Have you seen a GI doctor or had an endoscopy done? I had that done, and a biopsy was taken of a sample from the test, and I was diagnosed with Celiac disease. I am also type 1 diabetic, and more prone to get Celiac (it is an autoimmune disease like diabetes). I had symptoms for years, mostly things like abdominal pain, excessive gas (mostly burping) and nausea.

I have been experiencing the same pain and it has been really annoying

At first i put it down to not eating enough, though it didnt move regsrdless of how much i ate, then i put it down to stress because i am being booted out of my house by the agent plus i got fired yesterday and cant find another place unless i have a job

If you found out anything please share as it really is getting to me

Getting back to what "sumrtym" wrote -- I had this identical reaction about 30 years ago every time I went to my husband's favorite Mexican restaurant. There was absolutely no doubt that it was a reaction to the food, but no one else ever got sick so I assumed it was an allergic reaction or food intolerance. After about the 4th time I stopped going to the restaurant and in the 30 years since I've only had the condition twice. I was never able to determine what caused it.

I know I've experienced stomach pain / odd belching episodes since I was furst deployed to Iraq. No no, I don't have Gulf War Syndrome. I thought ulcers, but I've been to a pretty good GI and he's done both a sigmoidoscopy and a colonoscopy. Both have found no ulcers and pretty much have come back inconclusive. Finally, my GI sits me down and we talked a little bit about the correlation between sotmach problems and stress. Apparently (and this could be pure BS mind you but it seem to fit), aside from the central nervous system, the GI tract has that largest collection of nerves in the body. He tells me that what I could have is IBS mixed with entercolidis. What seems to always set me off (well, not every time but it's got the best numbers to back it up) is stress. When I get stress (conciously or not) my IBS begins to do its thing, while the entercolidis constricts one particular part of my intestine (it's always a very localized pain). So, I went on anti-anxiety meds, and they seem to help. I never have 7-9 pain anymore, just 3-5 (on the 1-10 scale).

sumrtym wrote:

Over the last probably 6-7 years.....

I'm not going to repeat what Sumrtym wrote as I've experienced exactly the same symptoms, but have not been able to find out to date what is the cause. My symptoms started to develop around 2004. I noticed the original post was some time back. I would love to know if Sumrtym has been successful in finding out what his/her problem is.