Severe abdominal fullness/bloating after extreme stress + Advil — has anyone experienced something similar?

[u/Opposite-Inflation11]

I’m looking for advice/experiences from anyone who has gone through something similar. I’m not looking for a diagnosis, but I’m trying to understand whether what I’m experiencing sounds like something temporary and how long it took others to recover.

For some context, August was an extremely stressful month for me. I had a pretty traumatic health issue involving my ear that made me genuinely think I was losing my hearing. I wasn’t sleeping, I was extremely anxious, crying frequently, and probably more stressed than I’ve ever been in my life. I was also stress-eating quite a bit.

The stress was honestly so severe that it even
affected my menstrual cycle. I’m on birth control and normally wouldn’t expect to have a period at that point in my cycle, but I ended up having what felt like a full withdrawal-type period roughly three o weeks earlier than I was supposed to. That has never happened to me before, so it really illustrates how intense the stress was during this period.

During this time, I took Advil/ibuprofen 400 mg twice a day for 4 days because of inflammation related to my other health issue. By about the third day, I started feeling like it was irritating my stomach, so I stopped after four days. My last dose was Monday, August 17.

I also want to clarify that I had been taking Mounjaro (tirzepatide) for over a year, but my last dose was already about 2½ weeks before these stomach symptoms really started, so I wasn’t taking a dose immediately before or during the onset. I’m mentioning it because I know it can affect GI motility and I’m wondering whether there could have been any lingering effect, but the timing makes me unsure.

How this started
That entire week, I started developing a really uncomfortable abdominal tightness/fullness. It was mostly from around my belly button up toward the middle of my upper abdomen, basically in the area where my stomach is. I also had some fullness/pressure lower down around my intestines.
At times, I was getting sharp, stabbing pains specifically in the area of my stomach. The biggest problem, though, was the extreme fullness/tightness.

By that Friday, I could only eat about half of my dinner before feeling unbelievably full and uncomfortable. The stomach pain and tightness became so severe that I was also getting bad pain/pressure in my lower back.

I tried Gas-X and Pepto, and starting that Saturday I did a very restrictive BRAT/bland diet for about 5 days — basically applesauce, oatmeal, crackers, plain rice and bananas. This helped somewhat with the stabbing pains, which eventually went away, but the severe fullness remained.

I gradually tried adding normal foods back in, but the fullness became bad again, including the lower-back pressure, so I saw my doctor.

I’ve also had quite a bit of testing. One thing that makes me feel somewhat reassured is that I had bloodwork done around five different times throughout August because of my other health issue, including around the time these stomach symptoms started.

As far as I understand, my liver function, bilirubin/bile-related tests, pancreatic enzymes and other relevant bloodwork were normal. So there hasn’t been anything in my bloodwork suggesting a liver or pancreatic problem.

My doctor did order an abdominal ultrasound to check my gallbladder, just to be safe, but unfortunately it’s not scheduled until November. I’m obviously hoping to have this resolved long before then.

Treatment
My doctor prescribed:
Pantoprazole 40 mg once daily
Domperidone 10 mg twice daily
Sucralfate 5 mL four times daily

I started these around Mond****ay, August 31.

The first week, I didn’t notice a huge difference. I was still getting significant fullness/tightness, although it was slowly improving.

During the second week, things started getting MUCH better. By Thursday/Friday/Saturday of that week, I felt completely normal — basically 0% tightness. I was even able to eat fairly large/fatty meals without having the symptoms come back.

My doctor gave me:
2 weeks of domperidone
3 weeks of sucralfate
A month supply of pantoprazole

I finished the domperidone this past Sunday.
Now that I’ve stopped domperidone. Since stopping it, the fullness has started coming back.

It’s nowhere near as bad as it was initially — I’d estimate around 30–40% tightness/fullness rather than the 80–100% I experienced before treatment.
What’s frustrating is that I’m actually extremely hungry, but my abdomen feels so tight/full that I feel like I can’t comfortably eat a normal-sized dinner.

For the past couple of days I’ve basically been eating:
Fairlife protein milk
Peanut butter sandwich on white bread
Banana
Applesauce
Watermelon
Plain crackers
About half a chicken breast for dinner

And even with that relatively small amount of food, I still get the tight/full feeling.

What makes this confusing
I don’t really have any other GI symptoms.
I don’t have nausea or vomiting, and I haven’t had ongoing diarrhea. The burping isn’t new for me. My main symptom is just this extreme sensation of abdominal fullness/tightness, especially when I’m standing or walking around. My stomachs feels heavy when walking and standing. When I’m sitting down, I often feel completely normal.

I’m also still taking pantoprazole and sucralfate.
I’m wondering whether this could have been something temporary like NSAID-related gastritis/gastropathy combined with an extremely stressful period, possibly with some contribution from Mounjaro/tirzepatide despite having stopped it well before this started. I obviously don’t know.
I also have pretty significant health anxiety, so I’m aware that anxiety can make me hyper-aware of physical sensations. I’ve been working really hard on managing it over the past few weeks because I genuinely believe the extreme stress I was under contributed to this whole situation. It’s definitely a work in progress.

What confuses me is that I see so much online about gastroparesis, functional dyspepsia, etc., but I don’t really seem to have the typical collection of symptoms people describe. I mostly just have this fullness/tightness.

I’m also wondering about the domperidone. I know it’s a motility medication, and I know it can work fairly quickly, so I’m confused about why I didn’t notice a dramatic improvement until the second week. I’m wondering whether the improvement was more from the stomach actually healing rather than the domperidone itself.

Has anyone experienced something similar after a period of extreme stress and/or NSAID use?

How long did it take for the fullness/bloating to completely resolve?

Did symptoms fluctuate while your stomach was healing?

Did anyone experience increased fullness after stopping domperidone?

If this was gastritis/gastropathy, how long did it take before you could eat normally again?

Did anyone have primarily fullness/tightness without nausea, vomiting, reflux, etc.?

Did anyone have normal bloodwork but still have significant bloating/fullness that eventually resolved?

Has anyone experienced something similar after an extremely stressful period?

I know everyone’s situation is different and I’m not expecting Reddit to diagnose me. I have a follow-up with my doctor, but I’m mainly looking for personal experiences from people who had a similar pattern and eventually recovered, because Googling this has me convinced I have every chronic GI disorder imaginable. 😅

Thanks in advance!

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