Now, I did have an actual perforation of the stomach, well, a stomach ulcer I should say. It was not caused by ED type behaviors. I'd been a normal weight for some years (on the low side, but still normal). Most people apparently have symptoms when they have ulcers, but all I had was very minor heartburn I put down to stress (my mother-in-law passed away in late December 2017). On Valentine's Day, the ulcer perforated. Believe me, I knew quite quickly something was wrong. At first, I thought it was a cramp, the pain seemed to ease (this is common for the type of ulcer a had, a duodenal ulcer), and 30 minutes later I was clammy, hurting and wondering how in the world I was going to drive my daughter to school. I got nauseous, started gagging, lay down and had my daughter call my husband at work (he is a teacher, so he has to keep his cell phone off, he does have a desk phone, but in his district, all the teachers have extension numbers based off the same school phone number, which is a pain). I was thinking I had appendicitis as the pain seemed to come from my right side. My husband got home 15 minutes later (luckily, his school is close). By the time he tried to get me into the car, I passed out from the pain & the low blood pressure associated with the event. He called an ambulance. I think everyone expected me to have appendicitis or gall bladder troubles and the trauma surgeon seemed quite surprised when he told me the CT scan showed a perforated ulcer, probably duodenal, but he couldn't tell until he operated and there was a possibility he might have to cut out half my stomach. By then, I was in so much pain, I was like, do whatever you need to do. It was fortunately the best of the worst case sceranios, and the hole in the small intestine was repaired wit a patch of fat from somewhere in there.

But it was an agonizing operation. I'm talking a 4 inch scar from the belly button up, staples, catether, IV, tube up my nose. They didn't let me have anything to eat or drink except ice chips for 5 days and sips of water only to swallow medicine. I was in so much pain, I was hallucinating half the time. I didn't even realize how boring it was to be in the hospital until my 6th day there (was discharged around 6 PM that day). Recovery was slow and brutal.

The gastroenterologist the hospital consulted and who did the upper endoscopy roughly 6 weeks later told me I was extremely lucky. A lot of these perforated ulcers just bring on symptoms so fast, many people go into shock or develop sepsis or code & die. And the ulcer I had was caused by a combination of a bacterial infection (Hylobacter pylori and NSAID use. I was taking an NSAID for sinus headaches, but I also was prescribed a medication for fibromyalgia I had been taking for years that I didn't realize was an NSAID (well, maybe I briefly noted it the first time I took it and read the medication info sheet and then promptly forgot it). I had to take very strong broad band antibioltics and a proton pump inhibitor for awhile though I am now off all the ulcer-related meds.

So...my advice is, don't ignore possible ulcers, and if you think you have an issue, see a gastroenterologist. But if you perforate your stomach anywhere, you will know it almost instantly (in fact, it is so painful & memorable that most people can remember the exact moment the perforation happened). If you were perforating your stomach that much all the time, you'd be dead.