r/functionaldyspepsia

Hi all! I’m in my 6th year of FD. Up until last year, it was out of control. I weighed in the low 90’s (lbs), and I couldn’t go anywhere, do anything, or eat normally. My FD mainly takes the form of chronic nausea and vomiting.

I got prescribed Mirtazapine mid last year, and it’s honestly been life changing. I can actually live life. However, my weight keeps going up, to the point where I am becoming overweight. It hasn’t yet plateaued after 9ish months. I exercise 5 times a week (cardio and heavy lifting). I track my food and eat within a caloric maintenance for my height and desired weight (1800 calories), but it seems like my body is holding onto to every calorie it can get due to 1) mirtazapine increasing fat storage mechanisms and 2) having been in such an intense caloric deficit for so many years.

Has anyone had any experiences with alternative medicine to mirt? Something daily, rather than as-needed. Zofran doesn’t really do much for me, and it makes me super constipated.

My 17 year old daughter has been diagnosed with FD and Eosinophilic Enteritis officially for about 4 years now. Chronic constipation was added to her diagnosis last fall. However, she has had stomach pain and frequent vomiting for closer to 8 years. A burning pain is her main complaint and what stops her from doing everyday activities. It's always worse in the mornings. She is on a lot of medicine for it, and it's getting to the point where she doesn't know what is helping and what isn't.

In early February, she was put on 10mg of Amitriptylin, which really seemed to help the buring pain. Then, about 3 weeks ago, they upped that dose to 20mg. Last week, I noticed behavior changes, including severe depression, irritability, and insomnia. She was taken off Amitriptylin completely on Thursday and prescribed 10mg of Nortriptyline instead, which she's afraid to take. There are already improvements in her mental health since removing the 20mg of Amitriptylin. Below is a list of what she takes for her stomach pain. I was wondering if someone else has tried anything different that worked for them.

50 mg hydroxyzine , 3x a day

20 mg Lexapro 1x a day

10 mg Montlukast 1x a day

10 mg Loratadine (Claritin) 1x a day

10 mg Buspirone 1x a day

Ginger pill

40 mg Esomeprozle, 2x a day

300mg Gabapentin, 3x a day

72mcg Lizness 1x a day

We have also tried but have stopped:

Budesonide

Cromolyn 4x

Dicyclomine

Omeprazole

Promethazine

Sulcrafate

Peppermint pill

Buspirone Hydrochloride

It's like one big circle. Anxiety and depression doesn't help the FD but the FD doesn't help the anxiety and depression. She has missed so much school this semester and will not be able to continue with the National Honor Society because she will end this semester with her first ever F. She also feels hopeless like her pain will never get better. I keep encouraging her to continue with her everyday activities so she has a distraction but she refuses. She is active as she's on the marching bands color guard team.

Anyway, sorry for the length of this post. I was hoping for advice from anyone else going through something similar. Thank you so much!

Edited to add: I definitely should have included tests shes had in my post. She's had 2 Upper scopes, a gastric emptying study, she did a barium swallow, stool sample tests, and lab work.

The result of the 2nd scope is what made them diagnose her with eosinophilic enteritis because they took a biopsy of her intestines
All other tests have been normal.

I have been fighting functional dyspepsia for almost four years. I have abdominal pain and loss of appetite. Recently it has become hard to take a deep breath. Has anyone else had this as a symptom of FD? Thank you for taking the time to read this.

I took multiple doses of paracetamol (around six tablets daily for three days) in September 2025 due to a persistent fever. When the fever didn't improve, I took one tablet of ibuprofen per day for three days, after which the fever resolved.

Since then, my stomach has not been the same (for about seven months now). My main symptoms include:

Needing to eat every 3-4 hours or I feel faint and low on energy

Excessive gas buildup that feels trapped in the esophagus, causing EXTREME 10/10 suffocating sensation in my oesophagus to the point that I can't talk, walk or even listen to someone speaking. I often need to burp a million times to kind of get a relief.

I also get these episodes when I am casually speaking to someone or having a meal with someone. I think the air might be going into through my mouth and further worsens it.

I also think the gas might be pressing on my vagus nerve as during these episodes, I get extremely anxious and self concerned. My breathing even gets manual sometimes so im kinda suffocating.

Please help or suggest any way to manage or cure these symptoms as I have been suffering in silence for the past 8 months now. It has really affected the quality of my life to the point where I don't even go out or have meals or drinks with my collegaues or friends. If anyone has gone through this, please share your experiences and any solutions which helped you out. Really appreciate any advice I could get! Thank you.

Note I have been on PPIs lanzoprazole 15mg but it hasnt much at all. I am still getting this issues despite being on it for a month now.

Does anyone else struggle with stomach burning that kind of feels like hunger? Sometimes it’s 24/7, sometimes it’s there some part of the day, sometimes it’s better for weeks and suddenly comes back. It’s usually worst at night when I’m about to go to the bed.

-gastroscopy like 4-5 years ago and it was all clear

-MRI 2 years ago and all clear

-PPIs don’t help or if they do it’s just comes back worse when I stop them

-antacids don’t help

Only thing I find to help is Silicolgel and SSRI meds helped some years ago but I don’t want to use then anymore. I’m wondering if it’s some type of gastritis, low stomach acid or nervous system issue? My functional doctor said it could be SIBO because I also have bowel issues.

The best I can explain the feeling is that when you go without eating for too long of a time and then you eat but don’t feel full. You know you are physically full but some hunger like feeling/burning is still there.

I smoke medical marijuana for some of my symptoms and it helps better than anything else I have tried! I’m at point that I can’t eat or drink anything by mouth. I have a GJ tube that feeds in my small intestines. I don’t see many posts on the subject but I was curious if anyone else finds it helpful? Then at night I smoke a little more and then I’m calm and could care less about my symptoms! I have other chronic health conditions as well. But when I smoke my nausea is gone!

…did it help? Which symptoms did it improve and not seem to help and how long did it take to improve?

I’m going on three months of 2x daily PPI (Pantoprazole 40mg), endoscopy biopsy revealed “mild reactive gastritis” been on a bland diet and GI prescribed 10mg nort thinking it could be hypersensitivity. I’ve been sitting on it for about a month too anxious to take because of side effects, especially heart rate issues though I have no know heart issues. But I also have days where bloating seems more prevalent or chest discomfort is more noticeable and I feel like maybe I should try it to see if it gets me across the finish line and expands my diet.

Thanks!

hi. I’m 14 years old and I’ve had functional dyspepsia and gerd for more than a year, I’ve had an endoscopy and recently a gastric emptying scan and it showed 0 results except lactose intolerance. I’ve had PPIs but nothing helped, and I’ve gotten to a stage where I’ve given up, and I just eat anything and have stomach aches nausea and reflux all day every day. Since, no matter what I eat literally everything I get sick, I just eat whatever which is stupod I know but I gave up, and idk what to do and my mom just gets upset at me for eating so terribly when my digestion is wrecked and i really don’t know what to do anymore. I feel hopeless. and I keep eating through pain and binge eating to cope with the stress( then I get more sick, and it’s a loop + I’m malnourished. idk what to do to stop myself and eat normally and stop stress eating which started since like 2025, I’ve been doing it for months so no wonder my digestion sucks when I’m eating four more pieces of toast while almost throwing up and choking on pieces. and eating late at night while nearly barfing. idk what’s wrong with me. and I genuinely have given up now on eating normal foods and I just ignore the constant pain I feel and I truly feel hopeless. especially because the gastric emptying scan showed I had normal emptying, so idk what’s wrong with me, I think my excessive unhealthy eating is one of the main problems, (and my gastroenterologist mentioned it could be anxiety as well) but no one is helping me, idk what to do to get myself out of this hell , my gastro tried to get me a nutritionist and therapist but my mom screamed and got mad because she said therapy is anti Christian and nutritionists are useless. my gastro mentioned it could be visceral hypersensitivity. my parents said we could go to a different hospital for help, but I just feel so hopeless i feel like they won’t even help. When I try to tell my mom about my stress eating, she just gets mad at me and makes fun of me

I am currently on low dose ssri + tca and have been feeling ok.

My doc says since the low dose works for me , he won't increase it. Like I feel ok not great but yes my symptoms are gone , I just feel sensitive sometimes, like they may come back . Also high stress triggers them , have tested this.

Doc plans on keeping me on for 6-8 weeks then taper..

Wanted to know those of you who tried tca/ ssri how long did you take it? Did your symptoms disappear after this or did they come back??

Hey, an alle die Mirtazapin wegen ihrer Magenbeschwerden nehmen, wann ging es euch besser? Ich nehme es erst seit ungefähr 2 Wochen und ich merke nicht viel besserung. Mein Hauptsymptom ist unter anderem starke Übelkeit mit Brechreiz und heute ist es wieder besonders schlimm trotz Mirtazapin. Sind diese auf und abs am Anfang noch normal? Wie war es bei euch? Wann wurde die Übelkeit erträglicher?

Bin über jede Antwort dankbar 🥹

I was diagnosed with gastritis based on my symptoms but finally got an endoscopy and it was normal and negative for Hpylori. Blood work up was also normal as was chest and throat xray. What other tests should I push for as these were the only ones that have been done and what tests did you get before being diagnosed?

Has anyone's gastritis here been caused by stress / anxiety? I'm not entirely sure what caused mine but I have suspected that it stemmed perhaps from chronic stress and a nervous stomach, l've had lots of tests including endoscopy and MRI / CT scans the only thing they've ever picked up was some mild gastritis on my endoscopy a few years ago, my main symptoms are upper left abdominal pain a dull ache sensation, burping even on empty stomach and constipation / loose stools, blood tests are all good and PPI medication has no effect to be honest and h pylori testing has always remained negative, I am naturally a stress head / overthinker with a nervous stomach but the symptoms just make things 100x worse, l've also had globus sensation for the last 3 years as well no amount of acid medication changes this.

My daughter has been 6 weeks in Ami-10mg - we tried 20 mg but it made her get worse pains for 2 days so I took it back down to 10-
The burn is being helped by the 40 mg Prilosec
The stabbing and cramping is helped as needed by Bentyl
And zofran is supposed to help the nausea but it doesn’t- the only thing that brings it down from level 10 is Reglan . Which I don’t want her to take often.
So OBVIOUSLY the Ami isn’t working bc of how much other stuff she still needs to take/
She also has ibs d +c
Always pains n nausea after eating
And now she’s supposed to start lexapro or Zoloft for the anxiety she now has and I’m terrified of her being on another medication
The motility doc at Stanford said they couldn’t see us til October
She also has “pots” symptoms that started when the stomach pains started. I’ve been trying for 3 months to get her checked for MALS n MCAS n SMAS and AAG
Stool study shows leaky gut, couple parasites , possibly SIBO not confirmed so we cut out inflammatory foods
I’m depressed as hell watching my 15 year old go through this - this is not living 😞

I’m sure like everyone here, have a very long story and ended up being diagnosed with FD. Fast forward to I’ve been on tube feeds now for 8 months. I have a GJ tube because my feeding has to skip my stomach. I am unable to digest food or liquids now. I have constant nausea/vomiting, nothing will digest. So I’m nourished and hydrated 22 hours a day. All it’s doing is keeping me nourished but none of my symptoms went away! I can’t tolerate the Nortriptyline it makes me suicidal! I tried it twice… Pain is my worst symptom and I have no symptom control for that (medical marijuana takes care of some of my symptoms). By the grace of God I have the option to vent…
Because I can drain my stomach and it helps with bloating and nausea.
PPI’s are a joke!!! Zofran barely touches my nausea. Soooo I was referred to an anesthesiologist/pain specialist who specializes in Ketamine infusions for the neuropathic pain we have from the FD. I was able to get into a one year wait list for a trial. There was a cancellation and I got in within a week! So I went through one week of low dose infusions. FD is a condition that ketamine can help with the pain! Because it’s nerve pain. It takes a couple times to start seeing a difference.
So here I am and now I’m losing my muscles in my entire digestive system. I am unable to swallow on a regular basis now. Which means basically because I haven’t eaten in so long I haven’t been using those muscles. I literally I have to swoosh and spit just to wet my mouth.
I was diagnosed with gastropuresis last Wednesday. That was my first diagnosis a year ago! I had a scope and since I had so much still in my stomach after I fasted for like 20 hours before they just diagnosed me! Then the gastric emptying study said otherwise. So after normal everything I was diagnosed with this awful condition!!!! My quality of life is terrible. I know I’m no different or worse than anyone else on here, but fuck! I also have a psychologist who specializes in the gut brain connection and stomach conditions. I do groups and individual and it actually has been extremely helpful! I don’t think I’d be here if it wasn’t for her! She had a hypnosis group for 8 weeks and I know hypnosis may sound sketchy lol, but if you do it on a regular basis it’s actually rewiring our gut/brain connection specifically for FD!!! Helps you learn how to handle your symptoms better because I was losing my shit! So thanks for reading if anyone did! Just needed to vent I guess! But has anyone else ended up with a feeding tube from this? Or hear the success from Ketamine infusion for pain?

I don't even know where I should start from. The first thing I remember is that I felt that my burps are getting stuck which was in May 2025. I went to a doctor who gave me some syrup whjch cured my issue. Moved to USA from India in June 2025 and started observing stomach discomfort. I had to pass bowels multiple times a day sometimes. Some day it was burning sensation. Some day it was heartburn. In between I had kidney stone pain for whjch doctor prescribed me ibuprofen which I took hardly for 3 days. After I while my stomach discomfort returned. I took tums for a few days without any improvement. I consulted a doctor online who started me on omeprazole 20 mg for a month whjch I took daily. I felt intermittently better. My discomfort used to increase whenever I ate some spicy Indian food. I had no pain whatsoever in my stomach. My stomach would feel irritated all the time. I had to pass multiple bowels some days and i would still feel incomplete. I went back to India in Sept 2025 and got an endoscopy and colonoscopy. Colonoscopy showed grade haemmorids and endoscopy showed moderate pangastritis. My doctor did a RUT test whjch turned pink after 15 hours. Doctor told me its hpylori and started me on antibiotics. I took it for 2 weeks and felt better during the treatment. Post 2 weeks, doctor asked me to started omeprazole and tab lesuride for 3 months. I felt better and better and went back to my old eating habits. I drank alcohol a few times in between. The Omeprazole course ended in Jan 2026 and post that my issues have come back again. Some days are better, some days I am very gassy, some days i get burning sensation in my throat and stomach as soon as i eat something, some days its irritation in throat. The days when my bowels do not Empty completely are the worst days. There is a lot of gas during those days. Stomach feels bloated and a bit painful. I feel my stomach gets a bit hard. It takes a few days and very bland rice and lentils to get better. I have no constipation or loose motions. But my stomach feels like I would get diarrhea but its mostly gas. I have consulted 2 GI's but they feel it's anxiety. I bought omeprazole 20mg from Walgreens and take it when my discomfort increases. I pushed a GI to order a Hpylori stool test but made a mistake to take it 5 days after I stopped the ppi. It came negative. I have entirely stopped ppi now and have pushed my GI to order again hpylori and sibo breath test. I will get it done next week.

I am frustrated because of all of this. I can hardly eat anything except for boiled rice and lentils. I think I can manage boiled eggs as well. Anything except this will cause heartburn and stomach discomfort instantly. Anxiety has taken over me and my mind keeps going towards stomach cancer or some other gastric cancer. This thing has consumed 9 months of my life and I am hardly getting better. Everyday its a new symptom. I feel irritation in my rectum as well. I never experienced the pain whjch I have read people talking about in gastritis. Its mostly discomfort for me. The other thing I experience is pinching feeling around my navel region.

Please help me.

Forgot to mention that I have not lost any weight, I have no nausea. My appetite is normal as before.

Hi everyone, let me explain the timeline & my symptoms here.

On 11/6, I had a really stressful day at work, and so I took an expired Zoloft (I didn’t realize it was expired) and that sent me in a tailspin of acute gastritis & I felt awful. I went to the doctor & they prescribed me Protonix, took that for 2 weeks, recovered, and that was it.

On 3/4, I ate 2 donuts, 2 cupcakes, and then went home and got a baconator meal with a coke. Finished the baconator meal, got to the coke, took 3 sips, and what do you know, I threw up, and then mostly felt better but then had a stomach swirl for a few weeks. Got prescribed Buspar from Brightside and that helped for a little bit and then the swirls came back.

3/23 came, I had a very stressful situation at work, went home, took 2 hydroxixine 25s & my nightly buspar and I woke up the next morning with the swirl way worse and shaking uncontrollably. I recovered a bit but the swirl never really went away.

4/6. I upped my dose of Buspar with my prescriber to 15mg in hopes it was an anxiety issue. Nope, I got way worse, swirl got way worse, I woke up 4/7 shaking uncontrollably again with the swirl.

4/9 I quit Buspar cold turkey. It began where I’d begin to feel better around 8 pm each night, then it went to 5, then it went to 3, and now I wake up with heavy morning swirls and then have no pain but I’m paranoid all day that I’m sick.

Yesterday I ate a whopper meal with a coke to “teach my vagus nerve a lesson). I felt no pain at all and I was fine.

My symptoms: I have zero appetite and essentially have to force myself to eat. I wake up with swirls and terrible anxiety which subsides once I get my day going and I’m fine typically until the next morning, albeit with zero appetite. My stomach growls a ton, I have zero desire to do anything, and when I poop it’s like loud farty poops that are typically half wet half solid.

I’ve felt this way since about 3/23 and I’m sick of being sick at this point. Looking at my symptoms, is it likely I have FD?

I am beginning 100 mg of magnesium glycenate before bed tonight so hope that helps in the morning.

Hello, a bit of background. I have been dealing with this off-and-on upper epigastric pain (right below ribs) for a year and a half and I'm at my wit's end with all of this. The pain feels like a pressure/ache, and I seem to burp more when it's going on (burping also tends to be a relief too). Being still and throwing a heating pad on seems to help as well. Eating out seems to not go well with it, but it's only if I do it multiple times within the same week.

I have had so many tests, it's not even funny. Upper GI: Everything looked structurally good. EGD: Everything looks fine and biopsies didn't show H. pylori or increase in Eosinophils. HIDA Scan: ejection fraction was 70%. CT with Contrast: didn't show anything except my mottled litter (I already know this because that is a side effect of having HLHS, my liver seems to be producing bile fine too). My most recent test was a stool test where I was high in fecal fats, high in Klebsiella oxytoca and Citrobacter freundii bacteria, and low in Akkermansia bacteria. This makes me think SIBO (especially with the burping I have throughout the day) and I will say I haven't had any motility tests either. I also have had lymph node swelling more in the last year and a half than I've had at any point in my life, which makes me think there might be an autoimmune component to all of this as well.

But emotionally, I'm just exhausted by this whole process. I recently saw a functional medicine doctor and didn't like him at all (he definitely pressured me to buy his $600 worth of supplements). I just have been searching for someone who has had a similar experience and symptoms to me and I've always struggled to find someone who comes super close. I just am tired of pushing through each day, for my pain to just hang on for months at a time, go away randomly for months at a time, then come back for months at a time. It's so frustrating and I'm currently trying a gluten-free/dairy-free diet. 2 and a half weeks in and I don't know if that's long enough to see any progress. I broke down crying in my car at work today because I am exhausted of putting a smile on my face for 80% of my days for the last year and a half. I feel like my ability to live normally has been taken from me to some extent, especially not knowing what the heck is actually happening to me.

The pain rarely gets higher than a 5 or 6/10, but it's constant. It's a constant presence that keeps me on edge and I just want some answers as to what's happening to my body. If anyone has experienced anything similar to what I'm describing, I would love to hear your story, how you learned what your condition was, and how you come. I know this is probably something deeper going on with my body, but I feel desperate for a short-term solution while I continue testing to figure this all out. I tried Iberogast back in the fall and I thought that helped, but my pain eventually came back and felt it wasn't being effective anymore.

I had a few problems in decemeber 2023, my symptoms disappeared within weeks and then got diagnosed with gastroparesis almost a year later, I’ve been fine for years,
Since feb all my symptoms have come back worse.
Nausea constantly
Bed bound
Headaches
No appetite and complete loss off all hunger signals
(POTS like symptoms that have been here since that December and never disappeared) but im not sure POTS could cause all of this.

I’ve started amitriptyline as my dr thinks gastroparesis was a misdiagnosis and he thinks it’s functional dypespia.
Been about 3 weeks on it and it has helped the nausea and I’ve noticed I am definitely eating more but i feel sooo much full than i did before and i feel off, I can’t really describe it but I feel sooo weird since starting it…
Sometimes I feel like I need to shake my whole body to get rid of the feeling (even though it doesn’t actually get rid of it)
I’m not sure if I should stop taking it… as it has helped a bit with the feeling sick and was also extremely constipated until 2 days ago where my bowel movements have gone back to normal. Which makes me think it is working.
It’s been 4 months without any type of hunger signals or rumbling from my stomach. I have no idea what to do
(I’m also only on 5mg of amitriptyline)

ive started therapy after a flare and my symptoms are generally all better now (im still taking acid blockers) but my question is what if i just suggest i take an anti-anxiety med that fits my anxiety because this when my symptoms get worse and not ask my gastroenterologist for amitryptiline or other specific symptom related antidepressant?

i mean arent those prescribed in low doses for the symptoms? can someone that has more experience with antidepressants explain to me more about them?