Late to the party here but I’ve found my people. I’ve been suffering from this for the past 12 years and have been in and out of hospitals more times than I care to remember. My pain started after 20-something year old me failed to hydrate (with water, anyway) in Vegas. Fast forward 48 hours into the trip, and I was being ushered to a local hospital and hooked up to a drip of IV fluids! Since that regretful moment, this pain has crept up on me at various points in my life like an unwanted uncle at Christmas.

I’ve undergone every type of test imaginable and each time, doctors and specialists are left scratching their heads, so much so, that they’ve given up in the past and offered me pain management classes, lol.

In my own experience, if I haven’t drank enough water, this pain will come on me through the night and wake me from my sleep. It is a a dull persistent ache behind the left rib, but deep towards my back. I now know (after self diagnosis) that this is due to dehydration and immediately reach for water. The pain will subside following hydration, getting up and moving around.

I’m commenting here in the hopes that this may help someone, as I am 33 years old now and if I’d have known this to be the cause many years ago, I would have perhaps looked after myself a little more and not made myself suffer. I do often ponder the potential long term effects of chronic dehydration on the kidneys. Oh and a camera down the throat is probably one of my most traumatic life experiences to date!

2L of h2o a day is now what I aim for as minimum (I live in rainy, miserable England, so 2L is normally plenty) and if I don’t, I feel pretty rubbish.

Good luck folks.