DEAR DR. GOTT: Like the 15-year-old described in the letter you published, my 14-year-old daughter suffered with chronic abdominal pain and nausea for nearly a year. We took her to three gastroenterologists, subjected her to every test known to man, and ended up having her gallbladder removed — an unnecessary surgery, as it turned out. The doctors speculated that she had one of the many gastro disorders you mentioned, but when none was identified and none of the dozen or so drugs they tried worked, they basically gave up on us.

Finally, one wonderful doctor referred us to a specialist at Children’s Hospital in New Orleans, La. He is a pioneer and specialist in pain-associated disability syndrome, or PADS. It is essentially a disability in which the brain creates a mountain out of a molehill, making a little pain or digestive distress into something much worse.
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