If you are experiencing abdominal pain…
If you’re experiencing abdominal pain, there’s a good chance that you need to see a doctor in order to get yourself straightened out. Abdominal pain can be an indicator of any number of maladies, from the benign (overeating) to the malignant (stomach cancer). The key in determining what is causing your abdominal pain is to note its frequency, its location, its severity and any other specifics you can note about it.
Scientifically speaking, the abdomen is the area from your pelvic bone to the bottom of the ribs. This includes your stomach, bowels, liver, gall bladder and several other internal organs. Because of the vast array of vital organs located in your abdomen, it’s important to note the exact location of your abdominal pain.
Your kidneys and lungs aren’t in the abdomen, and for women, note that your ovaries are not actually considered part of the abdomen either. Yet all of these organs can cause pain that feels like it’s located in the abdomen and that type of abdominal pain is something to be aware of as well.
Some of the most common causes of abdominal pain are inflammatory diseases such as appendicitis, diverticulitis and colitis. Each of these diseases stretches or distends the affected organ. Other causes of abdominal pain, such as gallstones, cause a blockage, which then leads to painful symptoms. Still others, such as ischemic colitis, cause a lack of blood supply to a given organ, which then causes pain.
That said, inflammation, swelling and blood loss aren’t the only causes of abdominal pain. Irritable Bowel Syndrome, or IBS, is a chronic cause of abdominal pain for many people, yet it’s one without a clear cause or path of treatment. Some doctors have suggested that muscle spasms are actually the cause of irritable bowel syndrome, while others have that nerve hypersensitivity is to blame. No definitive proof has been found one way or the other, yet the medical field do believe that IBS is a real, substantial condition that affects millions of Americans yearly.
One of the ways to determine what is causing your abdominal pain is to figure out what relieves the pain. For something like IBS, or, obviously, constipation, you can find temporary relief through a bowel movement. If, on the other hand, you have an obstruction of the small intestine, vomiting can bring temporary relief. This is the kind of information that your doctor can use to ultimately diagnose the cause of your abdominal pain.
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Because of a large number of possible causes of lower abdominal pain, different types of tests are suggested by the doctor in order to detect the exact cause of pelvic pain. The diagnosis is done on the basis of pelvic examination, culture and sensitivity tests to detect infection, laparoscopy and imaging tests such as abdominal X-ray, CT scan, ultrasonography and MRI scan.
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