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By: Ikedi Ani-okoye

Dealing with abdominal pain

Abdominal pain is one of the most common symptoms, with causes ranging from menstruation to appendicitis or even pneumonia. In helping the casualty with abdominal pain, you need first to ascertain the likely cause. You need to find out when the pain started, where it is sited and how severe it is. Accompanyung symptoms, such as vomiting or vaginal bleeding, will help your assessment. Call a doctor if the pain is severe and prolonged, and if there is unexpected vaginal blood, or blood in the motions, vomit or urine.

Of all the areas in the body, apart from the chest, the painful abdomen probably causes the most worry. Abdominal pain is very common in all age groups, and even recurrent pain may be due to completely benign and treatable causes.
In attending a person with abdominal pain, it is important to be able to make a distinction between a minor episode that will pass without any problems and a serious, possibly life-threatening, condition such as an ectopic pregnancy.

Assessing abdominal pain

Before you start to consider what might causing the abdominal pain, you should bear in mind the following considerations:

Remember that the pain may not just be over a specific organ as it can be "referred" to other areas. This is especially true in appendicitis. |lower abdominal pain|
Any woman of childbearing age with abdominal pain might be pregnant.
Very ill or old people do not necessarily have a high temperature with serious causes of abdominal pain.

People taking regular anti-inflammatory medication for arthritis or muscular pain can suffer perforation of their stomach with no pain at all. The first sign may be shock as ihev start bleeding internally.

Causes of abdominal pain

It is not only the site of the pain that gives clues to its origins. Hollow organs such as the gut and renal tract tend to cause pain that comes and goes rather like labour pains, and this is often called- "colicky" pain. Pain due to peritonitis, where the membrane that lines the abdominal cavity becomes inflamed, is a constant, uninterrupted ache. Pains that occur around the time that the bowels open are usuaUy due to a bowel-related problem.

There may be other clues to the origin of the pain, such as symptoms relating to the kidneys (including a burning when passing urine and passing urine often or not at all).
The duration of the pain is important. Regular bouts of pain that settle after a few days may be due to Irritable bowel syndrome or diverticulitis. Severe pain of sudden onset is more likely to be a serious condition such as appendicitis.