{"id":27943,"date":"2021-02-16T13:35:08","date_gmt":"2021-02-16T11:35:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/workcarewellness.co.za\/healthwise\/sore-tummy-abdominal-pain\/"},"modified":"2021-02-24T13:20:57","modified_gmt":"2021-02-24T11:20:57","slug":"sore-tummy-abdominal-pain","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/workcarewellness.co.za\/healthwise\/sore-tummy-abdominal-pain\/","title":{"rendered":"Sore Tummy? (Abdominal Pain)"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"Tummy-ache is perhaps one of the most common complaints we see in medical practice. Abdominal pain refers to pain, cramp, or discomfort, felt in the tummy-area \/ abdomen. The nature of abdominal pain varies greatly depending on the cause and the individual patient.<\/p>\n

There are very many causes for abdominal pain. The most common causes<\/p>\n

Mild or minor (non-dangerous) problems:<\/p>\n

    \n
  • Overeating<\/li>\n
  • Gas \u2013 often due to eating certain foods e.g. beans<\/li>\n
  • Irritable Bowel Syndrome (IBS)<\/li>\n
  • Gastroenteritis<\/li>\n
  • Indigestion\/heartburn<\/li>\n
  • Menstrual cramping\/period pain<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n

    More serious problems:<\/p>\n

      \n
    • Gallbladder disease<\/li>\n
    • Peptic ulcers (stomach ulcers)<\/li>\n
    • Endometriosis<\/li>\n
    • Kidney stones<\/li>\n
    • Hernias<\/li>\n
    • Ovarian cysts<\/li>\n
    • Pelvic Inflammatory Disease (PID)<\/li>\n
    • Fibroids<\/li>\n
    • Pancreatitis<\/li>\n
    • Food intolerance (e.g. lactose intolerance) or allergy<\/li>\n
    • Tumours\/cancers<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n

      Your doctor will ask you to describe the pain in detail, including how long you have had it, what triggers it, where you feel it, what relieves it, etc. She will examine you carefully and may perform vaginal and\/or rectal examinations as well as doing a simple urine \u201cdipstix\u201d test.<\/p>\n

      Further tests that may be requested include:<\/p>\n

        \n
      • Pregnancy test<\/li>\n
      • X-ray of the abdomen<\/li>\n
      • Ultrasound of the abdomen<\/li>\n
      • CT-scan of the abdomen<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n

        Hospital admission may be required if the pain is very severe and urgent treatment may be needed. In addition, it may be necessary to admit you to hospital in order to carry out various tests used to determine the cause of your pain. Features of abdominal pain that may indicate a more urgent problem include:<\/p>\n

          \n
        • Pain that forces you to lie very still<\/li>\n
        • Severe pain associated with a stiff, board-like abdomen<\/li>\n
        • Vomiting of blood, or blood in stools<\/li>\n
        • Pain associated with sudden abdominal swelling<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n
          \n

          Sudden onset of severe abdominal pain should never be ignored. A number of conditions require urgent treatment (sometimes including emergency surgery) and delay can lead to complications. If in doubt, always see your doctor about abdominal pain. However, most cases of abdominal pain are caused by relatively mild, or benign conditions.<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n<\/div><\/div><\/div><\/div><\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"","protected":false},"author":6,"featured_media":27944,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[50,37],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-27943","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-coping-with-life","category-feature-articles"],"publishpress_future_action":{"enabled":false,"date":"2026-07-25 19:08:35","action":"change-status","newStatus":"draft","terms":[],"taxonomy":"category","extraData":[]},"publishpress_future_workflow_manual_trigger":{"enabledWorkflows":[]},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/workcarewellness.co.za\/healthwise\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/27943","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/workcarewellness.co.za\/healthwise\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/workcarewellness.co.za\/healthwise\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/workcarewellness.co.za\/healthwise\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/6"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/workcarewellness.co.za\/healthwise\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=27943"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/workcarewellness.co.za\/healthwise\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/27943\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/workcarewellness.co.za\/healthwise\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/27944"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/workcarewellness.co.za\/healthwise\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=27943"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/workcarewellness.co.za\/healthwise\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=27943"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/workcarewellness.co.za\/healthwise\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=27943"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}