Lower abdominal pain

Pain in the lower abdomen belongs to the category of non-specific symptoms, which means it is impossible to identify a specific disease on this one sign alone. Problems are added by the fact that in women and men the symptoms may be similar, but the subsequent diagnosed diseases will differ.

To avoid a state where discomfort in the sides develops from ordinary discomfort into a reason for emergency hospitalization, it is better to contact a specialist when the first alarm bells occur.

With pulling pains, women should immediately contact a gynecologist. This will eliminate the risks of developing diseases of the genital area at an early stage, no matter what causes them.

Usually, diseases with localization in the pelvic organs indicate an inflammatory or infectious process. Moreover, the entire area will hurt, regardless of where the source of the lesion is: on the left or on the right.

The main causes of dangerous symptoms

Schematically, aching and any other pain can be categorized as organic or functional origin. In the first case, we are talking about the fact that cutting acute pain will be the result of an inflammatory process, neoplasms with localization in the small pelvis. Moreover, stabbing, or, as they are also characterized, penetrating sensations can be the result of tumors of both a benign and malignant nature.

Cramping pain may indicate an adhesive process that has arisen after surgery or inflammation.

Such pain, often radiating to the leg or echoing in the groin, must be immediately diagnosed and neutralized until the source of infection has spread to neighboring internal organs.

Among functional failures, problems of the menstrual cycle are noted. In the normal state, the symptoms affect only single “lumbago” in the lower back, but with functional disorders, the clinical picture is aggravated. If a patient is diagnosed with problems during ovulation, then this also indicates a functional disorder.

You should not postpone visiting a gynecologist, and possibly an endocrinologist until critical situations, when pain is present during intercourse.

Identification of typical features

To help yourself, it is better not to read the forum with advice from supposedly experienced users who advise self-medication. It is much more effective to determine the main characteristics of pain, which will help to more accurately diagnose the disease.

You will need to decide on:

• intensity, realizing how strong sensations disturb the patient during the day;
• the number of attacks, because frequent repetitions indicate a deterioration in the condition;
• localization, because often, along with a lesion of the abdomen, the lower back hurts, and sometimes even the chest;
• concomitant symptoms, which include frequent urination and diarrhea.

The next step is to focus on the source of the problem. With regular premenstrual pain, you should consult a gynecologist. But in some cases, after embryo transfer during IVF, abdominal discomfort is also possible.

Complaints in the early stages of pregnancy are considered separately.

Additionally, you will need to determine the type of pain, including the following characteristics:

• acute, when the cramps literally pierce the perineum;
• wavy, which is also called periodic;
• pulsating, which comes in impulses, penetrates through;
• permanent, capable of being localized in the intestine, in the genital area;
• dull, which develops suddenly or increases with walking.

All of these options can be found even in a child. Occasionally they say that the previous treatment did not give the desired result. Moreover, attacks are able to return even many years after the previous course of therapy. This is confirmed by numerous testimonials of the victims.

What are the different types of pain?

In most cases, if the victim is tormented by bouts of dull pain, as well as blood clots without reference to menstruation, this may signal a progressive inflammation of the reproductive organs, when not only the uterus is involved, but the appendages and ovaries. There are similar symptoms also after an ectopic pregnancy, abortion, curettage. In this state, conception threatens to worsen well-being. In this situation, to the question: what to do, there is only one answer – to seek advice from a gynecologist.

Sometimes blood and accompanying brown, light brown, white, yellowish, clear discharge or mucus indicate infection in the genital tract. Here, even a slight delay may in the near future be complicated by infertility.

When the pathology proceeds without discharge, but the pain radiates to the back, this is not a reason to postpone visiting a specialist. Especially if there is an elevated temperature. The rule applies even to pregnant women in the third trimester.

Urological problems affect urination. Symptoms include not only general weakness, but also difficulty urinating, burning sensation, and a feeling of incomplete emptying of the bladder.

Lesions of the gastrointestinal tract are no less dangerous, when pain in the lower abdomen occurs even in prepubertal children. Here it is important to immediately exclude household intoxication, with increasing bouts of nausea, you should immediately seek medical help.

The same algorithm of actions is repeated if the newborns have:

• vomiting;
• swelling;
• heaviness in the stomach;
• inability to go to the toilet in a big way.

Classical food poisoning also includes dizziness, but the main symptom is still nausea and loss of appetite.

But most of all, parents always worry about the appendix not inflamed. No one is immune from this, including men over 50, 60 years old. The clinical picture for patients of all ages with an attack of appendicitis is always identical: severe pain that does not stop traditional painkillers. When trying to “endure”, even loss of consciousness is possible, so any delay can lead to adverse consequences, up to rupture of the caecum and the development of peritonitis.

The characteristic symptoms of an inflamed appendix include variable intensity of pain that can be traced in the right side but can radiate to the back, groin, and abdominal wall.

Pain in the lower abdomen due to gynecological abnormalities

Doctors divide the pain syndrome not only by type, but also by “gender”. This means that there may be different reasons for the manifestation of discomfort in the left side or in the right side in women and men.

If we discard the standard complaints in the middle of the menstrual cycle, which are fixed even in teenage girls, there will still be many other pathologies. One of the most dangerous is an ectopic pregnancy. To explain in detail why such an unnatural condition occurs, the doctor will be able to already at the reception. And the patient will simply need to apply if there is a pulling and aching pain in the lower abdomen with a haunting irradiation to the lumbar region.

You need to contact a gynecologist even if the test showed a negative result, but the condition does not improve. And here it doesn’t matter at all: whether this is the second pregnancy or the first, because not a single woman is immune from such an atypical position of the embryo.

With untimely treatment, a rupture of the fallopian tube is possible, which will be signaled by really unbearable pains that will literally tear the stomach from the inside when moving, sneezing, standing, sitting, standing up, and generally with any change of position.

But even with a successful conception, when the embryo develops in the uterus, the pain in the lower abdomen can be in the first and early second trimester. Seizures at the initial pores are aggravated by the threat of miscarriage.

However, often such a short-term destabilization is associated with the tone of the uterus. Pain indicates that the muscles begin to stretch along with the growth of the fetus. Such a physiological state should not be stopped with painkillers in the absence of other abnormalities; such mild pain in the morning or afternoon does not require medical correction.

Usually, when registering for pregnancy, the doctor explains what the term “uterine tone” means, psychologically preparing the patient for the second trimester. Here, just like in the 1st trimester, the load on the ligamentous apparatus continues to increase.

This means that the softening of the ligaments, which is diagnosed at 7, 8, 10, 11 weeks, will continue even up to 40 weeks. In some cases, these phenomena are transient. This option indicates that during the 13th, 14th, 15th, 17th weeks, mild spasms radiating to the rectum will persist. And during 16, 18, 25, 28 weeks, even when pressed, nothing will bother. Everything happens purely individually, so there is no need to worry if at 34, 35 weeks muscle sprains were traced, and at 38 weeks they disappeared somewhere.

It is much more important to ensure that even mild manifestations in the later stages are not accompanied by abundant or scanty discharge, liquid yellowish color, similar to mucus. Often they are accompanied by soft clots, or a cloudy liquid. If these symptoms are found, it is necessary to go to the hospital, especially in situations after a caesarean section in the past.

Pronounced pressing pain, accompanied by spasms, indicates a serious pathology. The primary source of deterioration in well-being can be both relatively harmless false contractions (Brexton-Hicks syndrome) at week 32, and suddenly attacked pyelonephritis. Gynecology calls the first case relatively safe, as it occurs in clinical practice quite often even at 33 weeks. So a pregnant woman has something like training contractions, which refers to a physiologically normal phenomenon inherent in the female body in the process of bearing a fetus.

Complaints after embryo transfer on the 2nd day are considered separately. Patients experience discomfort and even spastic pain. This is due to the peculiarities of the procedure, with which the doctor is obliged to familiarize the couple in advance. Something similar happens after insemination.

And in the future, the development of the fetus will occur according to the standard scheme. In women after the IVF procedure, also up to 30, 40 weeks, the muscles of the uterus should stretch. But to summarize, the first trimester is still the most likely period for gynecological pain.

Pain in the lower abdomen during menstruation

Anxiety symptoms are occasionally observed even in girls who have not previously had sexual contact. If we discard the pains that are considered normal after the first act, there are still many problems even for virgins.

Often complaints of discomfort in the lower abdomen are noted after exercise, during physical exertion, in some cases as a result of stress. But still, in most cases, purely female symptoms are associated with ovulation.

Only now the doctor should explain how to treat ovulation syndrome, otherwise simple tingling phenomena without proper control threaten to develop into:

• endometriosis;
• cystitis;
• cyst or family of polyps;
• hyperplasia;
• hormonal failures;
• purulent lesions;
• adenomyosis;
• cholecystitis;
• pancreatitis.

Irregular preventive examinations can lead to the fact that the patient is diagnosed with advanced forms of gynecological cancer. Not less often, girdle pain signals a hernia, which is mistaken for chronic pain in the coccyx, in the kidneys, which appear after heavy loads.

And although it is commonly believed that the prolapse of the uterus or fibroids is the “privilege” of an elderly woman, gynecologists do not think so. Doctors remind that any burning, shooting pain, or a “lump” in the center of the abdomen indicates the onset of active ovulation. The state is maintained in any position: when you sit down, while coughing, lying down, and even just moving, regardless of whether everything happens in the evening or at dawn after emptying.

Traditionally, such attacks are short-term, ending in a day or two. Therefore, you will have to endure this unpleasant feeling under the navel, or ask your doctor to prescribe painkillers when you see your doctor. It is strictly forbidden to prescribe them to yourself on your own, as well as drugs for menopause, colitis, bladder diseases with “recoil” in the anus and itching.

On such days, mucous secretions leave the vagina. Moreover, the mucus should not have dark shades, and bleeding is considered a deviation from the norm. Only very slight bloody inclusions, rare smearing “glassy” masses, sipping pains are allowed. With the natural course of ovulation, you don’t even have to look for what to take for pain neutralization. Prolonged attacks like contractions, leucorrhea with a smell from the vagina, as if with thrush, concomitant chills are bad signs, upon the occurrence of which you need to urgently sign up for a consultation, and not treat them yourself.

Purely male sources of pain in the lower abdomen

Especially in men are the frequent urge to urinate. When the patient notes that he wants to go to the toilet much more often than usual, and this is not related to the consequences after the operation, diarrhea during poisoning, then it’s time to go to the urologist. With a high degree of probability, pain that radiates to the testicles, terrible pain when trying to urinate, prolonged night attacks, which later disturb even when sitting in the office, indicate the onset of inflammation of the prostate gland.

If in women the lion’s share of problems in terms of dysfunction of the reproductive system occurs after childbirth, during menopause, after medical abortion, then among men, difficulties usually occur when overcoming the age of forty. Today, urologists say that the average age of prostatitis is getting younger. Against this background, you should not try to find how to remove the acute period using candles, traditional medicine recipes. It is more effective to immediately sign up for an examination at the clinic so that incoming pain does not turn into incontinence.

Postponing therapy threatens with prostate adenoma, the impossibility of normal emptying of the bladder, sexual dysfunction, persistent syndrome, overflowing into a chronic form of prostatitis.

She tends to:

• aching pain, especially on exertion;
• pressing sensation over the pubis;
• intermittent urination instead of normal.

An exacerbation will make itself felt every time after hypothermia, overwork, and even with a cold, because the body loses strength, and immunity decreases after antibiotics. Some young people experience discomfort after orgasm, increasing pain at the end of sex, after drinking alcohol.

Only a doctor can help figure out how to get rid of tingling with subsequent transformation into severe pain when squatting and even loss of consciousness due to daily difficulties with going to the toilet. He will give an assessment of the condition during palpation, send him to take tests, and explain their results. When a positive test comes from the laboratory, there is blood in the urine, an increase or swelling of the gland, its pain on both sides, an individual course of treatment is prescribed.

Emergency assistance measures

In clinical practice, there are two options for helping victims: emergency and planned. When the patient is haunted by discomfort when bending over, after defecation, gases, itching in the anus, the consequences of surgical interventions such as removal of adhesions, he needs a comprehensive systematic treatment.

But there are a number of clinical cases when emergency assistance is required for severe pain, often accompanied by aching in the sacrum, pelvic bones, pubic bone, abnormal gas formation, loose stools. There is no need to look for what to drink, trying to get rid of the pain that radiates to the buttock, but immediately call an ambulance.

This must be done immediately if:

• tension in the abdomen for more than an hour;
• baking, burning pain, where cold sweat can be traced;
• jerking pain when inhaling;
• terrible muscle spasms, when it seems as if you are pushing involuntarily.

Seizures are especially dangerous, aggravated by sneezing.

Immediately after the arrival of the ambulance, you need to inform the doctor about concomitant chronic or past diseases.

Taken into account:

• progressive erosion, recent cauterization of erosion;
• constant flatulence;
• neuralgia;
• PMS;
• breech presentation with an interesting position of a woman;
• condition after a frozen pregnancy, conization, hysteroscopy;
• lumbar osteochondrosis;
• gastritis.

Belching after eating, heartburn, swelling, and other recurring conditions are taken into service. Only a complete clinical picture will allow the specialist to draw up an optimal plan for further treatment.

Separately, the state of health of the victim before the onset of the attack is taken into account. Perhaps, a couple of hours before, he complained that his stomach was growling, puffy, there was a frequent stool. All of the above, as well as any other deviations, must be voiced without fail.

Primary diagnosis includes measuring blood pressure and checking the heartbeat.

At the same time, you need to remember how to help the victim, knowing exactly what emergency measures are allowed to be used, how to stop shooting pains, stabilize a rapid pulse, high blood pressure.

Initially, the patient must be provided with a supine position and a state of rest, access to fresh air. It will not be superfluous to try to determine what causes discomfort. So, perhaps he became ill while running or after eating. You should not be shy about talking about an attack after unprotected intercourse, when the pain began to radiate to the thigh.

It is likely that a peak state occurred during arousal and after intimacy.

When trouble happened during sexual intercourse, then interrupting it will be the best solution. A heating pad or a bottle filled with ice water or ice is applied to the lower part, keeping in this position for no more than thirty minutes. Any hot compresses are strictly prohibited.

Taking painkillers is allowed only after consultation with the doctor. But here it must be borne in mind that some of them are incompatible with birth control pills and may have side effects. Also, injections, “powders from nerves”, enemas are strictly prohibited if constipation is traced without prior agreement with the doctor.

If there is difficulty breathing, then you need to remove all compressive clothing items such as a tie by unbuttoning the collar.

Diagnosis of chronic pain syndrome

Regular attacks that are not treated on time, but only stopped, turn into a chronic disease, which is much more difficult to treat. Often such an outcome includes the formation of seals that develop into benign, malignant neoplasms. At advanced stages, numb pain covers the hypochondrium, everything becomes numb in the area of ​​uXNUMXbuXNUMXbthe inguinal zone.

To save from starting an irreversible process, which can occur even just after a fall from a small height, carefully carried out diagnostics will allow. Women are sent for ultrasound, laparoscopy, magnetic resonance imaging, with menstrual irregularities, when a standard set of analyzes did not reveal significant deviations. In some pathologies that are diagnosed during laparoscopy, the necessary treatment can also be performed.

It happens that a physical reason for an incomprehensible soreness in the lower abdomen cannot be found. Then the experts decide to cut the nerve fibers that carry irritating impulses to the central nervous system.

With a cyclic syndrome, which is characteristic of painful menstruation, the premenstrual period, ovulation is well helped by a well-designed program of combined hormonal preparations. They are prescribed with full control by the attending doctor, taking the course, or on certain days of the cycle.

But the most important thing, and everyone should remember this, is that you can’t endure pain in your stomach! In the event of such phenomena, it is worth calling an ambulance or contacting the emergency department of the hospital. Remember that delay can lead to irreparable consequences.

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