No other symptom can indicate as many different diseases as abdominal pain. Whether biliousness, stress, gastrointestinal infection, heart attack or kidney or spinal problems – abdominal pain is extremely diverse and requires careful clarification. Everyone has had abdominal pain and knows from personal experience that even abdominal cramps can feel different each time. To find out the cause of abdominal pain, you need to know how abdominal pain develops and search for the exact location and type of pain.
How does abdominal pain develop?
Abdominal pain occurs when pain-conducting nerve pathways carry stimuli to the brain. Depending on the type of nerve pathways irritated, a distinction is made between somatic and visceral pain. Somatic pain occurs when nerves supplying the abdominal wall, the external peritoneum, or the area behind the abdominal viscera (the retroperitoneum) are irritated. This pain is more
- “bright.”
- Burning,
- Cutting,
- Uniformly intense and
- Localizable.
Somatic pain often occurs in acute appendicitis or gallbladder inflammation (the inflammation irritates the external peritoneum), renal colic or spinal problems.
Visceral pain
Visceral pain, compared to somatic pain, is.
- Dull,
- Drilling,
- Spasmodic,
- Rather diffuse,
- Not exactly assign to a particular place and
- Arises when nerves running in the organ skin, the inner part of the peritoneum, are irritated.
Visceral pain is common in gastrointestinal infections, in chronic inflammation of the gallbladder or pancreas, but also in food intolerances, for example, to gluten, lactose or fructose. The type of pain causes the affected person to behave in a very typical way: In the case of somatic pain, he or she will tend to want to lie down, tighten the legs slightly, i.e. adopt a protective posture, since any movement increases the pain. Often the abdominal wall is tense and every touch of the abdomen is painful.
In visceral pain, the behavior is reversed – rest increases the pain, walking around and massaging abdominal movements are pain relieving. Because the autonomic nervous system is activated in visceral pain, pain is accompanied by vegetative symptoms, i.e., symptoms that cannot be influenced, such as nausea, sweating, restlessness, or vomiting.
