Associated symptoms
Depending on the cause of the pain, the accompanying symptoms are also always different. For example, an enlargement of the spleen due to an infection or inflammation may be accompanied by the typical symptoms of an infection, such as fever, nausea, strong vomiting, abdominal cramps, diarrhea as well as headache and aching limbs. In the case of so-called hemorrhagic shock, the symptoms look more serious.This is a sudden onset of shock symptoms in previously experienced trauma and a symptom-free interval of several days and weeks.
Metabolic disorders, including hypersplenism, can also be associated with thrombopenia and anemia and can be detected in the blood count. Splenic pain can also indicate an advanced spleen tumor. Further symptoms of a tumor are the so-called B-symptoms with fever, weight loss and night sweats.
Nausea is also a symptom that is not initially associated with the spleen. More often it occurs in the context of gastrointestinal infections or bad food. However, other diseases in the abdominal cavity can also lead to nausea, possibly with vomiting.
In many cases, either the blood circulation in the stomach or the pressure from other organs on the stomach play a part in the development of nausea. For example, an enlarged spleen can cause the blood in the splenic artery to back up, thus overloading the stomach vessels, which can cause stomach problems such as nausea and vomiting. In addition, an enlarged spleen can irritate the stomach due to its immediate proximity to this organ, which can lead to nausea.
Another mechanism is due to the nerve structures in the abdominal cavity. Not every organ has its own nerve fibers that can transmit the information of the pain to the brain. Instead, pain is perceived very unspecifically in a larger abdominal region.
For example, pain in the spleen can be mistakenly interpreted by the brain as stomach pain and thus lead to further symptoms such as nausea. The spleen plays an important role in the common cold as a lymphatic organ. In this organ a selection process for immune cells takes place, so that strong immune cells enter the body and weak or “wrongly programmed” cells are sorted out and destroyed.
In the case of a cold, the immune system is challenged, many immune cells must be produced and selected as quickly as possible so that an adequate fight against the pathogens can take place. This can overstrain both the lymph nodes and the spleen, causing swelling of the lymph nodes and spleen and thus pain in the affected areas. Since the spleen is a lymphatic organ, swelling of the lymph nodes and swelling of the spleen often go hand in hand.
As a rule, there is no spleen swelling that causes pain that is not accompanied by swelling of the lymph nodes. The typical example is Pfeiffer’s glandular fever, which presents with a pronounced swelling of the cervical lymph nodes and is often accompanied by splenomegaly (enlargement of the spleen). Pain in the spleen with swelling of the lymph nodes usually indicates an infection with a pronounced reaction of the immune system.
