Right side abdominal pain after eating
Many people complain of right-sided stomach pains after eating. Possible causes include food intolerances, gallstones, infections or pancreatitis. In recent years, the frequency of food intolerances such as lactose and fructose intolerance has increased significantly.
Affected people are not able to digest corresponding food components, e.g. due to an enzyme deficiency. As a result, they suffer from stomach ache, flatulence or diarrhoea. Viruses or bacteria can enter the human body via contaminated food and cause an infection of the gastrointestinal tract.
If abdominal pain and vomiting occur a few hours after eating, such an infection may be present. Children often suffer from abdominal pain because of their sensitive digestive system. Usually such complaints are harmless and disappear on their own after a short time.
However, caution is advised if your child complains of abdominal pain in the right lower abdomen. In this case it could be appendicitis (Latin for appendicitis)! In this disease, the worm-like appendicitis of the appendix (lat.
: caecum), which is the first part of the large intestine, is inflamed for various reasons. At the beginning, affected persons feel dull, not well localizable abdominal pain. Within 8-12 hours the pain “migrates” to the right lower abdomen.
Children then complain of burning, severe pain. Common accompanying symptoms are fever, vomiting, nausea, constipation or diarrhoea. However, infants and toddlers in particular can develop different symptoms!
Typically, the pain is strongest at the so-called “Mc-Burney point”: it is located halfway between the right front iliac spine and the navel. If the pain in the right lower abdomen suddenly subsides, it can be assumed that a so-called appendicitis (Latin: perforation) has taken place. The feared complication is now the sometimes life-threatening peritonitis, because germs from the inflamed appendix can enter the abdominal cavity.
To avoid such complications, surgical removal of the inflamed appendix should be attempted within a maximum of 48 hours. This so-called “appendectomy” is performed under general anesthesia and is one of the absolutely routine procedures in German hospitals. Already on the day of the operation your child can take unsweetened tea and, on medical advice, start eating carefully (e.g. rusk). As a rule, two to four days of inpatient treatment are sufficient.
Abdominal pain on the right and diarrhoea
One speaks of diarrhoea as soon as the stool frequency increases to more than three times a day, the stool weight is more than 200g a day or has a liquid consistency. In connection with abdominal pain on the right side, it can be an infection of the intestine with bacteria or viruses, for example. Very often diarrhoea and abdominal pain can also be caused by food intolerance.
In some cases, diseases of the liver also manifest themselves as right-sided abdominal pain and diarrhoea. It is also possible that it is appendicitis. Many people also suffer from the so-called irritable bowel syndrome and are particularly at risk for such complaints in stressful situations.
If the symptoms have persisted for a long time, this can be an indication of a chronic inflammatory bowel disease such as Crohn’s disease. In this autoimmune disease, for reasons as yet unknown, individual sections of the intestine become inflamed and cause cramp-like pain, especially in the right lower abdomen, and mucous diarrhoea. Abdominal pain on the right side of the navel has many causes.
In most cases the complaints are harmless and disappear on their own. However, prolonged or particularly strong pain can be an indication of more serious diseases of our body. First of all, appendicitis must be ruled out with certainty.
With this disease, affected persons initially describe a dull pain in the region of the navel (lat. : periumbilical). As the disease progresses, the pain finally shifts to the right lower abdomen.
If the abdominal pain is located to the right below the navel, organs outside the digestive tract should be considered under certain circumstances. For example, an inflammation of the renal pelvis (lat. : pyelonephritis) can cause circumscribed pain.
Characteristic for this clinical picture are also fever, problems with urination (lat. : dysuria), flank pain and great weakness. If you suffer from right-sided pain above the navel, liver and gallbladder may be the cause (e.g. hepatitis, fatty liver or gallstones).
