Abdominal
Pain in 3-12-Year-Old Children
our topic today is going to be
abdominal pain or stomachaches in children between the ages of 3 and
12. when kids have stomachaches the first thing that
parents often think of is appendicitis
particularly in this age group 4 to 12 the reason we pick this age group is that when girls get over 12 oftentimes there can be other things like pelvic inflammatory disease or cysts on the ovaries and that's usually rare under 12 so this is why no particular go pick this common area keeping in mind that these are the communist times often that kids go to the emergency room for care.
abdominal pain assuming that it's appendicitis when in fact it's probably more likely to be something else. I want to go by step by step in a somewhat systematic way because appendicitis
is you certainly don't want to miss but I want to start with the more common are things first and finally get to appendices as well first of all
signs
of abdominal pain that are serious
are number one constant pain, not the pain that waxes and wanes like cramping pain but constant pain that doesn't seem to let up and it persists pain that wakes at night which is oftentimes
that constant type of pain and you can't get back to sleep those are very concerning types of pain the other type of pain that can be very concerning is pain that makes children sweat in other
words they're in so much pain you can literally see beads of sweat dripping from their fore or ear-piercing screams again all of these things are rare now what are the most common causes of abdominal pain kids and this like I said before listen closely because this might prevent you an emergency room visit the by far.
The
most common cause of abdominal pain in
kids are constipation now parents
often say well my child poops every day so how can they be
constipated well that's not unusual because kids who poop may
not empty fully their intestine so there may be a little extra poop
that builds up over time and then they get crampy intermittent,
not constant pain from being
constipated so if your child is getting crampy abdominal pain
doesn't have a fever it doesn't have diarrhea you may want to think
about using something like Miralax or milk of magnesia before
thinking about appendix and we'll go into that in a minute
on appendicitis but that by far is the most
a common
cause of abdominal pain in
addition to stomach bugs and which
kids get intermittent cramping pain not constant pain again with
diarrhea so those are the most concerning things that you should call
the doctor about or not call at this point for example constant pain
is an indication of abdominal pain to call the doctor
and a pain that makes a child
have ear piercing screens or small screens or sweating are the kinds
of pains that you should call the doctor about again keeping in mind
this is between four and twelve years old of age and if you look at
that age group oftentimes somebody will have a fever with
abdominal
pain what's the mass majority
times ends up being a stomach bug
which is they'll have diarrhea in some vomiting now as a result of
that there is no medicine to treat the cramping there is no medicine
to treat diarrhea the
the child has to run their course
with their stomach bug we can't really fix that the body is going to
flush out the diarrhea viral bugs that it has to now abdominal
pain that might be different that warrants a call to us in addition
to the crampy abdominal pain is fever with that pain
For
example fever with back pain and
high fever with back pain may be a
kidney infection because that's where kids complain oftentimes as
their lower back is parallel to their abdominal area the second type
of pain that kids can have that can complain of upper abdominal pain
is a child
with fever and a cough that can be a sign
of pneumonia as well so those are several other options potential
options for abdominal pain that can be significant and you need
to call us as well now let's talk about an appendix now
appendicitis can be very tricky because it's in the right
lower side to the
abdomen oftentimes but if somebody has a long appendix the tip of it
could stretch over to the left lower side or be reversed back to the
upper abdomen so it can be kind of challenging to figure that out
sometimes the classic symptoms of appendicitis are oftentimes a
child over a day or two will start to lose their appetite have a
low-grade.
Temperature
stomachache around their
bellybutton that becomes
progressively constant and stays constant and migrates to the right
lower side and has some vomiting with it sometimes now that's not
always the case with
appendicitis but that's usually
what happens but remember if a child has constant pain abdominal pain
regardless of where it is in the abdomen if it's all the time and it
doesn't wax and wane over several hours that warrants a call to
the doctor's office.
I
hope this has made it a little bit
clearer to you for kids with
pain between four and twelve years of age that the most common thing
is constipation and stomach bugs - vomiting diarrhea with fever with
that and a much rarer thing so like kidney infections and
appendicitis.
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