In the last period, based on all statistics, colleagues' reports and our personal experience, the number and proportion of patients who consult a doctor with digestive complaints has increased significantly.
We must state here, and make it clear at the beginning of the article, that
there is a significant difference between acute abdominal complaints requiring urgent care and non-acute digestive problems that have existed for weeks or months.
Since severe abdominal pain lasting for a few hours or even a few days may indicate a so-called acute abdominal disease, its treatment is an urgent task, because the background of the cases may be a serious, life-threatening disease requiring a surgical, especially urological, gynecological, intensive therapy-internal medicine solution. Due to the special importance of these diseases, it is definitely appropriate to deal with these forms of the disease before discussing abdominal diseases and digestive complaints that cause non-acute symptoms.
In the medical sense, acute abdomen is the condition when the pain is so strong that muscular defense develops, the patient's abdomen or a part of the abdomen hardens, is not soft, and cannot be palpated. The pain is accompanied or may be accompanied by fever, chills, sweating, vomiting, protrusion of the abdomen, constipation, fear of death. The patient gives the impression of a serious patient, and a frightening situation develops even for a layman.
In such a case, you should immediately call an ambulance (phone number 112), and they will know what to do.
But what diseases can cause such a set of symptoms?
The difficulty, but also the beauty, of the medical profession and thinking is that similar symptoms can be caused by different diseases that, by definition, should be treated differently.
appendicitis typically occurring in the right lower abdomen gallbladder inflammation causing pain under the right rib cage inflammation of the colon diverticulum causing left lower abdominal complaints pancreatitis with symptoms in the center around the navel .
Intestinal obstruction is accompanied by very strong pain, abdominal bloating, vomiting and faecal blockage , which can also be caused by a number of medical conditions, from a blocked hernia to a colon tumor blocking the intestinal canal to a stricture caused by Crohn's disease. And on top of that, there can be many other reasons behind it, which exceed the scope of an informative article.
But very strong abdominal pain is associated with a kidney stone attack , ectopic pregnancy, ovarian cyst or testicular torsion . Perforation of the stomach, small intestine or large intestine due to various reasons (ulcer, tumor, inflammation, injury) causes life-threatening peritonitis . Diseases of the abdominal vessels are associated with such symptoms, but pulmonary embolism and lower wall myocardial infarction can also imitate abdominal pathology as symptoms radiating to the abdomen. in addition to acute kidney failure, adrenal insufficiency acid imbalance caused by overturned diabetes, severe calcium deficiency and a number of other rarer diseases can manifest as abdominal symptoms
This also shows that, in non-typical cases, diagnosis is a task that requires carefulness and requires a high level of professional preparation.
That is why it is important not to try home treatment in the case of an urgent abdominal complaint, not to take the advice of a layperson, or to call on the Internet for help. With all of this, we lose valuable time, and since in these cases we wait in vain for the person to get better, waiting can have serious consequences. Therefore, in case of symptoms indicating an acute abdominal disaster, an ambulance should be called.
Author: Dr. György Temesszentandrasi
Photo: Alicia Harper/Pixabay
