Abdominal pain and indigestion

Call a doctor. Do not give laxative. If the abdominal pain lasts more than an hour, even if it is not strong, you need to call a doctor. This pain can have dozens of reasons. Some of them are serious, most are not. The doctor is trained to distinguish between them, and only he can prescribe the right treatment. People are often inclined to hastily conclude that the pain is caused by something eaten or appendicitis. Neither one is a common cause. Children are usually able to eat unfamiliar food or large quantities of the usual without any consequences for digestion.

It would be a mistake to give the child a laxative before the doctor examined it, because with some pains the laxative is dangerous. Before calling a doctor, measure the child's temperature to inform the doctor. Before the doctor comes, put the child in bed and do not feed him. If he wants to drink, give some water.

Common causes of abdominal pain. In the first weeks of a child's life, his stomach usually hurts from indigestion and gases.

There is a rare cause called by intestinal obstruction. Stomach is folded like a telescope and does not miss food. In this case, a child who seems completely healthy, suddenly begin to severe spasms. Spasms are separated by intervals of several minutes, and during these intervals the child does not seem sick. Often there are also repeated seizures of vomiting. A few hours later( at this time there may be a normal or loose stool), there is a stool containing mucus and blood - a chair called "currant jelly" or "plum juice".This condition is most often found between the age of four months and two years, although it can happen beyond this period. It is rare and requires urgent medical intervention, so it is mentioned here.

Rare, but serious and other types of obstruction of the viscera. The part of the bowel is bent or twisted and fits in the pocket of the stomach - most often with inguinal hernia. Usually it is accompanied by severe spasms and vomiting.

After a year, the most common cause of abdominal pain is the usual cold, or angina, or flu, especially at a temperature. It's just a sign that the infection affected along with other organs and the interior. Similarly, almost any disease can cause vomiting and constipation, especially at the beginning. A small child can complain that his tummy is hurting, whereas in fact he is sick. Soon after such a complaint, he will vomit.

There are many different diseases of the stomach and internals, which cause abdominal pain, often accompanied by vomiting or diarrhea, and sometimes both. Sometimes it is called "intestinal or gastric flu," referring to a contagious disease caused by an unknown bacterium. Such diseases often seize several family members, one after another. Some epidemics of "gastric flu" are actually diphtheria or paratyphoid. In such cases, there may be a temperature, and maybe not.

Food poisoning is caused by eaten food, which is permeated with poisonous bacteria. The food may seem unusual to the taste, but not necessarily. Food poisoning rarely causes carefully and recently cooked food, because cooking kills bacteria. Most often the cause of poisoning are cakes with cream and stuffing from game. In them, bacteria multiply rapidly if they do not lie in a refrigerator for several hours. Another reason is improperly preserved food.

Symptoms of food poisoning are usually vomiting, diarrhea and abdominal pain. Sometimes chills or fever. Everyone who ate spoiled food should experience the same symptoms to one degree or another at the same time - unlike the "gastric flu" that is spreading within the family for several days.

In children with , a bad appetite for often starts to hurt the stomach when they sit down at the table or eat a little. Parents tend to think that the child has invented pain in order to have an excuse not to eat. I think the reason is rather that his poor stomach is so tense with anxiety over the time of eating that the pain in him is real. A remedy in this case: parents should try to make the child like food.

Children who have never had an appetite, but who have other troubles, also may complain of abdominal pain, especially during meals. Think about a child who is anxious about starting an academic year in the autumn or who, instead of having an appetite, begins to have a stomach ache before breakfast, or a child who feels guilty about something that has not yet been discovered. All types of emotions, from fear to the most pleasant, can affect the stomach and the interior. They can cause not only loss of appetite and pain, but also vomiting, and diarrhea, and constipation.

Some children with worms seem to have abdominal pains, but most of the worms do not experience pain.

There are other rare causes of abdominal pain: chronic indigestion with gases, intestinal allergies, inflammation of the lymph glands in the abdomen, rheumatism, kidney disorders, etc. As you can see, a child who has a stomach ache - strongly or weakly, chronically or at times, - needs a thorough medical examination.