Unusual Causes of Abdominal Pain

In everyday life, doctors perform hundreds of surgeries and have saved thousands of people. In the US, a good hospital is a place where not only hundreds of births take place, but where many diseases are cured.

Doctors know their job and they are pretty impressive while doing it, which is why people all around the world travel to the US for finding a better cure against illnesses. Yes, health care is expensive but it's only expensive because the US provides best of services and takes every human life very seriously.

But sometimes even doctors get surprised looking at the patient's conditions, even after all the tests have been done and there is still no result and no diagnosis of which illness has affected the patient. Have you ever thought that doctors too might be unsure about something? Unfortunate and scary as this sounds, it happens in some special cases.

Today, in this story of unusual causes of abdominal pain, we discuss rare causes which cause abdominal pain in individuals, and how doctors have a different way of dealing with such things.

Abdominal pain is one of the most common type of pain encountered by people. Patients face a difficult time in explaining to the doctor the various symptoms of abdominal pain and the symptoms that they describe may also be a sign of some underlying condition which can be life-threatening.

There have been cases when patients have undergone CT (Computed Tomography) and still found nothing related to the cause of disease or the pain. This doesn't mean that your underlying condition cannot be treated, it just means that you might require a different diagnosis.

Rare Causes

Picking up the symptoms, looking at the report, time and the pattern of the disease serves a big eye opener when you're dealing with something new. Here are some of the most rare causes of abdominal pain.

This stomach condition was thought to affect only children and not adults. However, in recent years, there have been cases in which adults have suffered from cyclical vomiting syndrome. This condition is believed to affect almost 2% of children in the United States, while the statistical figure of adults is still not known.

This stomach disorder is often misjudged and diagnosed as food poisoning, chronic gastroesophageal reflux, and viral gastroenteritis. Patients suffering from cyclical vomiting syndrome suffer from fatigue, nausea and pallor, and all of this mounts up to explosive vomiting.

In children, this vomiting episode lasts for 24 hours, however, in adults it can last even up to 72 hours. The main causes of this unusual abdominal pain are stress, respiratory infection, sleep deprivation, intake of certain foods, motion sickness, asthma or any kind of allergy.

Doctors find a lot of confusion diagnosing abdominal migraines because its symptoms are very similar to Cyclical Vomiting Syndrome. Abdominal migraines are also common in families who have suffered from a history of migraines. The only difference in abdominal migraines and cyclical vomiting is emesis (ejecting the contents of the stomach through the mouth).

In cyclical vomiting a person suffers from emesis, while it's rarely seen in abdominal migraines.

Some More Causes of Abdominal Pain

Other than the rare stomach disorders mentioned above, here are some more unusual causes of stomach pain. Coming across such cases is very rare but this doesn't mean that they don't exist. Here are some of the unusual causes.

Causes intensive pain in the stomach and doctors usually advise exploratory laparotomy. A very rare abdominal cause but it does exist and affects 5 out of every 100,000 Americans. Symptoms include depression, anxiety, constipation, hypotension, vomiting and diarrhea.

Very unbelievable, but true. A person who has suffered from sexual or physical abuse can suffer from abdominal pain as he/she starts maturing physically. Most patients are too shy to tell what really happened and the doctor treats them for something else.

In the US, almost 3000 cases of child abuse are registered every year, and many of them go unreported unless a stranger or a neighbor reports it to child services.

Endometriosis is a painful condition that affects almost 5 million women and girls in the United States. It occurs when the tissue endometrium gets shifts from its original position (in the uterus) and is found outside the uterus. The misplaced tissue can cause pain, infertility, fatigue and an upset stomach.

It's one of the most rare cases of abdominal pain which is characterized by the compression of the duodenum (a portion of the small intestine) in between the aorta and the superior mesenteric artery.

It's said that only 400 cases in the history of medical literature have ever been reported because of which many people call it just a rumor and nothing else. However, deep research is still going on, and doctors have had documented proof which shows that though very rare, Superior Mesenteric Artery Syndrome does exist

Before diagnosing such conditions the patient has to go through many tests to determine whether or not he/she is suffering from any unusual causes of abdominal pain.

99% of the time, the tests give out the correct results, but sometimes even the best of diagnostic machines fail to give the correct result, then he doctor uses his/her real knowledge to diagnose such complicated cases.