Severe abdominal pain in my 12 year old daughter

[Castlecellar]

Hi,

I have not used this site before but I am at the end of my tether and am really worried about my daughter, I don't know where to turn!

My daughter is 12 years old and has been having severe abdominal pains. She started her periods in January so knows that the pain is different to the normal period pain (as if that wasn't enough, poor girl!). She has had two episodes, one lasting for 10 days in March/April and a current one which has now lasted a week.

The pain seems to move around her abdominal area and up the back, she describes the pain in her back as a knife trying to stab its way out and the stabbing pain can also come and go in the abdominal area. As well as this, she has an ache in her stomach which gets a lot worse when she is moving. During this current episode she has a lot of pain in her upper back too and around the rib cage on the front, she can't bear any pressure on the ribs or tummy. She is also describing the pain going in her hips and down into her thighs. My daughter is a big eater, she loves her food but is off her food with these episodes. She does drink, only water (when normally it would have to have squash in it!). She is also weak and feels like her eyes are going to close. When she does move around she says she thinks she is going to pass out she is so dizzy.

The first episode started in March, she had to have 2 days off school (most of the time was during the Easter holidays) and this time she has had 3 days off school so far.

The first time she had it I took her to the docs and they treated her for a kidney infection as she had blood and protein in her urine and after 2 days of taking the tablets she was better. This time, there are no signs of blood but there was protein, but it is most definitely the same pain. The docs have said that it is likely to be an abdominal migraine, which I had never heard of.

I took her to A&E yesterday morning as the pain was that bad, they did blood tests and checked kidney, pancreas and gall bladder and everything came back negative.

After doing some research, it says that the these migraines can last for one hour to 3 days but hers are much longer. Has anyone experienced any of this? I am sorry for rambling but I thought best to tell everything.

Thank You!!

It sounds like abdominal migraines. My ds had several rounds of suspected appendicitis until he got diagnosed with migraines. He had all sorts of other odd symptoms and finally last year we got him diagnosed with Functional Mitochondrial Disease as the cause of all the various issues he'd had for his first 11 years (migraines, cyclical vomiting, chronic fatigue, stomach aches, speech and visual issues, etc) and got him on a treatment of high doses of L-Carnitine and CoQ10 and he is now completely "cured." He'll have to take the high dose supplements for the rest of his life, but since they have absolutely no adverse side effects...and he's been healthy for a whole year, we're not complaining. Here's a fantastic website with information about Functional Mitochondrial Disease. The gp's are only just starting to even know it exists as a disease as it's only a few years that they can even do genetic testing on your mitochondria (my ds was lucky enough to have his done by a colleague of my father's as the insurance would never have paid for it...in USA). Ds' specialist finds that he often is able to diagnose and treat children with "vague" symptoms that other doctors send from one specialist to the next (tummy aches, headaches, chronic fatigue and/or general malaise seem to be common symptoms). Best of luck. I know how awful it can be having a child who is clearly in pain and having the doctors all scratch their head. (Over the years, I had a lot of accusations that my ds' illnesses were exaggerated/fabricated by me and it was so wonderful to get a real diagnosis and name to his disease AND to get a cure for it)

Could abdominal migraines last 12 days? I have had a look online but it seems that most are a maximum of 3 days.
She is still in the same pain today but has felt even more nauseous.
I have decided to book a private gastro doctor , am hoping we can get an appointment tomorrow. If it is abdominal migraine then hopefully we can eliminate some more things with a endoscopy

Yes! I learned very early on that illness doesn't always follow the instructions. My ds had all sorts of symptoms that the doctors "had never seen before." He went blind for 3 days a few years ago from a migraine. His wonderful neurologist luckily had the sense to suggest that we try to treat it with migraine medicine before sending him to the hospital for a spinal tap (opthamologist's suggestion). I asked her if she had ever seen a migraine like this before and her response was no, but given ds' track record of weird symptoms, she was absolutely positive it was a migraine (and it turned out to be...his vision started coming back within hours of taking the medicines). He had abdominal migraines that lasted a week. And episodes of Cyclical Vomiting Syndrome (a migraine related condition) that lasted 2 weeks.
Please Google Dr. Boles and Cyclical Vomiting Syndrome (CVS) and you will find lots of papers on how he is successfully treating his patients. It may be that the high doses of L-carnitine and CoQ10 might just work on your dd and are so much better than the awful migraine drugs that ds was taking before.

By the way, it's my understanding that migraines start presenting in girls around puberty and they can be exacerbated by hormonal fluctuations. I believe that they are sometimes treated successfully by putting the girls on the pill (I know, not what you were planning for your 12 year old).

Castle I'm glad you are still so very much on her case. Tbh I find it odd that one doc definitely diagnosed appendix and the next rules it out again. Rollercoaster.
All the best for you and dd.

CinnamonAddict, I have had this happen multiple times. The way it was explained to me by the surgeon who did finally take ds' appendix (infected) out. He said that until the appendix is in his hands, he can't tell for sure if it's infected. In ds' case he had some classic symptoms and a few odd ones that were not usual (as ds does) but the surgeon felt that he wanted to operate without doing a scan as no matter what the scan said, he wouldn't feel comfortable that it was correct and he was "95%" sure that ds had appendicitis. This same surgeon had seen ds 2 years earlier when pediatrician had sent him to emergency as he was sure he had appendicitis and the surgeon had not even done a scan because he was confident that he did not have appendicitis. We now know that it was probably an abdominal migraine (ds had not yet been diagnosed with migraines at that point). The symptoms are very very similar.

hope you get some answers tomorrow op. I've heard about abdominal migraine but like you've already said it wouldn't last 12 days

Just to add to whats been said about appendicitis, my sister had it last year. She had bad pain for a few days in January, then it cane back in July, when she had her appendix removed and was told that was the pain she had in January was probably a previous flare up of the appendix, which supprised me as I didn't realise that happened!

HOpe you get some answers very soon, your poor dd

How is your DD today?

Hope your dd is ok.

Hope you got some answers

Hi, thank you all for your messages. We were admitted to hospital on Thursday afternoon with suspected appendicitis once again. Once again the surgeons came and said it wasn't but they were going to perform a laparoscopy the following day if there was no change. After explaining to her about the procedure they put her on nil by mouth from midnight. At 10am the following morning, after a stressfull night with a very nervous/ scared daughter, they decided to cancel the procedure! They didn't really give me any reasons.
On Sunday she started to feel a bit better and started eating a bit more so we were discharged. She is still in pain and not able to go to school but not too bad. We still don't have a diagnosis, but they have said they will be doing an endoscopy as an outpatient in about 4 weeks time.
As she is still unable to go back to school, we have decided to keep the private appointment with a Paediatrician Gastro specialist to see if they can come up with a diagnosis.
The saga continues........
I will keep you updated

Thanks for the update, I have been concerned. When is your private appointment?

Castlecellar have they tried giving her migraine medicine like Imitrex or Frova? If it is a migraine you should be seeing a neurologist rather than a gastroenterologist. It really sounds like migraines to me. My ds started with headache migraines and would get this glazed look in his eyes (if he wasn't 9, I would have sworn he was stoned) and one eye slightly more squinting than the other. I recognized that his abdominal migraine was just that because although he didn't have a headache and had a sharp stomach ache, he had that "stoned" squinting look in his eyes. Ds thought I was crazy because I was so sure it was a head migraine that I kept asking him if he had a headache and he kept telling me it was his tummy not his head...like I just couldn't seem to tell the difference. Tummy pain went straight away as soon as I gave him the Frova (Imitrex didn't work on ds). A dark room and audiobooks are really helpful and relaxing too. I bought ds an ipad and a subscription to Audible.com when his migraines were at their worst.

Hi Castlecellar, sorry that our dd's problem has not been sorted yet. For what it's worth, my dd got a high temperature, felt sick and was in a huge amount of pain. Out of hours GP checked for appendix issues, but said that sometimes appendix did not present as typical when testing, ie usual external checks would not suggest appendix, but she still felt it may be the cause. She sent her to a&e.

After hours in outpatients, she was admitted because of the pain, but still no diagnosis. Stayed with her overnight and in the morning she was screaming with the pain. They still had no idea what the issue was but decided to do an exploratory op.

They found a burst appendix, one of the worst they had seen, "gunk everywhere" (technical term).

My point, if there is one, is that all of the physical checks they did prior to operating, pressing on area etc. and none of them flagged her appendix other than the degree of pain, sickness and high temperature.

My dd had never presented with any indication of problems prior to that day.

I so hope that you get to the bottom of your dd's problem, don't be afraid to ring for an ambulance if her pain gets too bad. If that out of hours GP had been blinkered to 'non-typical presenting appendix', my dd might have been in even worse trouble.

Hello CastleCellar,
I realise this post is over 7 years ago, however my daughter is having the exact same symptoms for several weeks.
How is your daughter now? Did you get to the bottom of it?