16yo stomach pain

[Onceuponatime46]

Just looking for advice or perhaps similar experiences.

My teenage daughter has had stomach pain on and off for 18 months.
She has had scans for suspected appendicitis (negative), ovarian cysts (none), gall bladder/ liver etc (clear). She has acute episodes that can last a day or 3/4 days. She goes pale, lethargic, tearful and just curls up. Pain is always lower right hand side.

We have been referred to a gastroenterologist but the waiting list is long so I think I’ll try and find a private one.

Anyone had similar experiences? It’s effecting her sixth form attendance and experience and no doubt her mood and general well-being.

Thanks

I have IBS, and so that comes and goes, but it can be uncomfortable and debilitating at worst, during flare ups, many times without warning. I now (tragically) avoid onions and that has helped. I also have kefir every single morning which has also helped. Yoga did help me when I used to do it regularly too, but I’m pretty stable having just adapted my diet and introduced some good bacteria. With a flare up it can last anywhere from 1-3 days.

Obviously it’s impossible to know what’s going on with your daughter but it might be worth having a look at diet and lifestyle. Gluten could also be something you look at? Or allergies in general?

It comes and goes so not sure it would be something serious but of course she’s been seen by doctors and nothing has been found.

Another line of thought could be looking at stress and anxiety. There’s something younger people and children can get called an abdominal migraine if you’ve heard of it. Is she under a lot of stress at the moment? College? Uni? Job? Life?

Thank you for your reply. IBS has been spoken about, but the GP isn’t convinced because there’s no bloating or changes in toilet habits. We have tried some dietary changes (no gluten for a month etc) but nothing seems to have made a difference. Although might need to try again (fodmaps etc).

GCSEs were last year so tbh, I put it down to stress, worry etc for a good 12 months really. But it’s been going on such a long time now and on the whole, she doesn’t seem stressed or worried (although hard to tell with teenagers!)

Just anecdotally, my toilet habits don’t always particularly change with my IBS, and I hardly ever get bloating to accompany it. Trying a diet change could be a good thing to explore but be warned, she must be strict with it, or else it won’t be fully effective!

Obvious question, but ANY link with mensural cycle? Might not be obvious? When I was a little younger I had horrific abdominal pain on the right hand side and eventually we worked out that it always happened 9-10days into my cycle (even if my cycle was delayed or arrived early!). Personally went on the combined pill when we worked this out and it solved the problem (but it re-occurred during pregnancy some twenty years later even though it didn't reoccur when I came off the pill to get pregnant initially).

My 9 year old DD has very similar symptoms- constant horrible pain namely on the right side with bouts of extreme pain, I have been trying to get answers for over a year and finally after a scan have shown her lymphnoeds in her lower stomach are so enlarged they can't even see her appendix- her diagnosis is mesenteric adenities- with no cure and the hope she will grow out of it.

She is on the waiting list to see a specialist in the new year although I have been told that exploratory surgery is the only real answer.

It's absolutely horrible seeing your child in pain and not being able to fix it x

Thank you. The GP did mention something about this a few months ago (called it a German word about middle month I think?) but we haven’t spotted a pattern yet. Although it’s not written off completely as at 16 I don’t know if cycles are regular/consistent enough to see a pattern? The pill might be something worth trying.

"mittelschmerz" is the German term.

"functional abdominal pain" is a description that can be helpful in this situation, has some info leaflets on a few NHS pages.