Any GP’s? Child tummy aches

[NeedthatFridayfeeling]

Just wondering if any GP’s could give any insight, I’m going to get an appointment sorted on Tuesday when they open.
For months now my 8 year old gets random tummy aches, early evening mostly at weekends, it’s before dinner and happens no matter what the meal, even something she loves so i don’t think it’s to get out of eating, she’ll go to the toilet a lot during these episodes and will take herself to bed early.
She’s had this before when in Y1 at school, had stool and blood tests, all clear, the paediatrician thought anxiety and not drinking enough (true! We’re still working on that)
I thought anxiety around her school play but that was weeks ago and they are still happening. She’s mostly ok on weekday evenings.
Loves school, wants to be there, great teachers and friends though can a ‘frienemy’ situation with one girl.
Other thing is she’s waiting on a dyslexia assessment regarding her spelling and i know it bothers her despite us and her teachers reassuring her.
Just worried and so sad for her.

My initial thought was also stomach migraines because I was diagnosed with them when I was a similar age to your daughter.
I would have violent stomach aches and was also physically sick too.
I’ve been an anxious worrier all my life though.
Just a thought

She does get very anxious over her spelling issues and the 1 friend leaving her out. A few kids in her class seem to have anxiety issues poor things, it’s horrible to live with, when mines bad i get really bad stomach issues.

For reference my daughter weighs 32kg and consultant told us she should be having 1.5l of liquid per day including drinks, soup, milk in her cereal itd. As she's constipated I try to reminder she needs to finish two of her water bottles per day (it's 750ml bottle). But it takes some nagging!

Maybe just a combination of anxiety and constipation. Sounds like you are doing all the right things .

Oh that's interesting.
Back in the day (over forty years ago), I was prescribed what was then called (don’t know if it still is) Valium.
I grew out of it eventually but I’m still an anxious mess of worry!!!

Coming back for a little update, saw the doctor this morning and she thinks abdominal migraine, but is also checking for other things to rule out anything else, so she is doing a stool test and blood tests and referring to paediatrics.

I'm glad you were seen and that the doctor is being thorough.

This was me as a child and I only found out at 26 I had coeliac disease. I had tummy ache most weeks for my childhood and teenage years. It was never investigated (in the 90s apparently doctors didn’t think of this).

Hi OP did you eventually find out the cause? I’m currently going through this and it’s stressing me out to no end!

@Throwawayquestioning how old is your child? I’m happy to try help I’m not a GP though x

Hi, we’ve seen the paediatrician who did more blood tests and she had an abdominal scan, all normal, paediatrician says it’s ‘recurrent abdominal pain’ also called frequent abdominal pain or abdominal migraines. Says it’s very common in children her age, around 80% of the children he sees with these symptoms it’s this diagnosis.
He says keep up with painkillers when needed, rest, breathing exercises and has prescribed buscopan to help with cramping pain. If you can find it online this is the leaflet he gave us.

Thank you for the update

We had this - actually got very very bad and my daughter had lots of time off school. Consultant prescribed a daily anti histamine that actually has made a real difference. Further tests found that the cause was long Covid - which she has asymptomatically

My daughter had similar and like a previous poster it was actual a problem with constipation - not in the usual sense but very sluggish bowels that meant it wasn’t moving through her quick enough and was causing pain and gas/colic pain as it sat in her bowel so long. Has no symptoms and was pooing what we thought was normally but turns out she needed to be doing it a lot more! We had laxatives prescribed yo get it all moving and now we just make sure she has high fibre supplements and it rarely troubles her