anyone have chronic constipation cause upper abdominal pain?

[Suehuang99]

have been suffering constant debilitating upper abdominal pain for years, worse in 3rd trimester. had lots of tests & nothing has been discovered apart from told on the CT scan that my intestine had 'a lot a lot a lot of stool' in it..

am i crazy to think that this much pain couldn't possibly be from just chronic constipation? any experience welcome thanks

Yes you can get upper abdo pain from a chronically distended bowel. If you look at a diagram of your colon you will be able to see why. Your enlarged uterus will make it worse. If you deal with the constipation you will be able to see if the pain gets better. Has your doctor or midwife advised you how to treat the constipation?

thanks for your reply - really helpful. is it possible to be chronically constipated despite going to the bathroom 'regularly' every 2-3 days? like does it build up over a number of years

Anyone else ?

I don't know about it building up over years, I doubt that but I'm not a doctor!

Don't you take laxatives or stool softeners to help with this if it's a problem? Macrogol is perfectly fine to take in pregnancy.

Your bowel can become distended over many years of chronic constipation. You would need an Xray or scan to determine this though. Essentially, even though you go every 2 or 3 days, you might just be evacuating a little bit of the backlog so to speak. If you google images of fecal impaction you can see how it might become a long term problem. But you really need proper medical investigation. Nobody can give a definitive answer over the internet. There could be something completely different going on and what I am suggesting could be totally wrong.