<p>My roommate complains of her stomach hurting on a daily or almost-daily basis. Now I'm going to be paranoid every time...</p>
<p>smdur1970 - I'm glad everything worked out for your daughter. Appenicitis can be very scary. </p>
<p>I am curious - what is ulcerative colitis? The reason I am asking is that my niece (she's 21) had appendicitis a few years ago. For the past 6 months or so, she has been having terrible problems that the doctors have been unable to diagnose. She has been in the hospital a few times (surgery in September). Basically, she is in extreme abdominal pain and they have found and treated the infection a few times - but it keeps coming back and the doctors don't know why. She is going to yet another doctor tomorrow - and I just feel so sorry for her.</p>
<p>Ulcerative colitis is an inflammatory bowel disease. (The other IBD which you have probably heard of is Crohn's--I believe the two have similar symptoms.) It's a disease where there are open sores or ulcers on the colon. The main symptoms tend to be rectal bleeding and diarrhea. Usually other possible causes for symptoms are investigated and discarded before a colonoscopy or other endoscopic procedure is done to confirm ulcerative colitis. I don't think that there is any agreement yet on the cause, though it is treated somewhat similar to an autoimmune disease. I don't think appendicitis or the resulting surgery could cause an IBD, though coincidences are always possible. </p>
<p>Oh, and I'm not a doctor, and I don't have ulcerative colitis or Crohn's or anything else, so I'm just going on previous knowledge here. Don't take my words for fact. I'm assuming this disease is listed on WebMD or the Mayo Clinic website if you want read information.</p>
<p>"Her symptoms also were not the classic pain in the right side we always think of when we here appendicitis."</p>
<p>Pain around the umbilicus is the classic pain for early appendicitis. Note also that pain may decrease after an appendix ruptures before escalating hours later.</p>
<p>
[quote]
Appendicitis typically begins with a vague pain in the middle of the abdomen often near the umbilicus (navel or "belly button"). The pain slowly moves to the right lower abdomen (toward the right hip) over 24 hours. In the classic description, abdominal pain is accompanied with nausea, vomiting, lack of appetite, and fever. All of these symptoms, however, occur in fewer than half of people who develop appendicitis. More commonly, people with appendicitis often have any combination of these symptoms.
[/quote]
Appendicitis</a> Causes, Symptoms, Diagnosis, and Treatment Information by eMedicineHealth.com</p>
<p>For a complete discussion of appendicitis see eMedicine</a> - Appendicitis, Acute : Article by Sandy Craig, MD</p>
<p>Limomof2, the information corranged supplied about UC and Crohn's is correct; in addition the latter tends to be centered in the small intestine and UC in the large...</p>
<p>There are many forms of IBD and I hope that your niece is diagnosed soon so she can be treated properly; it can take a while to see what works in each case. The son of a cousin of mine was diagnosed with Crohn's while a junior in college. Another thing which can happen is that common antibiotics can "set off" UC...that is what happened to my daughter, when she was in middle school.</p>
<p>This thread is fascinating (yet scary). Last February I was in the next state over with my daughter's show choir on a Saturday for a competition. It was approximately a 4-hour bus ride. When the bus arrived at the host school very early in the morning (they left our school around 1:30AM), one of our students (whose mom was also on one of the buses) was extremely sick... screaming from horrible abdominal pain, throwing up, fever, white as ash, etc. They took her to the local ER, and they ran some tests, assuming it was appendicitis. The first round of tests came back negative (the poor girl couldn't keep down the icky stuff you have to drink before they scanned her belly), so they were going to observe her (they had given her pain meds at this point, so she was more comfortable) overnight as a caution. Tests run a few hours later revealed a now elevated WBC, so they decided it must be early appendicitis. They took her up to surgery, removed her appendix, and it was completely healthy! They kept her overnight (I had driven my car instead of riding the bus, so I was their ride home the next evening) since it was the laproscopic surgery. In hindsight, the mom (after talking with other people) suspects that it might have been a cyst on her ovary that ruptured, and the throwing up, etc. was all from the extreme pain she was in. I felt so sorry for them as they are a medicaid family - the hospital and our state's medicaid program cannot get on the same page, and so the bill hasn't been paid for, and they keep sending bills to my friend. </p>
<p>After reading this thread, I copied some of the responses and sent it to my friend so she would stop feeling guilty about what she now thinks was an unnecessary procedure. I keep telling her that, at least now, if her daughter ever has anything similar happen again, appendicitis can automatically be ruled out!</p>
<p>Wow, I'm shocked reading about all these cases! We always thought that appendicitis shows as pain in the right side untill...</p>
<p>My H had a close call a couple of weeks before his 50th b-day. He was very lucky that our ER was not swamped and he was taken in right away.</p>
<p>H woke up with a bad pain centerd in the middle part of the stomach area but decided to go to work anyway. The pain intensified and he decided to swing by his doctor's office to check it out. The doctor took a look, asked where it hurt, and then gave H ... some sample antacid pills and sent him home! No blood tests, no "call if it gets worse"! This is the doctor our family has been seeing for many years, and the clinic has all sort of diagnistic equipment! H went home, but was not able to eat anything or sit comfortably, and that's when I knew something was terribly wrong. I drove him to the ER, and after filling out some forms, the triage nurse sent him in to be seen right away. The ER doctor took one look, asked a few questions, and diagnosed appendicitis, but sent H to CT to get a confirmation. A couple of hours later H had laparoscopic surgery. The surgeon said if we'd waited a couple more hours, H would not have been so lucky... The ER doctor confirmed that the type of pain my H had was very indicative of appendicitis.</p>
<p>"They took her up to surgery, removed her appendix, and it was completely healthy!"</p>
<p>"Negative" pathology at surgery in the pre-CT era was expected to be 20% -- that is, 20% of patients who went to surgery for appendicitis actually had normal appendices. Likewise, ruptured appendicitis in the pre-CT era was also expected to be 20% (appendicitis was not diagnosed and therefore allowed to progress).</p>
<p>The use of CT and ultrasound has decreased both the rate of negative appendicitis at surgery and the rate of appendiceal rupture, but it has not eliminated either.</p>
<p>Appendectomies cost around $26,000---still may be waiting on the anesthesiologist bill. It was a real mess juggling makeup and mid-terms (and yes, professors gave extensions, but still a mess for him). My son had the appendectomy last month. His friends got him to the ER after he couldn't stop throwing up and was experiencing severe pain. I live 5 states away. It was awful for us to be so far away. Leslie</p>
<p>Thank you corranged and smdur1970 - I appreciate the information and will pass it along to my niece. I know she has been tested for Crohn's and the test came back negative (although they haven't totally ruled it out). It sounds like UC is another possibility - I am very curious to hear what this new doctor has to say. I know her last doctor wanted her to swallow a mini-camera so they could see what was going on in there, but she was afraid because they told her if there was a blockage, she might need surgery to have the camera removed.</p>
<p>My appendix ruptured when I was in my 30's. No early symptoms, just minor pain that turned into the worst I'd ever experienced in a matter of hours. Surgery was messy, but successful. TEN years later, woke up in the middle of the night with a horrible pain below the belly button. Nothing made it better. Since my appendix was already gone, I figured it had to be an ovary or something. After vomiting non-stop for a few hrs, called H at work and we went to the E.R. That's about the last I remember - the pain was so bad I passed out. They opened me up to find that scar tissue had run rampant throughout my abdomen, from the previous appendectomy-10 yrs earlier. It was wrapped around the intestines and everything else, and had caused an intestinal blockage. 7 hrs of surgery, a bowel resection and an ovary removal later, I spent a month in the hospital with IV antibiotics and yet another blockage. During the 2nd surgery, they put mesh 'patches' throughout my abdominal cavity to prevent furter growth of scar tissue. Very very scary, and very very expensive. I was told that sometmes when an appendix ruptures, scar tissue can be a dangerous result. Now every time I get even a twinge of pain in my stomach, I feel myself go pale with fear....gee, I wonder why? Glad I had such a wonderful surgeon taking care of me, I know many people are not as lucky as I.</p>
<p>When my mother was in her 50s she had terrible stomach pain. She'd had her appendix out in her teens. In her case the culprit turned out to be her spleen.</p>