k1speed New
Joined: 18 May 2003 Posts: 53
|
Posted: Wed Jan 18, 2006 11:18 am GMT +0000 Post subject: Abdominal Pain - Can't diagnose?? |
|
|
Doc,
About a month ago, I started experiencing some abdominal pain on my right side. The pain is similar to a runner's "stitch", and varies in intensity (although I have not pinpointed what activity causes the intensity to change). Sometimes the pain will be about 1" - 2" below and 2" to the right of my belly button. If I press on my stomach (about 1" to the inside of my hip bone) there is some very slight tenderness. I seem to notice the pain more when I am sitting down, and also sometimes notice it when walking. I can not pinpoint an specific time when I may have injured myself, but there was one occasion while training when I was out of the saddle sprinting & seem to remember that I may have felt a "tweak" on my right side. The runners stitch first occurred during a cyclocross race (under very hard effort for entire race).
I have been racing cyclocross all season, and this does not seem to make the pain better or worse (on occasion it is barely noticeable). The only thing I have noticed during exercise is that on two or three occasions the runners "stitch" has increased in intensity, and this pain is more to the side, below my rib cage. I have never had a problem with runners stitch before...
About 2 weeks after the pain first started, I went to my general practitioner for consultation… (I did do some reading on the internet concerning "athletic hernias", and the symptoms seemed to fit). The doctor checked for a hernia, and found nothing (i.e. - no traditional hernias, but I understand from reading that an athletic hernia will not present itself like some of the other "traditional" hernias). The doctor also ran CBC & Metabolic blood tests (all came back normal), urinalysis came back normal, and he had me go in for a kidney ultrasound (to look for kidney stones), it came back normal (note - they looked at both sides of my abdomen & bladder). The doctor said I could continue normal activity (he is aware that "normal" consists of training & racing (no weight lifting)).
The doctor has had me taking two Alieve tablets twice a day for the past 8 days (with food). His thinking was I have strained a stomach muscle. Although I try to take them regularly at 12 hr intervals, sometimes I have gone longer between dosages. While taking the Alieve, the pain subsides, but when I go longer between dosages, the pain seems to be more noticeable. Since the pain has not stopped, he has now scheduled me for a consultation with a GI doctor.
Do you have any thoughts on this, or any questions that I should be asking???
Thanks for your help,
Kevin |
|
The Bike Doc 250+
Joined: 08 May 2003 Posts: 1398 Location: Corpus Christi and Warda, Texas
|
Posted: Wed Jan 18, 2006 12:25 pm GMT +0000 Post subject: |
|
|
k1speed:
Your doctor has been doing an appropriate evaluation and the referal to a Gastroenterologist (GI doctor) is in order. You have provided a good history base that the GI doctor will start from and will ask questions further questions about the location character, triggering and aleiving factors, bowel habits, family history of GI problems and tumors. He or she will have a list of different diagnoses to consider, some will be rulled out with a good history and physical others may require additional testing. Do follow through with the GI evaluation.
Thanks, _________________ Paul K. Nolan, MD
AKA: The Bike Doc |
|