My 11 Yr Old Son's Having Pain in His side...for a Few Months now...GI Prob??

Good Morning C., my first thought was something called ( spelling is gonna byte me) diverticulitis? it is like inflamed bowel and is caused from shell type foods, pea's, corn, nuts, beans etc.. parts of these foods gets caught in the lining of the bowel and won't pass through. Cause's alot of pain and sometime diarrhea. Another thing you could have them check is crohn's ? disease. it can cause pain and discomfort also. Have they checked him for a deep hernia?
A cousin in Colo. is going through that right now, he is a chef and having a hard time standing on his feet for more then a few hours without doubling over in sever pain. He sees a surgeon today.

If your having difficulty with the diagnosis he is receiving it's OK to get second opinions.

God Bless you C. and I am praying all will be OK with your little man very soon.
K. Nana of 5

Have they check his gall bladder?

All of these advices are great things to check and it is my wish for you and your son for great health. I might add that if it is gi that you have the option of a mild detox through Arbonne 7-day cleanse that is great at cleaning the gi tract.
Please contact me if you would like additional information
K.

Have they checked his gall bladder? Abdominal pain - esp on the right side - can be that. Gall stones would cause intermittent episodes of pain that have no predictable pattern. Ask them to ultrasound his gall bladder. Good luck!

How are your son's bowel movements? Are they regular and normal in consistency? It sounds like it could be Irritable Bowel Syndrome and there is really nothing that can be done with that. Also have they checked for Crohn's disease.

Hi C..
I'm sorry your son is suffering. It is so hard to see your child in pain. I'm no doctor, but has the possibilty of a kidney stone been considered? They can be quite painful when they are moving through the tubes from the kidney to the bladder. Sometimes they get stuck even if they are small enough that they don't block the tube completely, so there might not be any other symptoms than the pain. I read an article recently about how more kids are getting them these days because of sports drinks like Gatorade and Power Aid that contain lots of salts and minerals.
Anyway, that may be way off, but I know when you are trying to help your child it's always worth looking at all the possibilities.
God Bless!
C.

Have you considered keeping a food diary? Write down everything (and I mean everything) he eats for a week or so, noting along side when his symptoms occur/worsen. Maybe it's a food intolerance or allergy?

I know my son has terrible gas pains if he gets some dairy (he's lactose intolerant). Even a small handful of goldfish are enough to set him off...

It's also something you can hand a Dr. and you may be able to rule out symptoms that are getting in the way of a diagnosis?

Really hope you find the answers and get your som some relief!!

T.

C., I know our situation is probably a little different. We did have something like this with our daughter. When she was 11ish also she started with some right sided pain. We tried a warm soak in the tub tylenol and finally the ER. I thought for sure we had an appendicitis. Well not so, she had a virus that caused the lymph nodes around the stomach to expand and when she ate the stomach could not expand. The only way to fix this was bed rest and IV fluids. After a month or so she seemed better and went off to camp. What she did not tell us is that the pain had started again. When she came home she was again admitted to the hospital. Although they could not figure out why she was having pain. The xrays, MRI's showed her first diagnosis had resolved. Pain meds did not work and it stumped her pediatrician and her pediatric GI specialist. After about 4 mos of this her GI doc gave us 2 options go through a pediatric pain management program or see a specialist in Kansas City Kansas at KUMC. Well looking at our options and how our lovely daughter who was in pain 24 hours a day 7 days a week the choice was simple see the doctor at KUMC first. He is a pediatric GI doc and pain management. I googled him. He is, if I remember correctly head of pediatric GI and Pain management program and he speaks at different conferences,his name is Paul Hyman. As our GI dr. here told us you will either love him or hate him but he gave us a diagnosis and hope. It took a year we are not sure why things stopped but we got a diagnosis. We were able to do everything that we needed to in St. Louis, but they have programs there. We did medication, massage therapy, biofeedback/pain management, yoga, we had sound therapy like the waterfalls and then used classical music, she was also involved with horses and we believed for her this was a therapeutic endevour and it really relaxed her (now it seems to be a lifetime passion). Finally we did see a chiropractor here in town that may have also played a role in her recovery. The final diagnosis name escapes me at the moment but it was nerves still telling the brain that her pain from her first diagnosis was still there. This in turn would open more nerves telling her brain there was pain and this was why she was getting worse over the course of time. As I said our situation is probably a lot different but Dr Hyman helped us and so did the chiropractor Dr. Peterson. I hope some of this information helps you. I know what it is like to feel helpless with your kiddos problem. So God bless and our family will be thinking of you and your son.

Ask the doctor to check his gall bladder. One of my daughters had hers out at 14 and another at 13 because their gall bladders were not emptying as quickly as they should (dyskinesia). With my older daughter, it took us MONTHS to get a diagnosis because it's not something commonly seen in children or young teens.

I hope your son feels better soon & that you get everything figured out.

See a chiropractor. I have pain just exactly like that every time my hip gets slightly out of place.

HE may be gluten intolerant. Have food allergy testing done. My friend's son suffered for years until they had him tested in December. He tested highly allergic to gluten. He is now on a gluten free diet and is happy, healthy, and all boy!

Have you tried taking him to a chiropractor?

one huge thought: please use pediatric specialists....not regular specialists! You need somebody who's specifically trained to find answers for children.

If it is right rib pain he is having than it can be a blockage in the intestine. An endoscopy will surely help to find this out. I hope they find the cause of his pain soon.
Good Luck!

What about ulcers? Have they made him drink a dye drink and do x-rays? My son, who was 7 at the time, had two ulcers at two different times. They told us to give him Milk of Magnesia and take heartburn meds. They went away pretty fast. Also constipation can cause some serious pain. Maybe he should be taking fiber supplements and a stool softener. Just a thought.

Is the pain on the right side of his abdomen or his right flank? When I was a kid I had bouts of pain and aching in my lower right abdomenal region that eventually manifested itself as a hernia. Just one more possibilty to ask about.

If the pain occasionally goes around to his back, we call that "flank" pain. Has the doctor checked out his kidneys? Maybe ask for a referral to a urologist. Good luck and God Bless :)

BTW, I have been going through this same roller coaster ride myself for at least 6 months now. Every test has been "normal".

I would ask for one more blood test just to rule out celiac disease. My daughter suffered with lots of strange symptoms for a while. She started having tummy trouble and at first we thought it was bladder or different things. It finally hit a point where she bloated up and the doctor did a blood test and she tested positive. Celiac has many symptoms so it's sometimes not the first thing that comes to drs. It wouldn't hurt. Good luck! I know how hard it is to have a kid in pain and not know why!

I am sure that the docs have thought about this, but, for argument's sake, have they checked his gall bladder? It is usually located around this area and iti s shooting pain that "radiates" from the front to the back and will bring you to tears. All they have to do to check the gall bladder is do an ultasound. After I had my daughter I got "sludge" in my gall bladder and OMG, I would rather go through child birth again with an epidural than to go through that pain. It is extremely painful. It started out on my side, right around my rib cage, just as an annoying little tingle, which I thought was something that happened during child birth. Then, as the days went on, the pain kept getting worse, and depending on the time of day, how tired I was, and what I had eaten, I could be rolling on the floor in tears with my side, my back, and my lungs hurting so bad that after about a week my husband took me to the ER one night because he was scared. Turns out that my gall bladder was shutting down and wasn't doing what it was supposed to do. It's worth a shot to at least check in to. The gall bladder is one of the first treks before hitting the intestines in digestion so it really wouldn't be that out of the ordinary for it to be the gall bladder. I hope this helps.

Well it does sound like the doctor is taking him seriously and that the endoscopy may give you the answers you need. I really hope you do find the answers and that the treatment works.

My mother has been having a pain in her side for over 20 years. It's sometimes bad enough to be almost to the point of tears. It's definitely bad enough that she complains often and sometimes doesn't want to do anything but sit. Her doctors have never taken her seriously about it. She has a heart condition and sees lots of doctors all the time. Hers is also there pretty much all the time but gets worse or better on and off.

S.