Request for Information: Appendicitis

AND: If you have it out before it bursts you can keep it in a jar. Once it disintegrates you've lost that chance forever.

ive been having occasional sore pains in different parts of my abdomen for about 2 or 3 months now, i talked to dude i work with and he said it was the same until his appendix burst in the middle of the night!!! since then ive been freaked out about this shit, should i go get a check-up? can they actually find out what it is? ive only had insurance for a couple months so i havent been to the doctor since i was like 15

http://dev.nsta.org/evwebs/531/images/problemDrawing.jpg

i woke up one morning doubled over in pain and could not straighten myself out. went to the doctor and he said you need you're appendix out. three hours later i was being gassed by an an anesthetist.

haha ethan, i can actually be of real help to you here! for EIGHT MONTHS i had an abdominal problem. it would flare up, usually at night, every three to four weeks, with such clockwork regularity that my friends and family would joke about me having my period. basically, it would go like this: a sharp, constant pain that grew over a five-hour spell into an absolutely crushing, incapacitating agony, which would last about two hours then die away. awful, awful pain. as i say this happened about 9 or 10 times, and then, just as i was coming down from one, i felt this sudden even sharper pain. now, they'd been misdiagnosing me for the entirety of those eight months, suggesting all sorts of gastric difficulties, but never once hinting at what it really was, viz: a grumbling appendix. now, this sudden pain, as it turns out, was my swollen and rotting appendix finally bursting. this was at midday on a sunday, the NEXT DAY i went into hospital and only at 10 p.m. the next evening was i eventually operated upon. i was 'a couple of hours, if that' away from peritonitis. i even woke up during the operation. the worst 30 seconds of my life. all this four weeks before my final high school exams (A-levels).

basically, ethan, if you don't know what it is, it's probably something pretty nasty, so i urge you, get it checked and sorted as soon as possible.

even woke up during the operation.

ME TOO!!!! nothing like shrieking like a madman inside your own skull because you can't get you mouth to work.

worst nightmare

If you've got insurance, then you should get it checked out. They can tell if it's your appendix by ultrasound, or if it's something else by blood and urine tests.

even woke up during the operation.

ME TOO!!!! nothing like shrieking like a madman inside your own skull because you can't get you mouth to work.

I am completely terrified of surgery and this is pretty much the reason why. I've been putting off inner ear surgery for about 5 years because of this fear. I can't even imagine how horrible it would be to wake up while being operated on *shudders*.

Ethan - get it checked out. A friend of mine walked around for a week with appendicitis thinking it was a stomach flu. She even took her SATs while going through this only to collapse two hours later when it burst. She was in the hospital for a month with all the complications that resulted from her delaying treatment. Obviously this is an extreme case but better safe etc.

ive been having occasional sore pains in different parts of my abdomen for about 2 or 3 months now, i talked to dude i work with and he said it was the same until his appendix burst in the middle of the night!!

he was posting too many snappy remarks on message boards so he quit. lo and behold the pain went away.

seriously, there was some report that docs remove the appendicitis much too quickly and that in many cases the pain goes away by itself.

I was 14 and thought I had a stomach flu, until I got home from school and was completely immobilized with pain. My mother found me stretched out on the couch, mumbling incoherently. My folks rushed us to the only hospital in our town, where my Mom (who just happened to work there as an operating room nurse) sat in on the surgery. Apparently my appendix was only an hour or so away from bursting.

drs appt monday 2:30

hope i dont die before then

Mine came about suddenly one day. I wasn't sure what it was, just that it got real bad, real quick. I went to the emergency room, and they examined me and they determine that I was just constipated and sent me home.

I then proceeded to have the worst night of pain I have ever experienced. I went to my local doctor the next day and I couldn't be touched anywhere without extreme pain. He told me to go back to the hospital immediately. I did, they did exploratory surgery and found out that my little appendix had burst. Motherfuckers.

I stayed in the hospital a week. They didn't even close me up, they left this gapping right in my mid section, I don't know why, but they said that it had to heal naturally. I was sent home.

After a couple of days, I started to feel real bad again and my wound became unspeakably gross (green). I was rushed back to the hospital, where they determined that I had a staph infection and some other type infection. I then stayed in hospital for 3 more weeks, medicated and having to sit in a very uncomfortable whirlpool twice a day.

LESSON: If your tummy hurts bad, go to the doctor/hospital, and don't leave.

Also, don't go to hospitals in rural North Carolina.

that is a rough story

my appendicitis came on fast -- trouble getting to sleep one night, woke up fine, returned by end of next day and by 8pm I had to be driven to the hospital because the pain had me out of my mind. luckily they had me in surgery 40 minutes after I walked in the door

one detail -- six months later, very similar extreme pain returned in the exact same lower-left abdominal region. I couldn't believe it. a visit to the emergency room ruled out kidney stones with an x-ray, but two more months of constant low level throbbing with occasional attacks of unbelievable pain, and a flummoxed doctor, they suggested a cat scan to rule out cancer (not inexpensive, and terrifying). turned out it was a kidney stone the whole time -- an intern had forgotten to give me the dye to drink before the x-ray. most stones pass quickly, but if you've got a high coffee diet, and a particularly pointy stone, those things can lodge and I can confirm that the amount of pain & it's location were very similar to appendicitis

correction lower-right abdominal region etc.

hay guyz im okay