Right sided pain in stomach

[jv50plus]

My husband has been having a pain, which comes and goes, not bad but uncomfortable. He has had scans, but shows nothing, also bloods etc. Any ideas please?

[cyberbarn]

Often pain in the stomach area is assumed to be gastrointestinal, or related to various other organs there like gallbladder. So they scan and find nothing, and just give up looking. There are over 90 different cases of abdominal pain!

One cause when it is at the top of the abdomen is costochondritis which is inflammation in the tissues in the rib cage. Sometimes this is between the ribs and the breastbone, but it can also be between all the bottom ribs. There are also nerves that run between the ribs that can be irritated, and there is something called referred pain where the nerves at the spine are irritated but the brain thinks the irritation is around the front because that is where the nerves end. And sometimes in people who are hypermobile the bottom ribs, sometimes called floating ribs, can slip under each other also causing pain.

Very few of these causes show up on x-rays. And if they are doing ultra sound looking at the stomach and other organs they won't be looking for other causes.

You say the pain comes and goes, does it depend on which position he is in? That could give you another clue.

Good luck! My son has had positional stomach pain for over a year now and we are nearly getting to the bottom of it!

[jv50plus in reply to cyberbarn]

Ok thank you