Appendicitis

A surgeon has told me that my 10 year-old daughter should have her appendix removed because of repeated tummy pain. He said she had a “grumbling appendix”. My local doctor says there is no such thing. What is your take on this?

The party line in medicine is that there is no such thing as repeated appendicitis. Appendicitis is an acute illness with pain starting around the belly button and then moving to right side of the lower abdomen (tummy).

Having said this, I have met many people who swear that having their appendix out cured their repeated pain.

Children tend to have tummy pain with illnesses elsewhere in the body - for example, with sore throats. It is rather like adults developing headache when unwell from something that is not in their head. I would ask your local doctor to give her a thorough going over in the next episode i.e. look carefully at her Ear, Nose and Throat and other body systems as well as the tummy. A urine sample to exclude infection would be useful as 1% of girls her age suffer urinary infection and this can be a cause of abdominal pain.

Just as adults have headaches with stress, children suffer their stress pain in the tummy. The major causes of stress at this age are a problem at school, e.g. bullying, or problems between the parents which cause the child to want to stay at home and keep an eye on things. Migraine can cause abdominal pain rather than headache in children.

Thus, there are many things to be checked before a child should be subjected to an operation for repeated tummy pain.