General abdominal pain only after meals can have various causes, ranging in severity from 'troubling' to 'critical'. Finding the true cause means ruling out or confirming each possibility – in other words, diagnosis.
Diagnosis is usually a complex process due to the sheer number of possible causes and related symptoms. In order to diagnose general abdominal pain only after meals, we could:
Cause | Probability | Status |
---|---|---|
Ulcerative Colitis | 91% | Confirm |
Gastroenteritis | 26% | Unlikely |
Crohn's Disease | 19% | Unlikely |
Gallbladder Disease | 4% | Ruled out |
Stomach Ulcers | 2% | Ruled out |
Atrophic Gastritis | 0% | Ruled out |
Gluten Sensitivity | 0% | Ruled out |
Gastritis | 0% | Ruled out |
Do you regularly experience general abdominal pain that begins roughly 20 minutes to 3 hours after eating a meal?
Possible responses:
→ No / I have it even when I don't eat / don't know→ No, only rarely / a few times a year or less → Yes, it started less than 1 week ago → Yes, it started about 1 to 4 weeks ago → Yes, I've had it for 1 month or more |
In cases of chronic gastritis, pain usually appears almost immediately after a meal, especially if the food is coarse or sour.
Inflammation or other dysfunction of the gallbladder (cholecystitis) or biliary tract (angiocholitis) often causes pain in the abdomen, generally towards the right-hand side. The pain is more likely to occur after large and/or fatty/oily/fried meals.
Stomach ulcers normally cause pain within 1-1½ hours of eating a meal; duodenal ulcers usually result in pain that starts 1½-2 hours after a meal.
If symptoms come on suddenly and severely, it is classed as acute gastritis. If it has lasted a long time (usually because of bacterial infection), it is chronic gastritis.
Because total blood flow to the intestine can vary from 25% when fasting to 35% after eating, symptoms are more prevalent after eating.