What Causes Increase in Abdominal Pain After Meals?

What Causes Increase In Abdominal Pain After Meals?

Increase in abdominal pain after meals can have various causes, ranging in severity from 'critical' to 'generally fatal'. Finding the true cause means ruling out or confirming each possibility – in other words, diagnosis.

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Diagnosis is usually a complex process due to the sheer number of possible causes and related symptoms. In order to diagnose increase in abdominal pain after meals, we could:

Research the topic
Find a doctor with the time
Use a diagnostic computer system.

The process is the same, whichever method is used.

Step 1: List all Possible Causes

We begin by identifying the disease conditions which have "increase in abdominal pain after meals" as a symptom. Here are two possibilities:

Stomach Cancer
Mesenteric Ischemia

Step 2: Build a Symptom Checklist

We then identify all possible symptoms and risk factors of each possible cause, and check the ones that apply:

severe left iliac pain

history of occult blood

stomach cancer

acute abdominal pain

frequent episodes of diarrhea

meal-related pain for over a month

recent onset nausea

significant right iliac pain

severe flatulence

meals worsen epigastric pain

vegetarian diet

severe abdominal pain

... and more than 10 others

Step 3: Rule Out or Confirm each Possible Cause

A differential diagnosis of your symptoms and risk factors finds the likely cause of increase in abdominal pain after meals:

Cause	Probability	Status
Stomach Cancer	98%	Confirm
Mesenteric Ischemia	58%	Possible

* This is a simple example to illustrate the process

Arriving at a Correct Diagnosis

The Analyst™ is our online diagnosis tool that learns all about you through a straightforward process of multi-level questioning, providing diagnosis at the end.

If you indicate abdominal pain increased by eating, The Analyst™ will ask further questions including this one:

If you regularly experience an increase in general abdominal pain after eating a meal, roughly how frequent and severe is this increase? 'Occasional' means less than half the time after eating; 'frequent' means more than half the time.

Possible responses:

→ I don't have pain / no increase / don't know
→ Occasional mild/moderate pain increase
→ Frequent mild / occasional moderate increase
→ Frequent moderate / occasional severe increase
→ Severe increase in pain after most/all meals

Based on your response to this question, which may indicate mild meal-increased pain, moderate meal-increased pain, significant meal-increased pain or severe meal-increased pain, The Analyst™ will consider possibilities such as:

Mesenteric Ischemia

Stomach Cancer

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