Appendix, stomach bug or food poisoning?

Food poisoning typically starts with vomiting and then progresses to diarrhea as the poisonous food moves down the intestinal tract.

Which side is hurting?

If it is his right side, I'd take him in. If it his left side, I'd vote bug.

Fever?

I wouldn't play w/it. Appendecitis can start on the left side and migrate to the right side or in my case it went from the lower back around the rib cage and settled in the right quadrant. You can run a fever w/appendicitis, though I did not. I'm not trying to contradict Elaine. Her advice is usually spot on. Call your advice nurse or pediatrician and let your doctor coach you. Hope your little guy feels better quickly.

Had my appendix out last month. I had vomiting and diarrhea. Then the pain gradually concentrated to a specific spot on my side. It took less than 12 hours to go from yucky to terrible pain. You have a little time. By the way, urgent care wouldn't see me with abdominal pain, I had to go to the ER.

There is a test for it, but if he doesn't pass it doesn't mean he's clear. Press over his appendix. If it's more painful when you release your hand that's a clue that it's appendicitis. There's a name for it. Again, if he fails the test, that doesn't mean he's fine. Poor little guy.

Good advice, scrapmaven.

They usually focus on pain in right quadrant because that is where the appendix is.  And yes, fever can or can't be present - I recently had two friends have appendicitis one with a fever, one without. I was just wondering in her son's case.

My 5 yo son had his appendix removed. He said his belly button hurt and moaned in pain for 12 hours or so. He did not eat, no vomiting or diarrhea. He could walk, jump and run. When doctor pressed on his appendix (lower right side, not under rib cage) he screamed. We went directly to ER for removal. Home within 24 hours of diagnosis. There's also a higher incidence of appendicitis in boys. ER will do ultrasound and bloodwork to check for elevated white blood cell count. HTH

A friends daughter had stomach pain so severe she was screaming. I scooted the heck out of there and my friend took her to the ER and she had an emergency appendectomy.

I'd get him checked out too. When I had appendicitis it felt like my ulcer had come back - tenfold. Pain was in the center of my stomach and I passed all the tests (rebound, jumping, etc) They had to do an ultrasound to determine what it was. I had no fever, vomiting or diarrhea - just constant severe pain.

Further, my dad's appendix ruptured - he presented with chest pains. He went to urgent care and they called an ambulance. It took the ER hours to figure out what they problem was because they were focusing on his heart. Turns out his appendix was kind of tucked up under his rib cage a little so it threw everyone off. He was rushed into surgery right away once they knew, it had been ruptured for several hours at that point they thought.

Since differnt people can present so differently it's hard to say! I hate to jump to conclusions about anything but I think you ought to get him checked to be on the safe side. Good luck and I do hope it's nothing serious!!

We had a thing with my youngest when he was about 10. He was complaining of pain in that area and had a really high fever so I called the pediatrician to ask what to look for in case it was his appendix. They told me the highest incidence of appendicitis occurs in boys ages 9-11 and that they prefer to be overly cautious and for me to bring him in to the ER.

Turns out for us the kid was sick- really sick with some kind of unnamed bug that was inflaming his lymph nodes to the point of being painful to the touch. You have a line of lymph nodes that run down both sides of your stomach area and that was what was causing him so much pain. I was glad that it wasn't something worse, and the ER doc said that it was good that I brought him in because it this case it was better to be looked at and have nothing wrong than to have ignored it and gotten so much worse.

I guess the point of this post is to say that if the pain is bad enough (and you don't think it is gas) then I don't think that anyone would say you were overreacting by taking him to the ER. Although, I would likely call the pediatrician first-just to see what they say and to give them a heads up that there is a potential for a problem later.

Hopefully he is better soon.

Get him to ER. One of mine was 4 hours between onset of pain and being under the knife, and was 10 years old. He had an abdomen full of pus.

I second the potholes pain. When I had it the inflammation you'd normally see on an ultrasound or CT scan was masked by the fact that I had been on specific meds for years. When dh drove me, any bumps in the road were agonizing. Other than that, my symptoms were somewhat vague. Appendicitis wasn't clearly the cause until surgery fixed the pain.

If your son has a bug I'd expect the pain to move fairly quickly to vomiting and/or diarrhea. But again, this won't exclude appendicitis. I'd take him in if the pain lasted more than a couple of hours or was extreme.

I hope you give us an update.