Severe throbbing, burning and stabbing pain under rib cage, nausea. Ct scan negative for gall stones. Help?
Patient: I have had the worst throbbing burning stabbing pain starts directly under my rib cage left side and wraps slightly around my back and I front about a hands with from my rib to back and in front. I feel like anything I eat makes it worse. Hurts really bad in the morning when I first wake up and never gets better. I ve had nausia, runs. Ran gb for gallbladder stones and had a ct scan came back negative... Help is hurts very bad to the touch and feels very swollen to me. I also feel run down, chills, fever . I also had an emergency c section 8 months. ago baby was butt first Doctor: Dear jennifer, symptoms you re describing are very serious and it sounds like an acute/subacute intraabdominal disorder caused by inflammation. The pain type that you have is significant for pancreatitis so check amylase blood/urine level first. Also it can be gastric problem(ulcer, GERD) but also a variety of pathological state. Chills and fever are classic signs of infection and inflammation and every time you have it go to hospital immediately. It need to be treated by intravenous antibiotics and the source of infection must be found. You should repeat your CT scan and inflammatory markers till you have clear diagnosis. Each surgery procedure including c section can cause infection and abscesses  formation in pelvic and abdominal cavity. These collections can be drained percutanously or surgically. If CT cant find the pathology then you can do laparoscopic examination but this definitely need to be evaluated.        Wish you good health, Dr. Ivan Romic (Rominho)