Get medical help immediately if any of these apply
- Sudden, severe pain that came on within minutes.
- Pain with a rigid, board-like abdomen, or pain so severe you cannot move or stand straight.
- Pain starting near the navel and settling in the lower right, especially with fever and nausea.
- Vomiting blood, or vomit that looks like coffee grounds.
- Black tarry stools, or visible blood in the stool.
- Pain with a high fever and shaking chills.
- Inability to pass stool or gas, with a swollen abdomen and vomiting.
- Pain in anyone who is or could be pregnant, particularly with bleeding or shoulder-tip pain.
- Abdominal pain with chest pain, breathlessness, or sweating — this can be cardiac.
- Pain following an injury to the abdomen.
This list is not exhaustive. Anything sudden, severe, or rapidly worsening needs immediate medical attention regardless of what any website says. In India, call 112 for any emergency or 108 for an ambulance. Elsewhere, use your local emergency number.
What location suggests
Location narrows the field considerably, though it never settles the question on its own. These are common associations, not conclusions.
- Upper middle — acidity, gastritis, ulcers, and sometimes the pancreas. Cardiac pain can also present here.
- Upper right — gallbladder and liver.
- Upper left — stomach, spleen, and occasionally the pancreas.
- Around the navel — early appendicitis, small bowel problems, or non-specific pain.
- Lower right — appendicitis, and in women, ovarian causes.
- Lower left — large bowel conditions such as diverticulitis, and constipation.
- Lower middle — bladder, urinary infection, uterus, and menstrual causes.
- Pain spreading to the back — pancreas, kidney stones, or, rarely, a serious vascular problem.
Common causes
- Indigestion, acidity, and gastritis.
- Gastroenteritis — infection with diarrhoea and vomiting.
- Constipation, which can cause pain out of proportion to how minor it sounds.
- Irritable bowel syndrome — a recurring pattern tied to bowel habit, usually diagnosed after other causes are excluded.
- Urinary tract infection and kidney stones.
- Gallstones, typically after fatty meals.
- Menstrual pain, ovulation pain, and other gynaecological causes.
- Food intolerance, including lactose intolerance.
What to notice before a consultation
- Exactly where it hurts, and whether it moved from somewhere else.
- How it started — sudden or gradual — and how long it has lasted.
- What it feels like — cramping, burning, stabbing, dull ache — and whether it comes in waves.
- What makes it better or worse: eating, an empty stomach, passing stool, movement, position.
- What accompanies it — fever, vomiting, diarrhoea, constipation, urinary symptoms, bleeding.
- For anyone menstruating: the date of the last period, and whether pregnancy is possible.
What not to do while waiting
Avoid strong painkillers before being assessed for severe abdominal pain — they can mask the very signs a clinician needs to feel. Anti-inflammatory painkillers can worsen gastritis and ulcers. If the pain is severe, do not eat or drink until you have been seen, in case a procedure is needed.
Which doctor treats this
Picking the wrong speciality for a first consultation costs time and money. These are the specialities that commonly handle this, though your particular situation may point elsewhere — work out which specialist to see.
- General physician or family doctor — the right first stop for most abdominal pain.
- Gastroenterologist — for persistent or recurring digestive symptoms.
- General surgeon — where appendicitis, gallstones, or an obstruction is suspected.
- Gynaecologist — for lower abdominal pain related to periods, pregnancy, or ovarian causes.
- Urologist — for suspected stones or urinary causes.
- Emergency department — for any red flag above.
Questions worth asking your doctor
- Does where and how this hurts point to anything specific?
- Do I need blood tests, a scan, or an ultrasound?
- Could this be related to a medicine I am taking?
- What should I eat or avoid until this settles?
- What change would mean I should come back immediately?
How DoctoGuide can help
This page is general information — it cannot know your age, history, medicines, or how your symptoms actually present. DoctoGuide asks those follow-up questions, then gives you guidance specific to what you described, a sense of urgency, the speciality to see, and a written summary to take into the consultation. It is free and needs no account.
DoctoGuide does not diagnose, prescribe, or replace a doctor. What it can and cannot do is set out on the medical safety page.