Lower Abdominal Pain

What is lower abdominal pain?

Pain in the lower abdomen is often related to the digestive tract, but can also be related to conditions of the body wall, skin, blood vessels, urinary tract, or reproductive organs. The area may be tender to the touch or the pain may be severe and the whole abdomen might be rigid.

Severe pain can be a symptom of inflammation, appendicitis, bowel obstruction, or bowel perforation. Severe pain in women may result from twisting of an ovary (ovarian torsion), rupture of an ovarian cyst, ectopic pregnancy, or pelvic inflammatory disease. Men may experience severe lower abdominal pain from testicular torsion or injury. Crampy pain may be due to gas, indigestion, inflammation or infection, or, in women, from menstrual cramps or endometriosis.

Severe pain that comes in waves may be caused by kidney stones. Trauma to the body wall, hernias, and shingles can also cause lower abdominal pain. A hernia is a weakening of muscle or tissue that allows organs or other tissues to protrude through it. Shingles is a reactivation of the chickenpox (varicella-zoster) virus involving a painful, blistering rash that often forms a stripe across the affected area of skin.

Pain that is sudden in onset, severe, persistent, recurring, or worsening, or that is accompanied by other serious symptoms is often the most worrisome.

Lower abdominal pain can be caused by serious medical conditions. Seek immediate medical care (call 911) if you stop having bowel movements, have bloody stools, are vomiting blood, have severe pain or a rigid abdomen, have been injured, had a sudden onset of sharp pain, have cancer, or might be pregnant and have abdominal pain or vaginal bleeding.

If your lower abdominal pain is persistent or causes you concern, seek prompt medical care, particularly if it is worsening instead of improving. If you have bladder symptoms, a fever, decreased appetite, or unexplained weight loss, you should also seek prompt medical care.