A 44-year-old woman has diffuse abdominal pain that comes and goes; what should you suspect?

Study for the Medical FIDSAP v2 Test. Sharpen your skills with flashcards and multiple-choice questions, complete with hints and explanations. Prepare effectively for your upcoming test!

Multiple Choice

A 44-year-old woman has diffuse abdominal pain that comes and goes; what should you suspect?

Intermittent crampy abdominal pain points to the gut contracting against a blockage. This colicky pattern comes from waves of peristalsis that try to push contents past an obstruction, so the pain rises and falls rather than staying constant in one spot. In a middle-aged patient, this is a classic way bowel obstruction can present, especially when the pain is not localized to a single quadrant and recurs in a rhythmic fashion. Other conditions have different patterns: diverticular disease usually causes localized left-lower-quadrant pain with changes in bowel habits; pancreatitis typically presents as steady, severe upper abdominal pain that may radiate to the back; cholecystitis often causes persistent right upper-quadrant pain with fever and possibly a positive Murphy sign. So the episodic, crampy nature of the pain makes bowel obstruction the best fit given the presentation.

Intermittent crampy abdominal pain points to the gut contracting against a blockage. This colicky pattern comes from waves of peristalsis that try to push contents past an obstruction, so the pain rises and falls rather than staying constant in one spot.

In a middle-aged patient, this is a classic way bowel obstruction can present, especially when the pain is not localized to a single quadrant and recurs in a rhythmic fashion. Other conditions have different patterns: diverticular disease usually causes localized left-lower-quadrant pain with changes in bowel habits; pancreatitis typically presents as steady, severe upper abdominal pain that may radiate to the back; cholecystitis often causes persistent right upper-quadrant pain with fever and possibly a positive Murphy sign.

So the episodic, crampy nature of the pain makes bowel obstruction the best fit given the presentation.

More practice questions