stabbing lower abdominal pain

no, not a thread about some punk band SpaceTurkey might like. But all day I've had stabbing pain below my naval. No, the pain hasn't migrated or spread to my right side so it's not my appendix. I do not have nausea or vomiting. I do not have a fever. My appetite is normal. I'm not dehydrated. I haven't varied my daily routine or consumed any unusual foods. I haven't done any different exercises that could cause muscle strain. I have had a relatively recent bowel movement.

The last time I had something similar I spent a couple of days in the hospital and they never came up with what exactly was causing it. No sense going through that again.

I googled the hell out of this and about a gazillion articles talk about pain in the right side of the abdomen.
It's not on my right side specifically. It's mainly centered below my naval down into my bladder area and radiating towards my spine to a lesser extent.

Anyone had this before? What was the cause?

You might be passing a stone from your kidney to your bladder.

well that doesn't sound too appealing! I'm going to google that scenario. Thanks!

I'm not a doctor, but I'll pretend to be one for this thread. I think you should perform self surgery immediately to... umm ... fix the problem.

Urinary tract infection?

congrats, it's a boy.

Sounds like it could be a kidney stone. If the pain persists, though, go to the emergency room. It could be something more serious none of us knows about.

I think I know where this is heading.

Time to see a quack. Go to urgent care unless you're projectile spewing blood (either end).

Go to a doctor, you idiot!! Good God, we're both at the age where you don't fucking ignore shit like this.

*Gets Techman flashbacks*

How are you feeling, @oldfella1962 ?

Did you go to the doctor?

Still in pain?

Let us know what's up!

(should I remove my OF doll from this pike? naw, give it a twist.)

eta:
Recent literature has revealed that as many as 20 percent of patients present to the hospital with a digestive symptom, such as diarrhea, vomiting, pain, accompanying their respiratory symptoms. And, roughly 5 percent show up with an abdominal complaint alone.

https://www.diagnosticimaging.com/covid-19/abdominal-pain-unusual-not-rare-covid-19-presentation

Has anyone suggested hernia?
The spot between the belly and the crotch is right where hernia happens too.

Abdominal aortic aneurysm? That's what did my dad in. George C Scott too.

Couple of days in and no-one has suggested TehAIDs? Come on WF, your slipoing!

I was going to ask if his pet hamster has been seen lately.

@oldfella1962, I am starting to get a little worried, bud.

Try some oatmeal.

I found this, also some results indicate appendicitis.

No contact with @oldfella1962 since Monday. This may have been something very serious.

Anyone have real-life contact with him?

Now that I think about it, ~25 years ago, a friend of mine had similar pains. He went to the hospital and they found that a large hunk of one of his intestines had died. He was uninsured, so there was a whole lotta nothing that they could do, and he didn't make it. Alan Alda had the same thing happen to him while he was shooting an episode of Scientific American. The doctor who operated on Alda had gone into medicine because he grew up watching M*A*S*H*.

I do not... this is getting incredibly worrisome.

I think about if I were to suddenly croak, odds are good none of you would ever know because none of you know me outside of here either!

Same. Two or three people here could find me IRL; apart from that, I'd just be gone.

I did once ask my best friend (who is regged here but has never posted) to let you all know in the event of my demise, but he's probably forgotten about that.

There's a few here who have my real email and stuff. But yeah . . . none of us as far as I know have meatspace contact info for Oldfella. I'm a bit concerned about him at this point.

There was a fella last year on one of my sci fi model groups who posted "Somebody help me!" Of course your first reflex is to think he was kidding around about a frustrating project or something. Some got worried immediately and started trying to contact him. After whole 3 months we finally found someone who knew him personally and found out he committed suicide shortly after posting that.

I'm baaaaaaaack! What an unpleasant yet obviously survivable ordeal that was! Yep my 2004 tumor digestive track rewiring had a major backup (despite my healthy diet) and they had to run a tube down my nose hooked up to a pump to drain a huge amount of goo that wasn't making it all the way down. This happened before three years ago too. Scar tissue builds up - it's like garden hose that gets kinked, and the kinked spot gets more & more constricted. I could still pass waste up until the day I couldn't, it just wasn't getting through fast enough - or something like that.

Regardless they took it on faith that I was in a world of hurt and feely dispensed morphine until I lost consciousness - then came back into my room to ask me more redundant questions like "on a scale of one to ten, how bad is your pain now" and my answer involved penguins. They repeated this cycle a few times among the poking & probing, enemas, CAT scans, X-rays and whatnot.
Hospital business is so slow (COVID puts everything else on hold) there is no waiting for anything. I could have used some time to gather my thoughts before the enemas however! Not a fan.

About halfway through my visit the backup was cleared, the morphine was stopped and I was back on a liquid diet until I had a BM and then my diet was updated to anything I wanted to eat.
So because this whole kinked garden hose deal is not pleasant I asked why they don't just get this over with and reroute/reposition the plumbing since they know what & where the problem is. They know I'll be back in sooner versus later as I get older and my system works less efficiently. They can make an incision right where the 2004 incision is - it's relatively simple surgery - removing half my stomach, gall bladder and removing some intestines too about an hour last time. They are well aware of this. Well here's the main reason which sort of surprised me:
this would be considered "elective surgery". Let that sink in! Putting my guts back together so they function correctly is "elective surgery." EVERYTHING not involving COVID is elective surgery (even outpatient procedures) at this point. So yeah, the hospital is a ghost town. Everybody who does have an actual emergency that isn't just getting a few stitches or setting a broken bone gets the VIP treatment with their own room, their own nurse, a team of doctors floating around, etc. You order your meal over the phone and it's in your room almost before you put the phone down.

But I have my "go back to work" paperwork from the hospital so I'm only eating three days of vacation/personal time, so that's not too bad. Granted if I had done this over the three day Memorial Day weekend I wouldn't have used any vacation time, but that's not how things played out.

I lost about two or three pounds but it wasn't muscle or fat - it was just poop/digestive goo. I'll get back to homeostasis in a few days and level off to around 163 or so. Oh and I learned something new!
If you will be bed-ridden for any length of time, you are vulnerable to pneumonia because you aren't breathing real deep and using all of your lung power like you would when you are up and mobile.
This didn't apply to me this time, but if I'm ever bedridden for a while (like I was in 2004) I will use that plastic inhaler exerciser they showed me.

Oh and here's something funny! They have inflatable cuffs they can put around your calves that expand & contract while you are bedridden to pump blood evenly throughout your lower body so you don't get blood clots. Great idea....but they gave me nightmares! Oh hell yes - within minutes of falling asleep that steady undulating squeezing works it's way into your unconscious mind and causes nightmares - at least it did for me.

That reminds me, Facebook linked me to an account called Paladin Forger, which had no other mutural friends but because FB digs our info I'm pretty sure might have been you. Tererun said the same thing about FB linking him to Chup and she's not connected to the WF group online. Very creepy

I got the same friend recommendation.

Come to think of it, my phone has a record of every text I've received since I got this number in 2013 and the number he gave me for that meet up in Oakland is probably laying around in there somewhere