How to identify an attack of appendicitis in women

2024 Author: James Gerald | [email protected]. Last modified: 2024-01-12 17:37

Appendicitis is a collective term that can denote the appendix in the intestine, an acute condition requiring urgent surgical intervention at the initial stage and during the period of complications. In the inflammatory process, the symptoms in women are variable.

A specialist knows how to determine at home that it is appendicitis. Photos of the location of the gallbladder and appendix show that from which side the pain appears, it often does not matter.

Briefly about the problem

A separate area of surgical diseases - abdominal surgery - deals with the treatment of appendicitis. The need to separate it into a separate segment was dictated by several common conditions - pathologies of the liver and pancreas, gallbladder, gastric ulcer, intestines and duodenal ulcer, and inflammation of the appendix.

The term is formed from the name of the appendix and the Latin - "it", meaning inflammation. As with any similar process, it can proceed in acute and chronic form, but abdominal surgeons prefer to solve the problem in a cardinal way, especially in the acute stage - by excision.

Despite the frequency of occurrence, even surgeons with vast practical experience constantly learn something new about this disease, which creates certain difficulties in diagnosing and performing an operation.

The appendix, which synthesizes intestinal juice in an insignificant amount, can have anatomical features of its location in different people: cases of detection in the pelvic, biliary or liver regions, and even in the front of the stomach, are described, if the patient has a mirror-like arrangement of internal organs. There are options when the appendix is found under the liver, retrocecal and retroperitoneally, connects with the kidney, exocrine gland, smooth muscles.

1. The size of the appendix can vary from 2 to 30 cm, there are different lengths of the mesentery, sometimes it is completely absent, the symptoms of appendicitis in women can occur against the background of other inflammatory processes characteristic of the female body (in the abdominal cavity or in the pelvic organs), develop on background of flowing menstruation.
2. It can be difficult to determine the pathology at home because of the etiology of inflammation (it is very wide - from swallowed small objects that blocked the lumen of the appendix to the presence of worms and a bacterial infection, which determines some uncharacteristic signs).
3. A separate method, how to recognize an urgent surgical condition, and not only in women, requires each stage of the development of pathology - the symptoms can be distorted after taking painkillers taken by the patient, in the hope that everything will resolve, (they blur the clinical picture), change depending on the threatening the stage to which appendicitis is brought at home. If acute appendicitis has received complications, at a certain stage the pain goes away and its absence, and there is the most threatening sign.

Acute appendicitis is figuratively called insidious and multifaceted, dangerous and unpredictable. Fighting with him, over the last century alone, practical surgeons have described more than 120 symptoms, in their opinion, allowing this time, for sure, to accurately cope with the task of how to determine that this is an acute inflammation of the appendix.

In many cases, there are factors that complicate the differentiation of a negative state from other pathological processes in the abdominal cavity and pelvic organs.

It is especially difficult to recognize symptoms in women - it is illiterate to focus on pain in the right side at home and make a diagnosis against its background. It is necessary to determine what specific acute process is taking place, and without laboratory and apparatus research, this cannot be done.

Symptoms and stages

The problem of how to determine that the symptoms indicate appendicitis is especially acute for the surgeon, if the call for help was delayed. At the catarrhal stage in both men and women, the symptoms are very similar to food poisoning - diarrhea, nausea and vomiting are accompanied by a painful symptom.

With the same probability, it is possible to assume an exacerbation of gallstone disease (in women it occurs more often than in the male half), with similar symptoms and localization of pain.

If you continue to endure at home, after 16 hours (and sometimes even earlier), a second, more dangerous stage occurs - phlegmonous. It differs from catarrhal only in more pronounced pain attacks, which become difficult to ignore and cannot be stopped. This is the only way to determine that it is impossible to eliminate a dangerous condition at home.

External relief of appendicitis symptoms occurs at the gangrenous stage. In the affected area, nerve endings die off, and they stop transmitting pain impulses to the brain. How to treat such a condition with conservative methods - no way, since at home the next stage begins - the perforated one.

The walls of the appendix are destroyed, necrotic areas are formed on them, and then holes. Ultimately, the purulent contents of the appendix spill out into the abdominal cavity. It is not possible to cure peritonitis even in the operating room in all cases, and if it happened at home, the prognosis is often negative.

Symptoms in women

Even experienced surgeons do not know how to determine that a woman has an acute inflammation of the appendix without laboratory and hardware studies. Nausea and vomiting, loss of strength, disgusting health are characteristic of any inflammatory process in the body that occurs in an exacerbation stage.

Such symptoms may indicate food poisoning, acute cholecystitis, liver disease, pyelonephritis, colitis, and bowel obstruction. Pain in the right side indicates fewer possible possibilities, but the peculiarities of the anatomical location or the specific state of pregnancy in women make it difficult how to determine appendicitis.

Here are the common symptoms that are characteristic of other pathologies:

• high temperature is a sign of any acute inflammatory process, viral infection;
• nausea and vomiting are a sign of many urgent conditions, poisoning, exacerbations of a chronic process;
• lack of appetite, high fatigue and decreased performance are characteristic of any severe disease;
• pain in the right side can signal not only the appendix, but also liver or biliary diseases;
• during pregnancy, pain can be caused by spasm of smooth muscles, a threat of miscarriage, false contractions;
• during the menstrual cycle, pain from the reproductive system radiates to part of the gastrointestinal tract, since the genitourinary system and intestines are located in close proximity.

It is almost impossible to name the symptoms that absolutely accurately indicated acute appendicitis, if this issue has not been specially studied. But even experienced surgeons can confuse its manifestations with other emergency conditions due to uncharacteristic signs, features of the anatomical structure, size and location of the insidious appendix.

The location of the pain on the right side does not always mean the presence of acute appendicitis, but should always be accompanied by a full examination.

Bonus

Acute appendicitis in women is a dangerous condition, for the detection of which an examination is required in a medical institution:

1. The structure and location of the reproductive system suggests the possibility of pathologies in this area.
2. At an early stage, it is easy to confuse it with other diseases, less dangerous, and, trying to cope with them at home, you can bring the condition to the point of no return.
3. Diagnosis of appendicitis is carried out by a variety of methods, not always informative.
4. To cure acute appendicitis with medication is an almost impossible task. You can just die of peritonitis.