Abdominal pain medical therapy

Resident Survival Guide

Editor-In-Chief: C. Michael Gibson, M.S., M.D. [1]

If there is mild abdominal pain, the following tips might be helpful:

• Sip water or other clear fluids.
• Avoid solid food for the first few hours.
• If there is vomiting wait for 6 hours, and then eat small amounts of mild foods such as rice, applesauce, or crackers. Dairy products should be avoided.
• If the pain is high up in the abdomen and occurs after meals, antacids may help, especially if there is heartburn or indigestion. Avoid citrus, high-fat foods, fried or greasy foods, tomato products, caffeine, alcohol, and carbonated beverages.
• Avoid aspirin, ibuprofen or other anti-inflammatory medications, and narcotic pain medications.

Non-pharmaceutical approaches to treating CFAP also overlap with treatments for irritable bowel syndrome. This includes enteric coated peppermint oil capsules, which act as anti-spasmodics to relax the gut and also have pain-killing properties due to the methyl salicylate that naturally occurs in peppermint. Gut-directed hypnotherapy or self-hypnosis can also mitigate the hyperreactive nervous system of CFAP, and help alleviate abdominal pain.

Abdominal pain in the absence of diarrhea is considered an absolute contraindication to the use of the following medications:

• Loperamide

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