Pain from an abruption or scar tissue??

For the last couple days, I've had a horrible sharp stabbing pain just below my rib cage almost in the middle of my abdomen. There's even been some swelling where it hurts. It's a weird pain, because its more on the surface than anything else. My shirt brushing against it makes it go and so does moving the muscles under it. But, when one of the babies kicks or rolls under it, it doesn't make the pain flare up. I've been able to ice it and get some relief and taking tylenol has helped a bit too (but I don't want to keep taking tylenol all day). I usually have a pretty high tolerance for pain, but this feels like i have little shards of glass in me and it's making me crazy!

So, today at my NST/BPP I asked the nurse if she could see anything in that area that could cause the pain. She moved the u/s wand over (which hurt something fierce) and couldn't really see anything. She said there was connective tissue there and it could, possibly be the beginning of an abruption. BUT she also said if it was an abruption, she would expect the babies to not be doing so well and she'd expect me to be having more real contractions. I'm going in for my growth scan on Tuesday, so she suggested I have them look at it then. Right now, we suspect that it could be scar tissue stretching from when I had my gallbladder removed (about 7 years ago) since the pain is right around the biggest scar from that surgery. In the meantime, I'm supposed to watch for reduced fetal movement, contractions or bleeding and go in right away if any of that happens.

Has anyone else had this kind of pain? Or a placental abruption? Or scar tissue that was painful?

Thanks everyone! ~Laura

BTW - The babies passed their NST/BPP with flying colors AND baby B has flipped AGAIN to breech since Wednesday!

 

For the last couple days, I've had a horrible sharp stabbing pain just below my rib cage almost in the middle of my abdomen. There's even been some swelling where it hurts. It's a weird pain, because its more on the surface than anything else. My shirt brushing against it makes it go and so does moving the muscles under it. But, when one of the babies kicks or rolls under it, it doesn't make the pain flare up. I've been able to ice it and get some relief and taking tylenol has helped a bit too (but I don't want to keep taking tylenol all day). I usually have a pretty high tolerance for pain, but this feels like i have little shards of glass in me and it's making me crazy!

So, today at my NST/BPP I asked the nurse if she could see anything in that area that could cause the pain. She moved the u/s wand over (which hurt something fierce) and couldn't really see anything. She said there was connective tissue there and it could, possibly be the beginning of an abruption. BUT she also said if it was an abruption, she would expect the babies to not be doing so well and she'd expect me to be having more real contractions. I'm going in for my growth scan on Tuesday, so she suggested I have them look at it then. Right now, we suspect that it could be scar tissue stretching from when I had my gallbladder removed (about 7 years ago) since the pain is right around the biggest scar from that surgery. In the meantime, I'm supposed to watch for reduced fetal movement, contractions or bleeding and go in right away if any of that happens.

Has anyone else had this kind of pain? Or a placental abruption? Or scar tissue that was painful?

Thanks everyone! ~Laura

BTW - The babies passed their NST/BPP with flying colors AND baby B has flipped AGAIN to breech since Wednesday!

 

I had pain like that, the first time it was my liver from having preeclampsia, then the next was gallstones, then the next was the liver again and teh last time it was because of gallstones again with no gallbladder . Id ask to get checked out...hows your bp? Any headaches, visual changes, swelling?

 

I do have swelling in my legs and feet and i've had headaches. My BP has been fine though, low actually and my protein looks good. I've had no visual changes other than some blurring from not wearing my glasses (they make my headaches worse).

How, pray tell, do you have gallstones with no gallbladder?? This pain is very different from when I had my gallstones before, but then again I wasn't pregnant with twins before and all my internal stuff was where its supposed to be.

Thanks for the info! I'm going to keep pushing for answers on this one. I hurts too much to be "normal pregnancy stuff".

Laura

 

I had abruption, but no pain specifically from that. I didn't actually know you could feel pain from the abruption, but it doesn't sound like an unreasonable theory.

I also had a ton of scar tissue--I'd had a laproscopy for endometriosis, with some scarring from the surgery as well as some remaining scarring from the endo. That hurt bad...both my DR and I knew it was that, because it started to hurt as soon as my belly got big enough to stretch the area of one of my surgery scars. It wasn't a big medical deal, it just hurt pretty good in that spot, mainly toward the surface...not really deep inside.

HTH!
-penny

 

Penny,
That completely describes my pain! It's kinda on the surface and right around the scar from my laproscopic gallbladder surgery. It hurt a little before, but got really bad after the babies dropped, which is stretching the top of my stomach in a whole new way.

That helps a lot and calms my nerves. I'll still see if the U/S guy can see any of it while we're there on Tuesday. And I may have to ask for some better pain meds when I'm at the OBs on Weds. But at least I feel like I can relax and try to ignore it instead of analyze it every time it flares up.

Thank you very much!
Laura

 

quote:
Originally posted by Laura in Alaska:


How, pray tell, do you have gallstones with no gallbladder?? This pain is very different from when I had my gallstones before, but then again I wasn't pregnant with twins before and all my internal stuff was where its supposed to be.




It wierd, I know, I never thought I could possibly be one of the rare ones that would still produce stones. Apparently the body can just make them, especially in pregnancy, and instead of them being stuck in the gallbladder, they were in the common bile duct, it caused pancreatitis and and enlarged liver because they were blocking the common bile duct. I also had jaundice becuase of it and spent 3 or 4 days in the hospital. I was also misdiagnosed 2 times before they did the ERCP the week that I started having problems because they didnt see them on ultrasound or ct scan or even on xray. It wasnt until they went in searching for an answer.