Stomach pain

What to do right now

• For mild pain without red flags: small sips of fluid, bland food once you feel like eating, and skip alcohol, caffeine, fatty meals, and NSAID painkillers like ibuprofen, which irritate the stomach lining.
• An antacid helps burning upper pain. A heating pad on low eases cramping.
• Do not take a laxative for undiagnosed pain, and do not eat a big meal to test whether it is better.
• Pain that is not clearly improving in a day or two, keeps returning, or wakes you at night is the point to get it checked.

What each location usually means

• Upper middle, burning or gnawing: gastritis, an ulcer, or acid reflux, often tied to meals or an empty stomach.
• Right upper, under the ribs: the gallbladder, especially after a fatty meal.
• Lower right, migrating from the navel and worsening: the classic appendicitis pattern.
• Lower left, with fever or bowel changes: diverticulitis, mostly in adults over 40.
• Generalized cramping with vomiting or diarrhea: usually a stomach bug or food poisoning.
• Cramping with bloating and no stool or gas passing: a possible blockage; get seen today.

None of these is a diagnosis on its own, but the location plus the time course narrows the field fast.

Common causes and risk factors

The everyday drivers are stomach bugs (viral gastroenteritis), food poisoning, acid irritation, constipation, gas, and period cramps. Food poisoning classically starts fast, within hours of the meal, and vomiting dominates early; several people who ate the same food getting sick is the giveaway. Viral stomach bugs build over a day, often add body aches or a low fever, and spread through households over days. Stress is a genuine cause too: the gut has its own nervous system wired straight into the stress response, so anxiety commonly causes real nausea, cramping, urgency, and appetite loss. The trap is assuming stress is the cause when the pain is new, one-sided, worsening, waking you at night, or paired with weight loss, blood, or fever. That pattern gets the physical causes looked at first.

How a clinician checks it

The history does most of the work: where exactly the pain is, whether it is constant or in waves, what makes it better or worse, fever, vomiting, and stool changes. A careful story rules the emergency patterns in or out surprisingly well, because most of those patterns announce themselves. The exam adds what the story cannot: where the tenderness sits, whether the belly is rigid, and whether the pain moves when pressed. Blood tests, urine tests, and imaging (ultrasound or CT) come in when the story and the exam point at something that needs them, like appendicitis, gallbladder disease, or a blockage.

Treatment

Treatment follows the cause. A stomach bug or food poisoning gets fluids in small sips, then bland food, and time, usually one to three days; antibiotics are not wanted for most cases. Burning upper pain from acid or gastritis responds to antacids or acid reducers and dropping the triggers. Constipation responds to fluids, fiber, and movement. The surgical causes (appendicitis, a blocked or perforated gut, a bad gallbladder) are fixed procedurally, which is exactly why the worsening, localized patterns cannot be watched at home.

Can telehealth help?

Text triage fits the large middle ground: crampy pain with a likely stomach bug, burning upper pain that sounds like reflux or gastritis, recurrent symptoms you want a plan for, and the "is this worth a visit" question itself. What text cannot do is press on your belly, so pain that is severe, localized and worsening, or paired with the red flags above needs hands on it the same day. Campus health centers handle stomach bugs and dehydration daily; after hours, an AI doctor text is a fast way to sort which bucket your pain is in. What campus health covers and when to use it.

How long it lasts

A stomach bug or food poisoning usually runs one to three days. Acid irritation settles over days to a couple of weeks once the trigger is removed. Pain from stress tracks the stress. The patterns that do not follow these arcs (worsening instead of easing, fixing in one spot, returning weekly, or waking you at night) are the ones that earn an exam.

Related guides

Sources

• MedlinePlus: Abdominal Pain
• NIDDK: Digestive Diseases