Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Have him show you where it hurts (lower abdomen, just below ribs, behind ribs), then call the ped.

When my son was about 4 with a tummy ache I finally thought to do that. Turns out it was a tummy ache in his throat........

Once he was treated for strep the “tummy” ache went away

PP here (nanny). Kids age 3-6 will often say “My tummy hurts” without really paying attention to where the discomfort is.

My kindergartener had this a lot at the start of the year. Thankfully it’s gotten better. But she would have tummy aches almost every day at school around the same time of day. She didn’t have them on the weekends. I asked her if anything was worrying her— she said no. Though she did talk (separately) about how hard it is to sit still so much at school, and her tummy aches coincided with carpet/circle time. We couldn’t find a dietary link. I think it was either nerves or related to bathroom habits at home vs school.

No, it is not clear.

PP with the 6 year old who had strep with only vague stomach pain for 10 days.

My Husband took him tot he Doctor on day 5 and they could find nothing wrong. Kid kept telling us every day that his tummy hurt. Not bad enough to throw up but it hurt. We talked to his Teacher to see if something was happening at school, there wasn't anything that she could see. We took him back to the Doctor. The Doctor did a more through physical exam, lots of probbing with the hands looking for known issues and found nothing. He ordered a blood panel to look for something. I mentioned that Strep was running around DS school so he tested for strep and strep it was.

Both visits checked the throat. There was never a fever. Only the strange, unexplained tummy pain.

It was crazy. Our Doctor did some research while we were there and found that there is a very small percentage of people who present this way with Strep. It was the first time he had seen it and he has been in practice for over 20 years.

The antibiotics cleared the Strep and the tummy pain went away.

To me, the pattern you describe suggests either anxiety (probably related to school) or GERD/acid reflux, which tends to be worse in the morning on an empty stomach and improves w/in 30 minutes of eating, typically.

The strep/stomachache thing is real (my daughter's stomach always hurts w/ strep, though her throat does too), but there's no reason it would be every morning in particular.

OP again, for the people saying this might be strep... wouldn't the strep eventually clear?

The pattern right now is: DS wakes up every morning, gets dressed, comes into my room and says his tummy hurts. He crawls into bed with me and we snuggle.

He says it hurts one more time before we get into the car to go to school, and I reassure him that if he's feeling bad, he can always tell a teacher and I'll come get him right away.

Then I generally don't hear much about it for the rest of the day.

Appetite is fine. No complaints about anything else. We're on about 2 weeks of this now.

I asked him this morning if he wanted to go to the doctor and he said no.

I've googled strep + tummy pain and wow, those stories that come up are not great to read for a worried mom! But most worrisome is that those people who had those awful reactions were swapped for Strep but it wasn't in their throats, it was elsewhere.

I talked to my ped advice line nurse earlier in the week and she said that if it's still continuing a week later, the ped's office will schedule a 30 minute consult to go over a plan of action.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I don't understand all the quasi-medical questions on DCUM. Do your doctor's offices not have nurse's lines? This is exactly what the nurse's line is for. Call the nurse's line and see what they tell you to do.

This is so dumb. When you're a woman, and you show up with a kid (literally, the two least taken seriously demographics by doctors) with vague descriptions of a tummy ache, the doctor is clearly going to say 'keep an eye on it', 'try keeping track of food and activities and see if you notice a pattern', 'it's really common for kids to complain of tummy aches - it's usually nothing'. Basically everything that posters are saying on here. What would a doctor possibly say that's different?

Point is: when it's non-testable issues, crowd sourcing thoughts from parents is going to be as good or better than going to a doctor.

Plus if you have high deductible insurance you end up paying $200 for nothing.

Anonymous wrote:Have him show you where it hurts (lower abdomen, just below ribs, behind ribs), then call the ped.

When my son was about 4 with a tummy ache I finally thought to do that. Turns out it was a tummy ache in his throat........

Once he was treated for strep the “tummy” ache went away

Chronic stomach aches could be anxiety. Other causes could include constipation or food intolerance.

My DD had “belly button pain” for days but was otherwise happy, playing etc. Then a notice came out from school that there’d been a strep exposure and that night she said “my throat feels funny”. It was strep and the doctor said sometimes the only sign is belly pain especially from the belly button area. About a year later she said “my belly button has been hurting” and I’d had strep a few weeks earlier and I whisked her off to urgent care. The doctor looked at me like I had 3 heads (daughter hopped up on table, was singing and laughing etc) but her strep test was positive.

Anonymous wrote:I don't understand all the quasi-medical questions on DCUM. Do your doctor's offices not have nurse's lines? This is exactly what the nurse's line is for. Call the nurse's line and see what they tell you to do.

This is so dumb. When you're a woman, and you show up with a kid (literally, the two least taken seriously demographics by doctors) with vague descriptions of a tummy ache, the doctor is clearly going to say 'keep an eye on it', 'try keeping track of food and activities and see if you notice a pattern', 'it's really common for kids to complain of tummy aches - it's usually nothing'. Basically everything that posters are saying on here. What would a doctor possibly say that's different?

Point is: when it's non-testable issues, crowd sourcing thoughts from parents is going to be as good or better than going to a doctor.

another person who thinks this can be "anxiety" with a lower case 'a'. I spent most of my childhood having off and on low grade tummy aches. Nothing specific, and as an adult i don't have any anxiety (but I am type A). I remember reading an article 5 years ago in the Ny times that something like 60% of elementary age girls express physical symptoms of low grade stress, but it's not diagnosable as anxiety. more like nervousness. if you think about feeling "nervous" about something, it's a pit in your stomach feeling.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Maybe not an issue if he's otherwise healthly but at that age a stomachache complaint with my kids often turned out the be strep

For 10 straight days tho?

Yes. We took DS to the doctor after 5 days of an unidentified tummy ache and there was nothing wrong. He kept complaining about a tummy ache so we took him back. He had strep.

We had that happen last year with our 6 year old. Turns out he had strep. Some kids it presents as a stomach ache. Go figure. He took the antibiotics and the pain went away.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:This happened with my DS in kindergarten. We finally figured out it was a nervous belly. He never had specific complaints or worries about school, etc. but it just manifested in complaints of his tummy hurting. Some extra TLC, unstructured playdates with school friends, and time made the complaints go away.

Yes. My DD is 5 too. She will off and on complain about her stomach, but then will eat lunch fine, play just fine etc. She used to say it in the morning. I normally ask her if she needs to poop, and then offer some water, and a "let's see if that helps" kind of thing. I do suspect some of it is just general nerves about school, the week, SOMETHING and I don't think she can explain it. I have stared just asking "is there something about school making you feel nervous?" and occasionally I get a dumping of how some game isn't going her way or the like.

+100 on the unstructured time. My DD was just telling me how having someone else tell you what to do all the time was just SO HARD. It really is. They need time to just BE.

THIS. Folks, kindergarten is hard for them. Even if they can't really articulate it and even if they seem happy to go and generally are doing well, it's just a huge adjustment. When you think about it, they control so little of what they're doing and their day.

DS is still in preschool. But he's that age, so maybe there's something development happening right now that's causing this...

Anonymous wrote:Maybe not an issue if he's otherwise healthly but at that age a stomachache complaint with my kids often turned out the be strep

For 10 straight days tho?