What Causes Stomach Pain With Discomfort Around The Belly Button?

Posted on Wed, 30 Jul 2014

Question: Hello. I am a 28 year old female who has been having health problems lately. It all started about a month and half ago when I noticed a dull feeling next to my belly button. I went to the doctors and she said that it could be due to an ovarion cyst. I went to my obgyn and she ran an ultrasound of my kidneys and ovaries and everything looked good. Soon after, I started having intermittent flank pain and weird belly pains. The doctor ran blood work and everything came back great. At the time of my blood work, I did have a sore throat and fever for a week and a half. Furthermore my white blood cells were 9.3 out of 10.7 and absolute monocytes were .9 out of .9. The doctor also ran a urinalysis, lipase test, and thyroid test, which all came back good. I went to two gastroenterologists and they said that everything felt fine and think that I am fine. They ordered a abdominal scan and found that my spleen is 11.7 cm. They were not concerned. My PCP thinks that I had a very mild case of mono. I am scared to death that I have lymphoma due to the fact that I have back pain and odd feelings in my belly, I lost a few pounds in 6 weeks (I do breastfeed and am very stressed out), and my spleen is swollen. I do not have any swollen lymph nodes on me right now, but think that the weird feelings in my belly could be swollen lymph nodes. Could the doctors feel them or see them in the ultrasound?

Answered by Dr. Prashant Sharma (14 hours later)

Brief Answer:
don't worry

Detailed Answer:
Hi,

Yes, a good sonologist can see enlarged lymphnodes. Otherwise lymph nodes are very well seen in CT scan or MRI. But clinically I would like to say that your symptomatology does't indicate towards lymphoma. In lymphoma the lymphnodes are enlarged and one can easily palpate them or see on imaging studies.

As you said you are breast feeding, so these symptoms may be due to post-delivery status. After delivery a lot of hormonal changes occur in body. All abdominal viscera try to regain their normal size and position. So this may cause pain or other symptoms.

Further with lymphoma you may have increased WBC count, but only increase in monocyte count is not indicative. Spleen may get enlarged due to many causes including infection, malaria etc. So I would not think of lymphoma now.

Regards

Above answer was peer-reviewed by : Dr. Prasad

Follow up: Dr. Prashant Sharma (8 hours later)

Thank you for your reply. I woke up this morning with another sore throat, but no fever. I also feel very tired and my back pain and odd feeling in my belly feel worse. (Feels like knots on both sides of my belly button). My doctor thinks I had a mild case on mono, but would it come back a week and a half later? I am just so confused. Should I have them run a lyme test? I just wish I was starting to feel better. I thought about the hormonal changes as well and body getting back to normal after pregnancy, but my daughter will be a year old on July 15. What else so you think they could do of all my tests came back fine?

Answered by Dr. Prashant Sharma (46 hours later)

Brief Answer:
no harm in doing more tests.

Detailed Answer:
hi madam. 1 year after delivery is enough time for body to recover. there seems to be some pathology inside. one need to do a detailed examination and investigate into the cause. lyme test is done to detect lyme's disease, infection by borrelia. i do't know how much prevalent it is in ur region, so the decision to rule out lyme's disease is to be done by local consultants. the symptoms are non specific and there are many causes for these. repeat testing after an interval is a clue towards the progress of disease.
now at this point i feel help less for u. feel free to ask further.

Note: For further queries related to kidney problems Click here.

Above answer was peer-reviewed by : Dr. Vinay Bhardwaj