hi .. i am 15 years old , i was 14 at the time .. i had pains in my stomach and it got real bad and i had been vomiting all night. so i went to the emergency room they didnt do nothing , they said i had something else. i went to my doctors , they schedule me a upper Gi and when the results came back they said i had acid reflux. my pains became worse and i went back for a check up and they took a blood test and the notice my white blood count was high and sent me to Children Hospital King’s Daughter hospital and they gave me a cat scan like they was suspose to. The results came back and said i had to go into emergency surgery in 10 mins because your appendix exploded. Come to find out my appendix exploded 10 days ago the say i went to the 1st hospital. So the doctors said it was a miracle im still alive for having an exploded appendix in my system for 10 days. They had to move all my insides to clean all the poison and toxin in my body and stayed in the hospital longer then usually. now 6 months later i still get sharp sharp pain where my scar is. Sometimes is stops my daily life because it hurts so bad. My doctor said its normal but it continues to hurt me real bad and i dont know how. i need advice on it please

Doctor Joshua’s Answer:

You need to talk to your doctor again. It’s not common to develop chronic pain in abdominal scars, but it’s possible. It seems to me that scar tissue pain may be an underestimated problem. Referral to a plastic surgeon may be needed if the skin feels tight because of the scar tissue. A plastic surgeon may then opt to do a so-called Z-plasty to release the tension in the scar tissue. Drug treatment is also available for chronic pain. The treatment depends on the cause.

Clearly it’s not an acceptable situation to have such pain 6 months after the operation.

The most important thing in figuring out the cause of your pain is physical examination. I cannot make the diagnosis over the Internet, so talk to your doctor again and see if he/she can figure out what the problem is and refer you to the proper specialist if needed, or start drug treatment.