Hello All! I'm so glad that I found this forum! We just went through this with our young son. Several times he has had pain originating in the middle of his stomach and then gravitating toward the right side. But never with fever and always short lived. Recently he had the same bout with pain but also developed a fever. Spent a couple days at the hospital -- appendix enlarged/inflammed on the CT scan, but no elevation of WBC count, nothing wrong with rest of blood work, no naseau/vomiting/diahrrea, good appetite. They released him because the pain went away. Because he still had a fever they decided it was viral. Three days later pain returned, along with the fever, and vomiting. Back to the ER, and they removed his appendix that night. Also noted enlarged lymph glands in abdomen. Pathology: inflammed appendix showing signs of chronic enlargement and irritation. Bottom line - he didn't have acute appendicitis, but the appendix needed to come out. Still don't know if the lymph glands were enlarged because of a virus or because of the inflammation in the appendix. Could be that all of the symptoms were caused by the virus and they happened upon this appendix that was going bad; could be that the bad appendix caused all of the symptoms.

I'm just glad it is overwith.

P.S. Family history of on and off pain on right side with ultimate appendectomys. Doc says if you take out the appendix and the pain goes away -- the appendix was the problem all along.

Hi All.

I'm hoping that finding this forum can help.
Since 9/27/2009 I have been having lower right abdominal pain ( started lower right side near my navel and goes above my hip bone), fever, nausea, slight temp, and loss of appetitte ( sp ? ). I went to urgent care, they sent me to ER oth did urine test ( clean ), er did blood and ct scan- my white blood count was up but everything else was clean and normal. They told me it was something I ate and sent me home.
Two days later , doubled over in pain, I went to my Dr. He checked me over and said I had an inflamation in my colon. Put me on cipro and pain meds and wanted to see me the following Monday. Went back- everything was the same. So he gave me more antibiotics and had me come back again. Fever and nausea had started to decline. But still had tenderness in my right side. Three weeks later, had a few really good days and went back to work. Then, suddenly the pain was back ( not so bad in the am after first waking up, but after an hour of physical activity it was constant and getting worse ), fever, nausea, and temp came back ( running between normal 98.6 in the am to 99.7 by evening ). He set me up for a colonoscopy ( not till December ) and appointment with a surgeon.

My doc didn't order anymore test after the ER visit. So the surgeon had a bit of an attitude with me. He sent me for blood work and ct scan ( 11/5/09 ). This time both are normal. So he said It could be IBS and I had to live with it and refused to do anymore. ( 11/ 9/09 ). The pain eased up again and I felt a little better for a few days. Around 3:30 Thursday morning it started again. Same symptoms only now I am tired all the time, nausea, pain, and feel feverish even though I'm minus the temp. ( last I checked it was 98.7 ). It bothers me when sleeping ( change postion alot! ), sitting straight up, walking, and bending. ( I work in a hospital as a nurse assistant, so this really effects my job.
Since everything is normal the surgeon won't test further nor do any exploritory surgery. Does this sound anything like what you all have been through?
Sorry so long. Thank you all. Hope you are doing well.

I have to say that this forum was a lifesafer-literally. I want to explain my situation and I hope that this helps other people who are in desperate need of help.

Two months ago I started having horrible pains in my right side. I thought that I was just having problems with an ovarian cyst because I have had problems with them in the past. After about a week of really intense pain it started to get worse and I decided to go to the ER. When I got there they immediately started telling me that it was probably appendicitis but they needed to do some testing. They did a CT, full blood work,Ultrasound, urine work-up and gave me pain meds through an IV. The doc said that the ultrasound showed that I had a uterun fibroid but that it was very small and that it would not be causing that much pain. She gave me the option of staying a day or two for pain control. I left that night still in pain and frustrated because I didn't have any answers. After another two weeks of pain I went to my OBGYN who had done a surgery on a ovarian cyst before. She said that she would do a laproscopy even though she didnt think she would find anything. I said I wanted to wait and see if the pain went away. The pain got progressively worse. I have never felt so much pain in my life and I was completly unable to walk or work. I would be fine and then I would have a pain attack and it would literally send me down to the floor crying. Five days after my visit with the OBGYN I called her and begged for surgery. I had the laproscopy two days later. She took pics of the ovaries, appendix and the area around it. She said that everything looked good and she wasn't able to fit anything. I came out of surgery very upset after learning that nothing had been done to help me.

I then spend another two weeks in horrible pain and finally decided to find the answer myself. I spent hours upon hours searching the internet comparing my symptoms to those of others with similar symptoms and stories. I found this site and a few others that seemed to talk about almost the exact same thing I had been dealing with. I thought that I had chronic appendicitis and I decided that I needed to find a doctor that would not only listen to me but would do elective surgery on me. As most of you know chronic appendicitis is very hard to diagnose and to get doctors to agree with that diagnosis. I took about 25 pages of reports and info showing that other doctors had seen this same type of thing with others.

I went to my family doctor and I described my long situation, the info I had found on line and my family history. In 1985 my mother had almost the exact same situation and she ended up going to the mayo clinic where a doctor had said that he wanted to take the appendix out just to see if that was it. She was instantly better after having the appendix removed. I explained this to my family doctor and she said she had seen a couple cases similar to this and she referred me to a surgeon.

I went to the surgeon the next day. I brought all the test results from the ER, the pics from the larposcopy, the OBGYN's surgery notes and all the stuff I found online. I explained the whole situation while he listened and his answer was that there was absolutely nothing wrong with my appendix. I asked him what he thought it was and he had absolutely no answers and no other tests for me to do in order to find an aswer. After explaining about my mothers situation (she was with me) he said that her doctor was a bad surgeon and should have had his license taken away because he had made a bad decision. I told him that if he wouldnt take my appendix out that I would find another doctor that would so it wasnt going to stop me, it would just cause me more pain and time. After arguing back and forth he finally threw his hands in the air and said that he would take my appendix out but he was completly against this and that it would not fix anything. His comment was, "if I am going to start taking out organs that are not having problems why dont I just go in and take our your gallbladder and anything else I see while I am in there." I then said, "why the hell dont you, maybe I will feel better then!"

I was scheduled for a laproscopy appendectomy three days later. He came to see me before surgery and kept repeating that this was a waste of time and money and that nothing was wrong with my appendix. After surgery he came out and spoke to my parents and said that the appendix was perfect and that this was NOT the problem at all. I would be in just as much pain as I was before and we had wasted his time.

A week later while recovering at home I noticed that I had NOT had the pain anymore and that besides healing from surgery I felt much better. I called the doctors office to get the results of the pathology report from my appendix. I was so happy to hear the results that I started to cry while on the phone. The report showed that part of the appendix was hemmoraging and was leaking pus and fluid into my abdominal cavity. The lymph nodes were very swollen and that it appeared that I had ACUTE APPENDICITIS probably a month or two ago but that it had somewhat resolved itself. The pain I was feeling was not only my appendix swelling but the fluid being leaked into my body. I almost fell out of my chair when the nurse told me that based on the report I was very lucky that I had the surgery when I did. She said that I would have ended up with it rupturing and having a serious infection which could be deadly. She said that if would have only been a few days or weeks until I would have really been in bad shape.

So, I find out that after the ER told me I was fine, the OBGYN had taken pics saying it was fine and the surgeon who took it out told me it was fine, IT WAS NOT FINE AND I HAD ACUTE APPENDICITIS FOR ALMOST TWO MONTHS!!!

I have a post-op appointment with the surgeon next week and I can not tell you how excited I am going to be to tell him to go to hell and that he needs to listen to his patients.

I wanted to share my story with you because it is so frustrating when you know that something is wrong and nobody will believe you. Through this ordeal I ended up in the ER four times and got the same answer every single time- your fine, go home. Please take your health in your own hands and fight for your rights. I am happy to say that it has all ended well, but there was no reason for me to go through two months of excruicating pain and suffering because nobody would listen to me.

If anybody needs any advice or would like any more info from me please feel free to write me. It is because of this exact site and a few others that I was able to diagnose myself and search out the right answer. I could have died because nobody listened to me, they just blew me off. I hope this helps other people. By the way I am a 26 year old female. I think that doctors also dont listen to the compaints of women as much or they automatically assume that its a "womans problem". I had two surgeries in two weeks because of all this ordeal. BUT finally I am feeling great.