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Intense stomach pain after exercise
I'm a teenager, just sixteen and I eat pretty well, but also a good amount of sweets. For a few years I have been having intense pain in my stomach/abdominal area after I play soccer and/or run untill I'm very tired. I started going to my doctor first when I was thirteen about this and she has not the slightest idea what is going on. I read the tag about stomach pains after tennis and my syptoms sound very similar. I am in good shape and exercise regulairly, and it only happens on random days spread by weeks of no problems, and it only happens when I push myself to my limits. I have asthma, but I can outrun any person in my school so I do not think that is a problem. When it happens I usually can't sit still and it feels as if someone is driving a knife into my stomach. It only last for about an hour, and I find drinking water and eating helps ease the pain. If anyone has any ideas please get back to me because it has become more frequent recently and my parents worry it might be accociated with diabetes because my grandfather had it (type 2). thanks.
I'm suffering with pains during soccer practice since 2001, and I have visited so many Dr to the point I just give up. Now it part of my 2014 resolution to get back to my favored sport, I hopping to get help. Thanks
There are a lot of different things being discussed here, but a large majority of folks seem curious about why they get menstrual-type pain during exercise.
I can tell you why this happens:
DEHYDRATION. But it's not in the same way that our other muscles cramp when dehydrated.
The hormone your body makes when dehydrated is very similar to the hormone (oxytocin) that acts on your uterus to cause cramping. When you are dehydrated, the excess water-saving hormone is "read" by your uterine muscle as the cramp-causing hormone. Voila. When you rehydrate these cramps should abate. And this is exactly why we tell pregnant women to stay as hydrated as possible- to avoid any cramping.
Here's a cutesy blog post I did about this, to help explain:
http://realworldrunner.blogspot.com/2013/10/dehydration-causes-uterine-cramps.html
NB: I am a medical provider but nothing beats making an appointment to address your particular concerns.
I can tell you why this happens:
DEHYDRATION. But it's not in the same way that our other muscles cramp when dehydrated.
The hormone your body makes when dehydrated is very similar to the hormone (oxytocin) that acts on your uterus to cause cramping. When you are dehydrated, the excess water-saving hormone is "read" by your uterine muscle as the cramp-causing hormone. Voila. When you rehydrate these cramps should abate. And this is exactly why we tell pregnant women to stay as hydrated as possible- to avoid any cramping.
Here's a cutesy blog post I did about this, to help explain:
http://realworldrunner.blogspot.com/2013/10/dehydration-causes-uterine-cramps.html
NB: I am a medical provider but nothing beats making an appointment to address your particular concerns.
Hi I am a 46 y.o. male and I have similar issues. I play tennis without much problems but if I lift weights, especially when the abs are used, I'll get cramps that then lead to severe heartburn if I lay down flat when I go to sleep. So basically if I feel cramps I have to sleep sitting up. If I don't do ab workouts then the problem goes away. So basically I don't do ab work outs any more. Maybe I'll try stretching a ton before after and see if that helps
Hey all. 23 year old male here and I have the same issues, usually after soccer games where I do a lot of sprinting. I'll add something new that I hadn't seen in the thread yet; if I have any dairy the day of playing I will get the pain, period. Sometimes if I feel perfectly fine an hour after a game then I can safely have dairy but if I rush it then pain. Give this a shot, no dairy 24 hours before your intense workout. Also hydrate. Also there sell probiotic supplements instead of yoghurt.
I'm 17 @nd also experience the same problems. It started around 6 months ago. After my soccer games which is when I physically exert myself the most, I get sharp stabbing pains that feel like my stomach is gonna burst. The harder I work the more potent and longer the pain lasts. The problems seam to be getting progressively more noticeable. I think possibly it could be a slight relapse or side effect of heat exhaustion I went to the hospital for around 6-7 months ago. I also tried to eat less or eat more before and after exercise it doesn't seem to work. If you know something please help
Hello everyone,
I have read all of the above posts and there was some very useful information about what others are experiencing or have done to help with the pain. I am now 22 years old and have been through university. I dealt with the pain for years, never really figuring it out, but I progressively tried each thing to see if it would work. I eat regularly and hydrate well before exercise. I will list my results below for all to see:
1. Super-hydrating before workout: what a dumb idea this was. I can usually tell when I am dehydrated and super-hydrating simply made me throw up... no pain though, but I got nice and sick.
2. Drinking Gatorade/Powerade instead of water: this idea actually kind of worked. I didn't get the same pain afterwards, but I still experienced diarrhea after about 8 hours. After a few workouts of only Powerade the pain came back though.
3. Gastrointestinal ulcer: My mom is predisposed to ulcers in her stomach because of high acidity, so I asked my doctor about it. We concluded that it was probably not an ulcer because the pain only occurred after exercise, and when I went a month without exercising at all it went away.
4. Injury: I have had an injury to my ribs from playing football. It is around my heart area on the left side. I have been through physiotherapy for back pain and pain in that area. The back pain turned out to be cause by excessive movement in the L3-5 vertebrae. The excessive movement was from the lower most back muscles working hard to compensate for my upper layer back muscles which were not strong enough. This was related to me working on my abdominal muscles much more than my back muscles during workouts, and predominantly related to my football injury which turned out to be largely a muscle injury. I now work out my core muscles differently and stretch my left lower layer pectoral muscles before workouts. This may have been somewhat of a tangent, but it relates to how I found a way to minimize the pain (more on that in a bit).
5. Low blood sugar: Nope... tested, tested and tested. And on that note I have been tested for just about everything by now. I have quite a few allergies, so blood testing is pretty common for me.
6. Allergies/asthma: Okay so maybe not enough oxygen getting to the muscles? Nope, this may have been the case sometimes when I just exhausted myself while training - that can make me feel nauseous and have diarrhea, but not so much the pain. So probably asthma isn't the cause. I concluded this because I took a steroid inhalant which helped with asthma, but actually very detrimentally affected my immune system while on it, and that didn't change my pain at all. Allergies? Well actually I did find out I had allergies to a few things more that the rest, but for the most part changing my diet or working out in different gyms didn't help at all.
7. Diet: Now I found out that diet has a huge affect on energy and the amount of time you can exercise for before feeling burnt out. Believe me when I say that being a student athlete, you have to eat very well. If you don't watch your diet, you can get very sick. I had a period where I ate McDonalds and fast foods and made crappy meals. My energy plummeted and I got sick; surprise surprise. But for the most part my dieting only made it better to a point. It's all about the pasta and stir-fry! Oh, and nut-free protein bars tend to be so-so for exercise. If anything, use Special K shakes, not Boost, Ensure, or whey protein powder.
8. The way I exercise: Well for the most part I tried doing a lot of things differently and none of them helped. The thing that has helped the most for me has been strengthening my core muscles without sit-ups or any other back bending exercise. I used to be a sit-up maniac. Abs are nice to have, and it's a great way to tone, but ultimately this has been my bread and butter. After physiotherapy I realized that there are much better ways of working core muscles. Every time I clench them too much or work my abdominal muscles to the point of exhaustion then the pain is much worse. The best thing for me is working my abdominal and back muscles on the same day in between running. Running works your core in different ways, but if all the muscles are equally strong, the pain is much less.
9. Drink water! Okay so at first I said... haha... duh, you can't not and be a successful athlete. The problem was how I was going about it. I used to drink a lot of milk. During and before workouts I would drink bottled or gym tap water. Afterwards I might drink Powerade if it was a huge workout and then drink milk to help when my pain got really bad. Sometimes it would help, sometimes it wouldn't. I drank water intermittently between other drinks like juice, milk, and other drinks. I tried eating right after to possibly absorb acid, didn't help. The second most important thing for me has been drinking water all the time. I have a Britta bottle that filters my water from the tap. Bottled water is fine, but all day every day I swear does something to you because I tend to end up feeling sick from a couple weeks of bottled water. Tap water is fine as long as it is from a nice clear system, which is hard to find. At the moment I drink Britta bottle water. I don't train as hard as I used to, but when I do I actually stop drinking water near the end until a bit after the exercise.
10. Stretching: Stretching is a prerequisite before and after exercise, but now I make sure I stretch certain muscles that I didn't spend much time on before because I thought they were only used moderately in certain exercise. I make sure to stretch my abdominal and back muscles before and after runs, and when I get pain I lay on something softer that concrete and stretch my arms and legs out as far as they go while on my stomach.
I hope these things might help some of you with similar problems. The pain sometimes comes back, but not so much anymore, even when I do short intense workouts. if I get diarrhea then I take Immodium or Pepto. Good luck to all of you in finding a solution.
I have read all of the above posts and there was some very useful information about what others are experiencing or have done to help with the pain. I am now 22 years old and have been through university. I dealt with the pain for years, never really figuring it out, but I progressively tried each thing to see if it would work. I eat regularly and hydrate well before exercise. I will list my results below for all to see:
1. Super-hydrating before workout: what a dumb idea this was. I can usually tell when I am dehydrated and super-hydrating simply made me throw up... no pain though, but I got nice and sick.
2. Drinking Gatorade/Powerade instead of water: this idea actually kind of worked. I didn't get the same pain afterwards, but I still experienced diarrhea after about 8 hours. After a few workouts of only Powerade the pain came back though.
3. Gastrointestinal ulcer: My mom is predisposed to ulcers in her stomach because of high acidity, so I asked my doctor about it. We concluded that it was probably not an ulcer because the pain only occurred after exercise, and when I went a month without exercising at all it went away.
4. Injury: I have had an injury to my ribs from playing football. It is around my heart area on the left side. I have been through physiotherapy for back pain and pain in that area. The back pain turned out to be cause by excessive movement in the L3-5 vertebrae. The excessive movement was from the lower most back muscles working hard to compensate for my upper layer back muscles which were not strong enough. This was related to me working on my abdominal muscles much more than my back muscles during workouts, and predominantly related to my football injury which turned out to be largely a muscle injury. I now work out my core muscles differently and stretch my left lower layer pectoral muscles before workouts. This may have been somewhat of a tangent, but it relates to how I found a way to minimize the pain (more on that in a bit).
5. Low blood sugar: Nope... tested, tested and tested. And on that note I have been tested for just about everything by now. I have quite a few allergies, so blood testing is pretty common for me.
6. Allergies/asthma: Okay so maybe not enough oxygen getting to the muscles? Nope, this may have been the case sometimes when I just exhausted myself while training - that can make me feel nauseous and have diarrhea, but not so much the pain. So probably asthma isn't the cause. I concluded this because I took a steroid inhalant which helped with asthma, but actually very detrimentally affected my immune system while on it, and that didn't change my pain at all. Allergies? Well actually I did find out I had allergies to a few things more that the rest, but for the most part changing my diet or working out in different gyms didn't help at all.
7. Diet: Now I found out that diet has a huge affect on energy and the amount of time you can exercise for before feeling burnt out. Believe me when I say that being a student athlete, you have to eat very well. If you don't watch your diet, you can get very sick. I had a period where I ate McDonalds and fast foods and made crappy meals. My energy plummeted and I got sick; surprise surprise. But for the most part my dieting only made it better to a point. It's all about the pasta and stir-fry! Oh, and nut-free protein bars tend to be so-so for exercise. If anything, use Special K shakes, not Boost, Ensure, or whey protein powder.
8. The way I exercise: Well for the most part I tried doing a lot of things differently and none of them helped. The thing that has helped the most for me has been strengthening my core muscles without sit-ups or any other back bending exercise. I used to be a sit-up maniac. Abs are nice to have, and it's a great way to tone, but ultimately this has been my bread and butter. After physiotherapy I realized that there are much better ways of working core muscles. Every time I clench them too much or work my abdominal muscles to the point of exhaustion then the pain is much worse. The best thing for me is working my abdominal and back muscles on the same day in between running. Running works your core in different ways, but if all the muscles are equally strong, the pain is much less.
9. Drink water! Okay so at first I said... haha... duh, you can't not and be a successful athlete. The problem was how I was going about it. I used to drink a lot of milk. During and before workouts I would drink bottled or gym tap water. Afterwards I might drink Powerade if it was a huge workout and then drink milk to help when my pain got really bad. Sometimes it would help, sometimes it wouldn't. I drank water intermittently between other drinks like juice, milk, and other drinks. I tried eating right after to possibly absorb acid, didn't help. The second most important thing for me has been drinking water all the time. I have a Britta bottle that filters my water from the tap. Bottled water is fine, but all day every day I swear does something to you because I tend to end up feeling sick from a couple weeks of bottled water. Tap water is fine as long as it is from a nice clear system, which is hard to find. At the moment I drink Britta bottle water. I don't train as hard as I used to, but when I do I actually stop drinking water near the end until a bit after the exercise.
10. Stretching: Stretching is a prerequisite before and after exercise, but now I make sure I stretch certain muscles that I didn't spend much time on before because I thought they were only used moderately in certain exercise. I make sure to stretch my abdominal and back muscles before and after runs, and when I get pain I lay on something softer that concrete and stretch my arms and legs out as far as they go while on my stomach.
I hope these things might help some of you with similar problems. The pain sometimes comes back, but not so much anymore, even when I do short intense workouts. if I get diarrhea then I take Immodium or Pepto. Good luck to all of you in finding a solution.
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