Besides the point, they should have never sent you home without doing further test to determine the problem.I agree. You need to go back to the hospital. So irresponsible on their part. My mother had pancreatis, and had pain somewhat similar, however, it moved into not being able to breathe well. It's a condition you want to rule out though. And pleurisy I've had as well. It does sound like that from your description. But geeez, you shouldn't have to be on Free Republic to diagnose your condition. Shame on your hospital's employees; I'll be offering up some aves (Hail Marys) for you.
The single most common diagnosis of abdominal pain in the ER is “unspecified abdominal pain”. We see patients all the time with abdominal pain and can’t come up with a specific diagnosis. I don’t know what labs they ran but probably a CBC, Chem panel, LFTs, Lipase and Urinalysis and an abdominal series xray. If they did those the only additional test I could think of to add would be an abdominal CT. This test is NOT benign. There’s a high radiation dose and IV contrast that affects the kidneys. It takes about 3 hours to do.
People the job of the ER is to identify those in immediate risk, not diagnose everything. We can’t. They didn’t just kick her out, they offered pain relief and follow up with a gastroenterologist. Every set of discharge instructions includes “come back if you feel your symptoms are worse”. Remember this person said the problem had been ongoing for weeks, that makes it less likely to be an acute process.
To all those here who are tossing out diagnosis without getting a history, doing an exam, seeing vital signs, lab results, effects of medication etc etc etc, go try and practice medicine in an ER and see how simple it is.
Thank you.