7 Year Girl Old Having Severe Pain Around Belly Button

A.,

I'm glad you finally took her to a doctor. The food log is important to determine if she's having food allergies.

The throat could be acid reflux.
The pain in her belly could be a hernia. If she has a fever and pain? It could be her appendix....as the pain can radiate and not feel like it's under her ribs.

Call the doctor that saw her and asked for the food log and tell him things are NOT changing and she's in pain. See what he/she says then.

I would keep track of my child's bowel movements, pain after eating and detail EVERYTHING they ate and drank...

Good luck!

I suggest that the breathing difficulty is caused by anxiety. I can think of no medical reason for the stomach and breathing symptoms to be related unless the stomach pain is also aanxiety related. You could check with the advise nurse.

I suggest that when she has trouble breathing its essential you remain calm while you reassure her she is ok. Have her take slow deep breaths while you count them. She will feel OK in a few minutes.

The difficulty breathing is not uncommon. I've seen it several times and experienced it myself once. She is OK. Keep track as the doctor asked. This will help to find a diagnosis. In the meantime try to be less anxious yourself. Tell her you're concerned, that the doctor will find out how to help her and in the meantime she's OK even tho she's uncomfortable. This is not life threatening.

I just read your previous post. Good to see specialists and have tests. Know that when they've all been done you may still not know why she's having pain. You will know that the pain is not caused by any illness known to these doctors and it's extremely unlikely that her life is in danger. Please consider the possibility that she was having some pain that is now made worse by her anxiety. Anxiety causes chemical changes in our body. Some bodies are more susceptible to this than others. Physical tension can cause tge body and joint aches you describe.

I know this from personal experience. When I was working I ached most of the time. My joints hurt. I had medical tests which found no cause. I also had very painful irregular periods. My primary care doctor told me that just because they coukd find nothing wrong didn't mean nothing was wrong. He said he would help me be more ccomfortable by treating the symptoms. Medicines did help.

Many years later the medical world became aware of endometriosis which turned out to be the cause for my menstrual difficulties. But I still had the body aches and joint pain. Twenty years ago I retired from a stressful job. Within a year the pain decreased. I have been free of joint pain and general body aches for many years now. I credit this to both less stress and recognising and treating my anxiety and depression.

I'm not saying your daughter is depressed but she certainly is anxious. She is sick and doesn't know why. Anyone would be scared by that. I am suggesting that her anxiety could be making the pain worse. It's very likely her breathing difficulty is caused by her reaction to her intense pain.

I urge you to give her the medication prescibed by the doctor. Unless he said to only give when she's in pain I would give it on a schedule. Sounds like the doctor suggested it because it has the potential to help. So give it a try. Doing so is part of the diagnostic process.

I am suggesting that she may have a physical cause for her symptoms but to try to be OK with whatever is found or not found. In the meantime treat the symptoms.

My son did the same exact thing last year during the school year. The pain was always around the belly button and he always felt like there was stuff in his throat that made it hard to breathe. Several ER trips and an endoscopy ruled out anything serious. He was diagnosed with GERD which the gastroenterologist said can sometimes be caused by a small virus and your body just didn't handle it right. He was put on acid meds and took tums and gas x when he felt like he needed it. Of course he is so scared of throwing up that he also developed some pretty serious anxiety that led to several other symptoms. He is now off all meds except for the occasional tums or gas x and if his anxiety flares the first thing he will say is he has pain around his belly button. Was she sick with a cold or anything right before this all started?

When my 8 year old was 6 her bio mom took her in for a hernia. I didn't think she needed it. I thought it was anxiety (which developed around bio mom and is made worse by bio mom).
She has a TON of anxiety related to food. She doesn't like to eat anywhere but home, she complains about her belly hurting if the food is not one of her favorites, she begs for food. Etc.etc. She's in counseling and talked to her wonderful nurses practitioner who assured her that she is a fine specimen! We don't have her on meds because we seem to have a handle on it at home and she sees bio mom very little.
I never tell her she has to finish her food or eat more food. When she's done occasionally I'll make a remark about how much she loved dinner.
Anyway, I agree with Marda and the other moms. It sounds like much more is going on here than physical symptoms. Call the doctor and explain you concerns.

Acid reflux can make you feel like there's something stuck in your throat.
I was concerned when I had that feeling (I'm hypothyroid and I thought something was happening with my thyroid gland - like it was growing) so my ENT dr scoped me (puts a scope down through the nose to look at the esophagus) and I was perfectly fine but he could see some irritation right before my stomach.
Sometimes where you're irritated and where you feel it are two different places.
Several weeks on Prilosec cleared it right up.

I respect what Marda has to say on this subject. This thing with her breath makes me suspect anxiety too.

Has she been checked for a hernia? My stomach hurt around my belly button when I had a hernia.

I recommend that when she has trouble with her breathing that you tell her that she is okay, and that you want her to trust you on this. Sit down with her and read her a book outloud, an interesting but calm story. Make sure that you spend time with her when she is feeling fine so that she doesn't unconsciencely do it to get attention.

I would not rule out constipation. My daughter had similar symptoms and was diagnosed with an impacted colon (after ruling out lactose intolerance, Crohn's, etc). Her whole colon was filled with hard stool. She pooped every day, sometimes pellet like (crumbles of the end of the hard stool) and sometimes soft (the intestinal walls stretch to allow soft stool to move around the column of hard stool). The pain was right around the belly button, she was often nauseous. The GI specialist prescribed a clean out routine for 2 days. After that she was placed on Miralax daily with decreasing doses weekly. We had quarterly check-ups until all was smooth and normal again. Impacted stool in the colon in her case was caused by being slightly dehydrated over long periods of time.
I would ask to see a GI specialist. Our pediatrician got it wrong too and put her on stomach acid reducers for 2 weeks which did absolutely nothing.

Sounds just like my daughter when she is constipated. She had a tummy ache off and on a lot this winter. I assumed it was nervous feelings. She was having a bowel movement every day. She had to have x-rays to clear a possible neck injury and all they found was a stopped up bowel.