Rumbling in the stomach: causes, types and treatment

There are times when our stomachs growl and we wonder why this is happening? While this sound isn't as socially stigmatized as, say, gas, when your stomach starts acting like a whale in the middle of a meeting or date, it's not very pleasant.

Loud rumbling in the stomach causes a person a lot of discomfort and trouble. The noisy digestive process makes itself felt at the wrong moment, especially often during times of psychological stress. This usually happens when you need to focus your efforts on an important task - an important exam, a presentation, a speech at a work meeting.

What is a rumbling stomach?

Bubbling or rumbling, not aggravated by additional manifestations, is a normal physiological process in which the intestinal muscles contract when gases or water are present.

Sounds of this nature are made constantly. However, in a healthy digestive tract, they are practically inaudible.

If the rumbling is strong, then this indicates a significant accumulation of gases, which is already a consequence of improper functioning of the intestines or other organs of the gastrointestinal tract, which provoke such a malfunction.

Treatment of the disease

In order to make a diagnosis, the doctor must exclude diseases of the genital organs.

First of all, it is necessary to collect an anamnesis and examine the patient in a gynecological chair. As additional diagnostic methods, a comprehensive ultrasound examination of the pelvic organs, examination of smears of vaginal discharge, cervical canal and urethra, and PCR diagnosis of sexually transmitted diseases are carried out.

Some patients may need to undergo hysteroscopy - examination of the uterine cavity using a special video camera.

To exclude diseases such as endometriosis, adhesive disease, etc., laparoscopy is sometimes performed - a minimally invasive procedure in which the doctor, using a camera and small punctures, can examine the abdominal cavity and identify the disease.

It is very important not to confuse pain relief with disease treatment. Many women believe that by taking antispasmodics, they will get rid of the problem.

However, the only correct answer to the question of what to do if your stomach hurts during menstruation is to seek medical help from a gynecologist.

The doctor at the private medical clinic “Doctor ANNA” will accurately determine the cause of the discomfort and will make every effort to eliminate it.

Why does your stomach growl: reasons

Too active peristalsis of the stomach and intestines can be a warning sign. Let's figure out why your stomach is rumbling.

Hunger and rumbling in the stomach are eternal companions

When the stomach feels “as if empty,” a person always hears its rumbling. This phenomenon occurs due to the migrating motor complex. This process develops if food has not entered the stomach for 2 or more hours.

Against the background of this phenomenon, loud sounds arise. For the functioning of the digestive system, the migrating motor complex is a common phenomenon. With its help, the intestines and stomach are cleansed. Sometimes the motor complex may not work well enough, so a person experiences nausea and pain in the abdomen.

Dysbacteriosis

Sounds that confuse you may indicate an intestinal disorder and a deficiency of beneficial bacteria. Dysbacteriosis, in turn, appears for various reasons, including due to uncontrolled use of antibiotics, poor diet and stress.

Binge eating

Sometimes after eating your stomach rumbles even with a moderate diet, but if you overeat, the rumble will be much stronger. Excess food overloads the gastrointestinal tract, which leads to impaired peristalsis.

How does this happen?

Seething in the stomach can appear from drinking a large amount of liquid or the formation of gases from carbonated drinks. In addition, if you drink a glass of ice water on an empty stomach, it may begin to actively contract, which will also lead to rumbling in the stomach.

With every meal we swallow air and, if there is a lot of it in the stomach, we can also hear bubbling. It’s unpleasant when added to this is heaviness in the stomach. Bubbling, rumbling and heaviness may appear after eating in certain situations.

Large meals . When you relax at dinner and lose your vigilance, it is so easy to eat too much. You don’t want to strain your willpower, and even less so to leave the last tasty piece on the plate. In addition to routine, small overeating, there are holidays. Often we know that overeating is inevitable. Some prepare by taking enzyme preparations, while others eat specially in advance to reduce their appetite. And some people think it’s right to come to visit hungry in order to test their digestive abilities.
Fatty heavy meals . Most fast food contains a lot of hidden fats and fast carbohydrates. But during the day we have no alternative when we need to eat quickly and better on the go.
Large pieces . In a hurry, trying to eat everything faster, we can swallow our lunch like a boa constrictor. But we don’t have time to lie in the shade and digest food. Often at work meetings and trainings, lunch is served in a buffet format, and the time allocated for lunch is limited. This is how the habit of eating without chewing food is often developed.
Bad habits . When smoking, air is swallowed, especially if it is combined with food. Alcohol, a frequent companion to feasts and holidays, aggravates the situation.

Give up all of the above at once? Perhaps, by eliminating the cause, you will be able to get rid of the heaviness in your stomach and seething after eating, and then you will not have to deprive yourself of all the joys of life.

If it rumbles at night, what is it?

Are you bothered by noise at night? There are several reasons: There was probably a long break between dinner and bedtime. This is not dangerous.

If rumbling is observed sometimes, then pay attention to the amount of food eaten at night.
The stomach has difficulty digesting what it eats, so it reminds you of it by loud rumbling.
If noises occur when you lie on your left side, then most likely you have gastritis.
In case of strong excitement or stress, sounds will also be heard on the left.
Night rumbling may also indicate the presence of colitis, pancreatitis, and dysbacteriosis. Symptoms can be controlled if treatment is started immediately.

Classification of dysmenorrhea

The answer to the question of why your stomach hurts during menstruation can be answered by a gynecologist. Scientifically, this condition is referred to as dysmenorrhea. Two types of dysmenorrhea can be distinguished depending on the reasons that caused it:

Primary. This diagnosis is made if the reason why the lower abdomen hurts during menstruation is clearly unknown. In this case, we can often talk about the hereditary nature of the disease. It also affects girls under the age of 25, smokers and those whose first menstruation occurs later than normal. Usually the problem disappears completely with the onset of sexual activity or after the birth of a child.
Secondary. This type of dysmenorrhea most often occurs in women over 30 years of age and is associated with a gynecological disease and/or previous surgery.

Depending on the severity, three degrees can be distinguished:

Mild - moderate stomach pain during menstruation, but the woman is able to tolerate these sensations and continues to lead her usual lifestyle;
Moderate - painful periods, accompanied by weakness, nausea, weakness, and unstable emotional state.
Severe - unbearably severe pain during menstruation, incapacitating. Accompanied by vomiting, serious malaise, including loss of consciousness.

Stomach growls - what to do?

First of all, there is no need to be embarrassed because it happens to everyone. But sometimes it is necessary to avoid awkward sounds during an important event or meeting. We'll tell you how to stop your stomach from growling.

Drink some water. This will improve intestinal motility and calm it. But don’t overdo it—too much liquid can have the opposite effect and your stomach will begin to gurgle even louder.
Have a snack. To avoid a hungry stomach growling, carry a light snack with you made from foods that do not cause gas, such as vegetable chips or natural yogurt.
Take probiotics. If your stomach is constantly rumbling, you should take a course of special medications and regularly consume foods that increase the number of beneficial bacteria in the intestines - cheese, yogurt, sauerkraut, kombucha.
Control your hunger. Since an empty stomach growls louder than its full counterpart, try eating smaller portions, but more often. Or choose a healthy snack (a handful of nuts or an energy bar).
Conquer stress. We've already said that your stomach gets nervous along with you, so if you're struggling with a constant rumbling stomach, why not take advantage of our stress management tips? Moreover, as a bonus, your overall well-being will improve.
Take a walk after eating. Research from the University of Mannheim has shown that walking immediately after eating, even a fairly short 15-minute walk, can significantly speed up gastric emptying and therefore reduce the risk of awkward noises.

Normally, rumbling is constantly present in the stomach, only its severity varies. But if it is absent, this is a signal to action. Emergency medical attention may be required.

Help the pancreas

We found that the cause of heaviness in the abdomen may be due to a lack of digestive enzymes. And this can manifest itself even with proper nutrition. In order to restore the amount of enzymes, there are special preparations, they are called enzyme preparations. Their task is to deliver the missing enzymes from the outside to support digestion.

Creon® has many years of expertise in digestive support. The active ingredient pancreatin is a source of additional enzymes for digestion. In fact, most existing enzyme preparations contain pancreatin. But it's not that simple. The body dictates to us additional conditions under which the drug can help most effectively.

The main requirement is particle size. Thus, scientists have found that the smaller they are, the more effective the means1,4 are to mix with food in the stomach in order to help digest its maximum volume.

Besides, working in the stomach is only half the battle. The drug must enter the intestines. Mixed evenly with food, it is not difficult for small particles.

Creon® is produced in the form of minimicrospheres - small particles of pancreatin, which are placed in a capsule3. Following the physiological path of food, Creon® 10000 is integrated into the natural process of digestion and helps to cope with heaviness after eating, seething, and discomfort2,3. Learn more about how Creon® works.

If necessary, the capsule can be opened and the particles mixed with food3. There is no need to be afraid, because... Each particle has a protective shell from the destructive environment of the stomach.

It is important that when taking Creon® the body does not stop digesting food itself; the drug only supplements its own digestion2. Therefore, Creon® 10000 can be taken every time it is needed. The high safety profile allows its use even in newborns3.

Symptoms of pelvic inflammation in women

In most cases, pelvic inflammatory disease does not cause any symptoms. Asymptomatic pelvic inflammation is normal when the infection was caused by chlamydia.

In other cases, the most common symptoms are:

pain in the lower abdomen and pelvic area;
copious vaginal discharge with an unpleasant odor;
irregular menstrual bleeding;
pain felt during sexual intercourse;
lower back pain;
fever, fatigue, diarrhea, vomiting;
pain felt when urinating;
problems with urination.

Is there a cure for menstrual pain?

Often women do not strive to get rid of pain, they heroically endure it, considering it the norm and getting used to this condition. Some of them take medications uncontrollably, which only aggravates the situation.

As a result, having gotten used to the pain, a woman may not feel how primary dysmenorrhea has turned into secondary, which can hide a number of gynecological diseases. Therefore, it is important to understand that severe discomfort during menstruation is not the norm.

Modern medicine can provide many ways to get rid of unpleasant sensations. However, it is important to identify the true cause and eliminate it, and not the consequence of the problem.

Inflammation of the pelvic organs - causes

There are quite a few causes of inflammation “female-style”:

Unprotected sexual intercourse
. Increases the risk of developing sexually transmitted diseases and, consequently, the development of pelvic inflammatory diseases.
Some methods of contraception.
May influence the likelihood of developing pelvic inflammatory disease. An intrauterine device can increase the risk of getting the disease, while using condoms reduces the risk. Using birth control pills without other forms of protection does not guarantee any protection against sexually transmitted diseases, but they do increase protection against the development of pelvic inflammatory disease by thickening the cervical mucus and thereby preventing bacteria from entering the upper genital tract.
Gynecological manipulations.
Bacteria can also enter the genital tract during an IUD procedure, childbirth, miscarriage, abortion, or a biopsy of the lining of the uterus, which involves removing a small piece of tissue lining the uterus for laboratory analysis.

Menstrual pain - is this normal?

Normally, when the ovary hurts before menstruation, the discomfort cannot be too strong. The presence of mild, nagging pain indicates contractions of the muscles of the uterus, which strives to get rid of the “old” layer of the endometrium.

Over the next month, a “new” endometrium is formed, which is necessary for the embryo to attach to it in the event of fertilization.

In the case when the symptoms of menstruation are too pronounced, the bleeding is excessively profuse, we can talk about the presence of the disease dysmenorrhea.

You should, without wasting time, make an appointment with a doctor and find a disorder in the woman’s body, which is indicated by the pain syndrome.

Treatment of menstrual pain by type of disease

The main goals of treatment are to eliminate pain, normalize the menstrual cycle, normalize the state of the autonomic system and eliminate organic causes of dysmenorrhea. The approach to therapy is developed for each woman individually, based on the primary disease.

in case of endometriosis, surgical intervention is performed to eliminate foci of endometrial growth;
in case of hormonal imbalance, it is necessary to take hormonal medications to correct the corresponding disorder;
infectious and inflammatory processes are usually treated with antibiotics;
when the pelvic veins are dilated, vasoconstrictor medications are prescribed;
neoplasms in the pelvis require surgical removal with a biopsy to determine their benignity;
adhesions in the pelvic organs are also removed through surgery.

Whatever the cause of the disturbing symptom, the doctor will try to solve the problem using conservative methods, and only if absolutely necessary will resort to surgery.

Diagnosis of inflammation in women

Diagnosis of pelvic inflammatory disease is based on symptoms (if present) and through a pelvic examination, analysis of vaginal discharge and vaginal culture, or urinalysis.

During a pelvic exam, the gynecologist uses cotton swabs to take samples from the vagina and cervix. The samples are then sent to a laboratory, where the type of germs causing the infection is determined.

To confirm the diagnosis or determine the size of the inflammation, the gynecologist may also order other tests:

Ultrasound of the pelvic organs – allows you to visualize the reproductive organs;
biopsy of the uterine lining - during which the doctor removes a small piece of tissue lining the uterus;
laparoscopy - through a small incision in the abdominal cavity, the doctor inserts a camera inside, allowing one to examine all the organs of the uterus.