A 33 year old woman presents to your ED complaining of 4 days of “stomach pain.” She says it started after a weekend of mandatory celebratory drinking for closing a deal at her fancy finance job, and that she had been super stressed at work before the deal closed. She says the pain is epigastric, intermittent usually an hour after eating, and feels like a dull gnawing pain in the middle of her upper abdomen. Overnight the pain woke her from sleep at 3am. On further questioning, she’s also been throwing back OTC “pain killers” for an ankle injury she sustained playing competitive water polo.

She denies nausea, vomiting, fevers, etc. Her vital signs are textbook normal, she is well-appearing, and her exam is only significant for mild epigastric tenderness.

 

Before you go jumping to your diagnosis, what's the differential and how can you narrow?

 

What is your next step: urgent endoscopy, fecal H. pylori testing, 'take 2 aspirin and you'll feel better in the morning,' triple therapy, or PPI alone?

 

A wee bit more about your diagnosis

 

Refs and such

The following two tabs change content below.

Kylie Birnbaum

Emergency Medicine Resident at Kings County Hospital / SUNY Downstate @KBirnbaumMD
Categories: EM Principles

Kylie Birnbaum

Emergency Medicine Resident at Kings County Hospital / SUNY Downstate

@KBirnbaumMD

0 Comments

Leave a Reply

Avatar placeholder

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *