Bloated stomach - and you have no pregnancy or obesity

You know the feeling: you just ate tightly, perhaps washed down the food sodas, and your pants, skirt, belt became a little too narrow. A few hours later (or not emitting gases through the hole northern or southern) most of the unpleasant feelings will pass. Such an overflow after a meal does not usually represent a medical problem.

When should you be concerned about the swollen belly, and why?

If bloating is repeated, disappear and appear again, this is certainly a consequence of the fact that you have swallowed air or gases formed you in the gut. Most of the "eaters" deny this fact, because it is not a conscious action on their part, but simply a nervous habit. When ingested large amounts of air (as well as water) the stomach stretches and gives a feeling of fullness, which can be facilitated by the fact that doctors are politely referred to as "regurgitation" (read "burping"). Such people usually say that they are "something to eat" or that they "produced gases." In fact, only a small number of cases the swelling is the result of the consumption of carbohydrates, forming gases (known example - cabbage). If in this case, a change in diet and avoiding sweets remove gas problem.

When some "functional" bowel disorders, such as "nervous stomach", "spastic bowel" and "irritable bowel" (in which often is not observed physical changes), large quantities of gas are produced in the intestine, followed by stretching and spadenie abdominal wall. Again, a change of diet or antispastic agents will assist you.

There is a pathology, in which the stretching after eating really reflects the physical disease - a disorder of the gallbladder. After an hour or two after eating you feel bloating, belching is facilitated. Probably, the mechanism here is the following: a healthy gall bladder can inject enough bile to digest fatty foods you eat; bubble patient (with or without stones) - can not, so that a delayed undigested fat in the intestine, giving a feeling of fullness in the abdomen and gases.

Remember that when the problem is in the air, stretch your stomach, and the density of the narrowness of the clothes will come and go. Conversely, when your waist increases and it does not pass, therefore, increase your weight or abdominal accumulated liquid. The fluid in the abdomen can be distinguished from the air. If the stomach is filled with the liquid, your sides are heard, since under the influence of gravity of the liquid flows downward. On the contrary, the air is distributed evenly, and not distributed in the side part. If the fluid accumulates in the abdomen, then, contrary to your expectations, you do not necessarily gaining weight, because the conditions that cause fluid retention, usually associated with severe disease and poor nutrition.

The most common reason for the presence of fluid in the abdomen (ascites) - is far advanced disorder of the liver (cirrhosis), which is observed at the later stages of prolonged alcohol abuse or chronic hepatitis. Of course, if you are an alcoholic, bloated belly is not the very first issue - if you have not watched the red nose "bulb" and red spider spots on the abdomen, chest and arms. Whatever the cause, the inability of men diseased liver to deactivate tiny amounts of female hormones that are produced in all men, causing shrinkage of the testicles, the weakening of sexual desire and the appearance of female characteristics, such as increasing the size of the breast and the loss of hair on the face.

Heart disease, as cirrhosis of the liver, can lead to accumulation of fluid in the abdomen. A weak heart muscle is not able to push the blood flowing to it from all over the body. For a number of its beginning is delayed in the lung and later in other locations, including the stomach, and feet. You have diagnosed heart disease, if you are not severely short of breath, especially when lying on the stomach. In addition, the stomach swells with cirrhosis before will swell legs; heart failure - on the contrary.

Here is another heart disease, in addition to the weakness of the heart muscle, which can cause fluid accumulation in the abdomen: trouble with the pericardium, a bag, in which the heart is. With the defeat of the pericardium virus, tuberculosis or any infectious agent, and sometimes after open-heart surgery, it becomes thicker and the deposition of the scars. Hard tissue squeezes the heart, like a steel ring. Even if the heart muscle is healthy and strong, it can not normally be reduced in such arms. She pushes all the blood, just as it does when its weakness. This is a condition called pericarditis pinching leads to blood retention in the stomach that causes it to swell. When fluid accumulates around the heart under the pericardium, even without express scarring bag, it has the same effect.

With the growth of the cancer in the abdomen, regardless of the place of its origin, fluid accumulates in the abdomen. Ovarian cancer is particularly strong education fluid. There are cases where an increase in the volume of the abdomen, as a result of ovarian cancer mistaken for pregnancy - at least for a certain time - in women of childbearing age.

Pregnancy is such an obvious reason for the increase of the abdomen, which, in our opinion, no woman would not miss this diagnosis. In the end, it will have nine months! Believe it or not, some women brought to bear, and they did not even know they are pregnant. Such women usually do not understand the physiology of menstruation or conception. So if you live in a sexual life and are in a flourishing age, always think of the pregnancy, if your waistline increases for no apparent reason.

The other side of the coin is a condition called psevdopsiezom. It is a psychiatric problem, a relatively rare, in which a woman mistakenly believes that she is pregnant. Her waist is actually increasing, but nothing happens after nine months.

Swelling does not necessarily regard the entire abdomen. It can be local. Asymmetry can be the consequence of a cyst in the abdominal cavity, or if it is in the lower section, with a strong delay chair constipation. If you find a hill in the abdomen, think of the four quadrants. If a hillock in the upper right quadrant, rather, it is associated with a liver, or something in it. In the upper left is probably - due to an enlarged spleen in various diseases including infectious mononucleosis, leukemia, lymphoma and other blood diseases. Swelling at the bottom of the midline may be the result of the urinary bladder stretching, increase the uterus during pregnancy or fibroid tumors, ovarian cysts, and with other tumors. If you once did surgery on the stomach, you may find the hill along the seam where the scar tissue and stretched across her bulging stomach contents. These post-operative hernias sometimes require surgery.

Thus, the increase in the abdomen, which is not related to pregnancy and easy weight gain, usually reflects the delay of air or liquid. The air comes and goes, while the liquid is gradually accumulated. Rule to remember: do not run to the doctor, if you have to loosen the belt after a heavy meal, but you must do this, if an increase in your waistline does not fall down and progresses.

Symptom: bloated belly