See a Doctor Online About Abdominal Pain

Can an online doctor help with abdominal pain?

The honest limit is examination: a doctor on video cannot press on your abdomen. What works surprisingly well instead is a guided self-examination, watching how you move, and a structured history, because for most abdominal pain the diagnosis lives in the story: the location, the timing, and what the bowels are doing. When hands, blood tests or a scan are genuinely needed, the doctor says so and tells you how urgently, and prescribing rules vary by country.

How an online consultation helps with abdominal pain

• The acute abdomen ruled in or out first: the first minutes of the consultation check the handful of patterns that mean surgery or emergency tests: rigidity, severe tenderness, fever with vomiting, blood. If one is present, you are told to stop and exactly where to go. That triage alone is worth the call.
• A location and pattern map: the doctor places your pain against the organs that live there and the patterns each one produces, which is how the long list of causes shrinks to a short one.
• Treatment for the treatable causes: reflux and indigestion patterns, likely gastroenteritis, cramping bowel pain and constipation-driven pain can be treated from home, with a prescription sent to a local pharmacy when treatment is right for you.
• A concrete next step when tests are needed: if your pattern needs blood tests, a scan or a specialist, you leave with a referral letter naming the suspected cause and the tests to ask for, plus a safety net: what to watch for and when to escalate.

What the doctor checks in an online abdominal pain consultation

Abdominal pain is a history-led diagnosis, and the consultation is structured around it. The doctor will typically work through:

• Exact location and spread: where it started, where it is now, and whether it radiates through to the back, up to the shoulder tip, or from loin to groin. Each pattern points somewhere specific.
• Onset and character: sudden or gradual, constant or coming in waves (colicky), burning, gnawing or cramping.
• Meals and bowels: whether food makes it better or worse, how soon after eating it starts, and whether opening your bowels changes it.
• Associated symptoms: fever, vomiting, diarrhoea, constipation, bloating, urinary burning or frequency, and vaginal bleeding or discharge where relevant.
• Red flags directly: blood in vomit or stool, black stools, unintended weight loss, difficulty swallowing, and pain that wakes you from sleep.
• A guided self-examination: on camera, the doctor coaches you to press and release over the painful area, watches you walk and cough, and checks whether the belly looks swollen. It is a proxy, not a substitute, and the doctor treats it as such.
• Medicines and history: anti-inflammatory painkillers, steroids and blood thinners (all of which raise the stakes for stomach and bowel bleeding), recent antibiotics, alcohol, and previous surgery, gallstones or ulcers.
• Pregnancy possibility: asked early, because it changes both the list of causes and the urgency.

What does the location of abdominal pain mean?

Location is the most useful single clue in abdominal pain. Upper middle pain points to the stomach and oesophagus, right upper pain to the gallbladder, lower right pain to the appendix, lower left pain to the sigmoid colon, and loin-to-groin pain to the kidneys. It is a guide rather than a verdict: organs overlap, and early appendicitis often starts near the navel.

Upper middle, burning or gnawing

Pain behind the breastbone or in the pit of the stomach, worse after meals, when lying flat or with alcohol and coffee, points to acid: indigestion, reflux disease (GORD) or, less often, a stomach ulcer.^[1] Regular anti-inflammatory painkillers such as ibuprofen make ulcers markedly more likely, which is why the doctor always asks. This family of pain is the most treatable online.

Right upper, in attacks after fatty meals

Severe aching under the right ribs that builds after eating, lasts from thirty minutes to several hours, and can bore through to the back or right shoulder blade is the classic gallstone attack.^[2] Repeated attacks deserve an ultrasound referral; an attack with fever, shivering or yellowing of the skin or eyes needs same-day in-person care, because an inflamed or blocked gallbladder is not a wait-and-see problem.

Around the navel, then moving to the lower right

Pain that starts as a vague ache near the belly button and, over hours, sharpens and settles in the lower right, hurting more when you walk, cough or press, is the appendicitis pattern. Appetite usually disappears; mild fever and nausea are common. This is a same-day, in-person surgical assessment, every time. No online consultation should manage it, and ours will not try.

Lower left, aching with a change in bowels

In adults from middle age onwards, aching in the lower left with bloating, constipation or an erratic habit often reflects diverticular disease, small pouches in the colon wall that are common with age.^[3] The same pain with fever and marked tenderness suggests diverticulitis, inflammation of those pouches, which needs in-person review the same day.

Cramping all over, with vomiting or diarrhoea

Waves of cramp across the whole abdomen alongside vomiting or diarrhoea usually mean gastroenteritis, especially if others around you are unwell. Recurring crampy pain with bloating that eases after opening your bowels, running over months, fits irritable bowel syndrome instead.^[4] Trapped wind and constipation produce the same geography; the timeline separates them.

Loin to groin, in waves you cannot sit still through

Severe one-sided pain that starts in the flank and moves towards the groin in waves, often with nausea and blood in the urine, is the kidney stone pattern. People with colic pace; people with peritonitis lie still. A first stone needs imaging to confirm it; a stone with fever needs emergency care, because an infected blocked kidney is an emergency.

When should I worry about stomach pain?

Worry about stomach pain when it is sudden and severe, the belly is rigid or very tender, pain comes with fever and repeated vomiting, there is blood in vomit or stool, stools turn black, or pain is steadily worsening rather than settling. New persistent pain from about 50 onwards, or pain with unexplained weight loss, needs prompt tests even without drama.

Red flags doctors act on, at any age:

• Sudden, severe pain, or a belly that is rigid or board-like to touch
• Pain with fever and repeated vomiting, or vomiting that will not stop
• Vomiting blood or material like coffee grounds; black, tar-like stools; more than streaks of blood in the stool
• Unintended weight loss, difficulty swallowing, or a new lump you can feel^[5]
• Pain with a missed period or possible pregnancy, with faintness or shoulder-tip pain
• Pain that wakes you from sleep night after night, or keeps returning without explanation

One more pattern belongs here because it is missed: upper abdominal pain with breathlessness, sweating or chest heaviness, particularly on exertion, can be a heart attack presenting low. Call 112 rather than booking anything.

Is my abdominal pain suitable for online care?

Most abdominal pain can at least be triaged by video, and much of it treated. The table shows how doctors sort the common presentations, and where the hard stops are.

Swipe sideways to compare →

Availability of individual medicines and who may prescribe them vary by country; your doctor confirms what applies where you are.

Treatment options for abdominal pain

What you can do yourself

For mild pain without red flags: a heat pad or hot water bottle, small bland meals rather than none, plenty of fluids, and paracetamol for pain. Avoid ibuprofen and other anti-inflammatory painkillers for upper abdominal pain, because they irritate the stomach lining and can turn a grumble into an ulcer. Pharmacy antacids or alginates settle burning, meal-related pain while you watch the pattern; jotting down two days of what you ate, when the pain came and what your bowels did gives any doctor a head start.

Prescription treatment

A prescription is never issued without a consultation. After assessment, the treatment follows the cause: a time-limited course of acid-suppressing medicine (a proton pump inhibitor) for reflux, gastritis-type and suspected ulcer pain, with a review date rather than an open-ended repeat;^[1] antispasmodics such as mebeverine or hyoscine for cramping bowel pain; anti-sickness treatment where vomiting is the barrier to keeping fluids down; and a stepwise laxative plan where constipation is the driver. Antibiotics have a narrow role: they are only prescribed when there are signs of a specific bacterial infection, and most gut infections behind abdominal pain are viral and clear on their own. Strong opioid painkillers are controlled medicines and are not prescribed online; pain that seems to need them needs examination instead.

When abdominal pain is something else

Not everything felt in the abdomen starts there. A heart attack can present as upper abdominal pain, particularly with exertion, sweating or breathlessness. Pneumonia at the base of a lung can hurt below the ribs, with cough and fever. Shingles causes one-sided burning pain in a band, with the tell-tale rash arriving a few days later. Pulled abdominal muscles hurt with movement and are tender in the wall itself, not deep inside. In women, ovulation pain, ovarian cysts and endometriosis all produce lower abdominal pain, and any severe lower pain with a possible pregnancy is treated as an ectopic pregnancy until proven otherwise: emergency care, not a video call. A burning bladder with frequency points to a urine infection. Part of the value of a structured consultation is refusing to force every symptom into a digestive box.

When we treat abdominal pain online, and when we refer you

We treat online: burning meal-related pain from reflux, indigestion and gastritis patterns; likely gastroenteritis, with a rehydration plan and a review point; recurring crampy pain with bloating that fits irritable bowel syndrome; constipation-driven pain; and medication-related stomach irritation, where we adjust what can be adjusted and flag the rest to your regular prescriber.

We refer or redirect you: any acute abdomen pattern, straight to emergency care with 112 named on the call; possible appendicitis, gallbladder attacks with fever or jaundice, and suspected kidney stones with fever, all same day and in person; severe pain in pregnancy or with a missed period, urgently; and the red-flag combinations, bleeding, weight loss, swallowing difficulty or new persistent pain from about 50 onwards, which need blood tests, scopes or scans arranged promptly rather than another course of tablets.^[5] If pain keeps returning and the story does not settle the diagnosis, we say plainly that an in-person examination is the next step, and we write the letter that gets you there faster.

How Mobi Doctor works

1. Book a time that suits you: open daily 7am–11pm. Most patients speak to a doctor within about 15 minutes of their booked time. no subscription, exact price up front.
2. Speak to a licensed doctor about abdominal pain: a private video call: you describe what you feel, the doctor asks what matters, and you agree the right plan together.
3. Leave with your plan: everything agreed before you hang up: any prescription reaches a pharmacy near you in most EU countries, or a full refund.

Frequently asked questions about abdominal pain

Related conditions

Indigestion GORD Gastroenteritis Irritable Bowel Syndrome (IBS) All stomach and digestive problems

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