Chronic Abdominal Pain Clinic

Focused on quickly developing a treatment plan to reduce pain 

During your initial visit at the abdominal pain clinic, three care providers will see you child – a pain management physician, gastroenterologist and psychologist. Each will meet with you and your child for 30 minutes to an hour. The entire visit will last three to four hours. By spending that amount of time with you, we can be as thorough as possible and develop a treatment plan quickly. At the end of your initial visit, the care team will discuss a treatment strategy with you. Depending on the cause and severity of your child’s abdominal pain, there are many treatment options.

You will also leave with a follow-up visit scheduled with one of our pain management advanced practice providers. Any additional procedures will also be scheduled.  The follow-up appointment will last about one hour and is an opportunity to evaluate your child’s progress on the previously provided recommendations and make changes as needed. 

Our care team treats more than the physical effects of chronic abdominal pain

We realize physical pain also affects your child’s emotional well-being. That’s why our care team is built around treating the whole child.  

Your abdominal pain management team consists of:

Board-Certified Pain Management Physician – Our pain management physicians have extensive experience in assessing and treating pain in children. They will be responsible for the overall care plan after coordinating with a gastroenterologist. The pain physician will determine whether medication or other appropriate treatment options will effectively treat the pain and its source. 

Gastroenterologist – A gastroenterologist will evaluate and treat your child’s GI condition. To do this, they will review previous records and studies, examine your child and may request further testing to gather additional information.   

Psychologist – Our psychologists will work with a child to develop coping skills and implement behavioral medicine techniques that may be extremely effective in controlling pain and reducing stress caused by the pain. This is a vital assessment, since we know that stress and anxiety play a large role in most chronic pain cases. Our psychologist can provide resources for therapy services, if recommended.

Resources

• Stomach pain in kids

When a child faces pain day in and day out, the routines they are accustomed to begin to fall apart. We’re here to fix that. Chronic abdominal pain affects 10% to 15% of school-aged children and 20% of middle and high school aged children. The condition leads to school absences and loss of ability to do their favorite activities. To help your child get back to what they enjoy, the Chronic Abdominal Pain Clinic at Children’s Health℠ will develop an initial treatment plan during your first visit with input from a pain management physician, gastroenterologist and psychologist.