A burst appendix can be a life-threatening condition.
Your big intestine is made up of a numerous various parts, including your colon, rectum, anal canal, and cecum, which is a small pouch situated in your colon.
Your appendix is a finger-shaped tube about 4 inches long that’s connected to your cecum.
It’s not clear what operate your appendix has, however some scientists think it might help helpful bacteria recolonize the gut after a severe infection.
Whatever the case, removing the appendix through an appendectomy normally does not cause any health problems.
Your appendix can become swollen and filled with pus (a fluid comprised of dead cells) if an abdominal infection infect the organ, or if an obstruction obstructs the area inside of your appendix, called the appendiceal lumen or appendix lumen.
This condition, known as appendicitis, is marked by sharp pain in the lower right abdomen where the appendix is located– the pain worsens with movement, deep breaths, coughing, and sneezing.
Other appendicitis symptoms include:
- Nausea
- Vomiting
- Constipation
- Diarrhea
- Failure to pass gas
- Anorexia nervosa
- Abdominal swelling
What Do You Feel Like When Your Appendix Bursts?
The conventional treatment for appendicitis is an appendectomy, a surgery to get rid of the appendix.
However if doctors don’t eliminate the appendix rapidly (usually within 24 to 72 hours after symptoms begin), the organ may rupture, or burst.
Importantly, the resulting “perforated appendix” isn’t really the same thing as if you popped a balloon, according to iytmed.com.
Rather, the appendix establishes a small tear, which permits its contents to leak out into the remainder of the abdomen, possibly causing other infections, such as a serious blood infection called septicemia.
How an Appendix Bursts
When your appendix ends up being infected or obstructed, bacteria that generally live inside of the organ can increase quickly.
Your appendix ends up being inflamed and filled with pus, a thick liquid containing bacteria, tissue cells, and dead leukocyte.
This infection will cause pressures within your appendix to quickly increase.
As the pressures increase, the quantity of blood flowing through the wall of the organ decreases. The tissues of your appendix will then become starved of blood and start to die.
This will continue until the muscular wall in one area of your appendix gets so thin that it breaks open, enabling bacteria-laden pus from inside the appendix to ooze out into the rest of the abdominal area.
Risks of a Ruptured Appendix
What do you feel if your appendix bursts (what does the pain feel like)?
When your appendix bursts, you might start to feel better as the appendix pain you initially had subsides. But this generally does not last long, since a perforated appendix can quickly cause other health problems.
Pus-filled abscesses may establish around your appendix. Scar tissue and other abdominal structures will “wall off” the abscessed appendix and the seepage, preventing the infection from spreading.
If you have an abscessed appendix, you might experience similar symptoms to appendicitis, consisting of:
- Pain in your lower right abdominal area
- Diarrhea
- Absence of cravings
- Nausea
- Vomiting
You might likewise experience other symptoms not typically associated with appendicitis, such as weakness, chills, high fever, and a feeling of rectal fullness.
Additionally, the infected contents that have leaked from your appendix might cause peritonitis, which is an infection of the peritoneum, the silk-like membrane that lines the abdominal cavity.
The inflammation and pain will spread throughout your abdomen, and worsen with any kind of motion. Other symptoms of peritonitis can include:
- Decreased appetite
- Fever
- Queasiness
- Extreme thirst
- Vomiting
- Chills
- Urinating less than regular or not at all
Treating a Burst Appendix
Physicians usually attempt to treat the abscess or peritonitis prior to conducting an appendectomy.
Treatments usually involve draining pipes any pus from the abdominal area and combating the infection with strong antibiotics for 6 to 8 weeks.
However, some research recommends that instantly eliminating the ruptured appendix lead to quicker recovery and less postoperative complications, particularly in children.
A ruptured appendix can in fact lead to death sometimes. Left unattended, peritonitis can quickly spread out, leading to septicemia, or bacteria in the blood.
Your body releases chemicals into the bloodstream to combat the infection, setting off an inflammatory reaction throughout the body called sepsis.
A cascade of reactions will follow, eventually triggering septic shock (badly low blood pressure), which can ultimately cause multiple organ failure and, in the worst-case scenario, death.
