Considering it's what we're worrying about too with difficult child 3 at the moment - yeah, I was also thinking appendicitis. It needs to be checked out.
There is acute appendicitis, which needs fast action and surgery to remove the thing before it bursts. And there is chronic appendicitis, which is a bit different. It is rarely in danger of bursting - it can go from chronic to acute, but it can hang around for months or years before it does so.
Acute appendicitis has some very clear hallmarks, as a rule. One includes rebound tenderness. You really need a doctor to check this, and if you have a difficult child with any Sensory Integration Disorder (SID), they may not respond to pain ini the same was others do.
With a grumbling appendix, you don't always get rebound tenderness. Or you might have it one day, but not another. Our family history on both sides - we have never had acute appendicitis, it's always been chronic. But when the appendix was removed, it was found to be inflamed, so it's not a case of removing a healthy organ by mistake.
easy child 2/difficult child 2 had hers removed at the end of March, after having been ill since New Year.
difficult child 3's symptoms started last Saturday. he's had nausea, abdominal pain and it just hasn't gone away. It has fluctuated a bit, that's all.
To check the diagnosis a bit more, they did an ultrasound on easy child 2/difficult child 2. As the radiographer was scanning right over the appendix (I was watching it on the screen) my daughter was in pain. As they moved away from the appendix, her pain eased. The radiologist checked it and felt she wasn't in sufficient pain for it to be her appendix - the abnormality he saw on the scan was a bubble, some sort of artefact or blip on the screen, meaningless. I didn't agree, but I'm not the doctor. Added to this - she also has Sensory Integration Disorder (SID), her pain reaction (or lack of) shouldn't have been given so much importance. I explained my concerns to the GP and later to the specialist, who agreed with me - there was sufficient likelihood of appendicitis to justify removal.
The ultrasound is a standard abdominal one, like you get in pregnancy. Drink lots of water, hold it all in. They're examining every possible abdominal cause, including any bowel obstruction. With the appendix, they're looking mainly for faecoliths, small hard lumps which form from bits getting trapped and going stagnant in the appendix. It's a vestigial pouch off the intestine so it's prone to this sort of thing happening. Acute appendicitis happens when the appendix gets an infection or major inflammation, from having a foreign body in it (such as faecolith). Research has found a high incidence of faecoliths found in chronic appendicitis dealt with by surgery.
So, it could be his medications. It could be appendicitis (of various kinds) or it could be something else. Never assume that it has to be connected to the difficult child-ness.
Good luck in finding out. It's awful when your kids are in pain.
Marg