Abdominal Pain Tests

Abdominal pain tests are lab tests to help unravel the cause of abdominal pain. These include blood tests, leaky gut test, food allergy testing, lactose intolerance testing, urine test, stool test, x-rays, scans and more. See how you can order any of these tests and or get help explaining your lab test and scan results to you from the comfort of your home anywhere in the world.

If you suffer with pain in your abdomen either of a few days duration or over a long time, it may be necessary to have some tests done to help understand what is causing your pain.

There is no one single test that can be done to diagnose every cause of pain in the abdomen. The choice of test would depend on what is suspected to be the cause of your pain. 

Tests needed to be done may be a quick urine test; for example to tell if your pain is caused by a bladder infection or from a kidney stone. It could be a number of:

  • Blood tests
  • Stool tests
  • Test on your saliva,
  • Leaky gut test
  • An x-ray of your chest and or abdomen
  • An ultrasound scan
  • HIDA scan
  • ERCP
  • MRCP
  • CT scan
  • Colonoscopy
  • OGD (EGD) or a combination of one or more of these.

Here, we aim to list the common types of tests you may be required to be done by your doctor to help diagnose the cause of pain in your abdomen. Though they are called lab test for abdominal pain, many of these tests are also done for many other reasons.

  • We would also explain why these tests are done in general and as it applies to the abdomen; what the normal values are and what an abnormal reading could mean.
  • We go further. If you have a personalized blood or urine test or scan result and are looking for help with its interpretation, we can help. Just use the tool at the foot of this page to reach us.

You would be able to order many of these tests yourself online here, from the comfort of your home, in association with True Health Lab in the USA.  This is a Direct Access Testing (DAT) company works with dozens of CLIA certified laboratories both in the USA and internationally.

Common Abdominal Pain Tests

Commonly requested tests for the investigation of the cause of pain in the abdomen divided by the type of sample or testing required include:

1. Urine Test

Urine testing is an easy, noninvasive way of testing for a number of conditions including the presence of infection anywhere from the kidneys, ureters, bladder to the genitals. You can also use urine testing to check for kidney stones, kidney or bladder cancer, adrenal fatigue, carcinoid syndrome, probable cause of high blood pressure and many more conditions. 

Common urine tests include:

  • Urinalysis 
  • Urine pregnancy test
  • Urine microbiology to detect infection
  • Urine PCR for chlamydia, gonorrhoea etc (Urine STI testing)
  • Urine toxicology for poisons and drugs like cocaine, cannabis, amphetamine, heroine, morphine, gold, cicloporin, penicillamine, etc
  • Urine cortisol level
  • Urine catecholamine levels
  • urine Haemosiderine levels
  • Urinary urobilinogen
  • Indican test (Obermeyer test)

2. Blood Test

Blood tests for abdominal pain are done to look for the cause of the pain or the effect of the cause of the pain on the body.

Blood test could be to look for an infection that may be causing abdominal pain like salmonella typhi infection; for intolerance like gluten intolerance or lactose intolerance testing; for evidence of inflammation as the cause of abdominal pain like in Crohns disease or Ulcerative colitis leaky gut syndrome or eosinophilic colitis. It could be to look confirm pregnancy, to look for markers of the presence of tumors or cancers or to look for evidence of problems with our immunity causing abdominal pain.

Commonly requested abdominal pain tests from blood samples include:

  • Full Blood Count (FBC) or Complete Blood Count (CBC)
  • Electrolytes and Urea (E&U; DAX) or Blood Urea Nitrogen (BUN)
  • Creatinine
  • Cryo Reactive Protein (CRP)
  • Erythrocyte Sedimentation Rate (ESR)
  • Serum Amylase
  • Calcium levels
  • Lipase
  • Lactate Dehydrogenase
  • Liver Function Test
  • Blood sugar level
  • Uric acid levels
  • Blood gas (arterial blood gas or ABG)
  • HBA1c
  • Thyroid Function Test (TSH, T3, T4)
  • TTG 
  • Ceruloplasmin level
  • Serum Copper level
  • Transferin saturation
  • Ferritin and Iron levels
  • Anti LKM
  • Anti Smooth Muscle Antibody (ASMA)
  • Hepatitis serology or hepatitis screening
  • Alpha Feto Protein
  • Cryo Embroyonic Antegin (CEA) level
  • Ca 125
  • Ca19-9
  • Anti Mitochondrial Antibody
  • Alpha1 Antitrypsin level
  • Female hormones level (LH, FSH)
  • Serum Cortisol level
  • Leaky Gut (Intestinal permeability) testing also called the mannitol and lactulose test.

3. Stool Test

It is amazing how much information that can be gleaned from testing our stool for causes of abdominal pain. If you suffer with Crohns disease, ulcerative colitis, bowel or colon polyp or cancer, testing your stool for blood for example may turn out with a positive result.

Your stool would show parasites, cysts and ova if you have certain types of intestinal worms as a cause of your abdominal symptoms.

The stool could also contain tinge of changed or altered blood if you where to have a leaking or bleeding stomach ulcer.

There would be lots of mucous in your stool if you suffer with irritable bowel syndrome.

What about fecal bilirubin metabolite level when you suffer with some liver disease?

The following are thus commonly requested abdominal pain tests from a stool sample. They include: