When your stomach hurts, the best first step is to figure out what kind of pain you’re dealing with, then match your response to it. Most stomachaches are caused by gas, indigestion, or a mild bug and will resolve on their own within a few hours. But where the pain is, how it feels, and what other symptoms come with it all matter for deciding whether you need a heating pad or a trip to the emergency room.
Figure Out What’s Causing It
Before you reach for anything, pay attention to three things: where exactly the pain is, what it feels like, and when it started. A dull ache around your belly button is very different from a sharp pain in your lower right side. Cramping that comes in waves, builds to a peak, and then fades often signals that something is pushing against a blockage, like trapped gas or a kidney stone. A steady burning sensation in the upper middle part of your abdomen points more toward acid-related problems like heartburn or an ulcer.
Think about what you ate or drank in the last several hours. Greasy food, dairy, alcohol, and caffeine are common triggers. Consider whether you’ve been stressed, skipped meals, or recently taken medications like ibuprofen, which can irritate the stomach lining. If the pain started suddenly and is getting worse rather than better, that’s a different situation than mild discomfort after a big meal.
Try Heat First
A heating pad or warm water bottle placed on your abdomen is one of the simplest and most effective things you can do. Heat raises your pain threshold and relaxes the muscles in your digestive tract, which helps with cramping, gas pain, and general soreness. The goal is to warm the tissue about 9 to 12 degrees Fahrenheit above its resting temperature.
Keep the temperature comfortable. Anything above 113°F can start to feel painful, and temperatures above 122°F can burn your skin. Use a cloth barrier between the heat source and your skin, and limit sessions to about 15 to 20 minutes at a time. Moist heat, like a damp warm towel, tends to penetrate a bit more effectively than dry heat.
Use the Right Over-the-Counter Relief
Different types of stomach pain call for different remedies, and grabbing the wrong one won’t help.
- For gas and bloating: Simethicone (sold as Gas-X or Mylicon) breaks up gas bubbles in your stomach and intestines. It works best when taken after meals and at bedtime.
- For heartburn or acid pain: Antacids neutralize stomach acid quickly. If the burning is a recurring problem, an acid reducer like famotidine lasts longer and prevents acid production for several hours.
- For cramping and diarrhea: Bismuth subsalicylate (Pepto-Bismol) can calm an irritated stomach and slow loose stools. If diarrhea is your main symptom, loperamide (Imodium) slows gut movement, but avoid it if you have a fever or bloody stool, since your body may need to flush out an infection.
- For nausea: Ginger is genuinely effective here. Studies show 500 to 1,500 mg of powdered ginger root per day reduces nausea. Ginger tea is soothing, though it contains far less of the active compounds than a supplement or freshly grated ginger steeped in hot water.
Peppermint oil relaxes intestinal muscles and helps with cramping and bloating, but it can make heartburn worse. If acid reflux is part of the problem, skip the peppermint.
Move Your Body to Move the Gas
If trapped gas or bloating is the issue, gentle movement can help more than lying still. A few simple positions apply pressure to your abdomen or twist your torso in ways that encourage gas to pass.
Lie on your back and pull both knees to your chest, holding them there for several slow breaths. This is sometimes called the “wind-relieving pose” for good reason. Child’s pose, where you kneel and stretch your arms forward while lowering your chest toward the ground, compresses the abdomen and stimulates the digestive organs. Cat-cow stretches, where you alternate between arching and rounding your back on all fours, massage the internal organs and relieve tension along the spine. Even a slow 10-minute walk can help stimulate digestion when your gut feels stuck.
Eat and Drink Carefully
If you’re dealing with nausea, vomiting, or diarrhea alongside stomach pain, what you put in matters a lot. Even if you can’t eat, keep sipping fluids. Small sips of water, ice chips, broth, or diluted fruit juice (half water, half juice) prevent dehydration without overwhelming your stomach. If you’ve been vomiting or having diarrhea for more than a few hours, an oral rehydration solution like Pedialyte replaces the sodium and minerals you’re losing better than sports drinks do.
When you’re ready to eat again, stick to bland, easy-to-digest foods: plain rice, toast, bananas, brothy soups, oatmeal, boiled potatoes, or crackers. The old BRAT diet (bananas, rice, applesauce, toast) is fine for a day or two, but there’s no need to limit yourself to only those four foods. As your stomach settles, add cooked carrots, sweet potatoes without skin, avocado, skinless chicken, fish, or eggs.
While you’re recovering, avoid alcohol, caffeine, dairy, fried foods, spicy foods, and acidic foods like citrus and tomato sauce. High-fiber foods like leafy greens, nuts, seeds, beans, and popcorn can also aggravate an already upset gut.
What Pain Location Tells You
Where you feel the pain narrows down the possible causes significantly.
Pain in the upper middle area of your abdomen, between the ribs, is the classic location for acid reflux, gastritis, and ulcers. Ulcer pain often feels like a gnawing or burning sensation that improves after eating, then returns. It can wake you up at night. Up to 95% of certain ulcers are linked to a bacterial infection that’s treatable with antibiotics, so recurring pain in this area is worth getting checked.
Pain in the lower right side of your abdomen is the hallmark of appendicitis. It often starts as a vague ache around the belly button and then migrates to the lower right over several hours, typically accompanied by fever. Pain in the lower left is more commonly associated with diverticulitis in older adults, or irritable bowel syndrome at any age. Lower abdominal pain in women can also involve the reproductive organs, including ovarian cysts or menstrual-related cramping.
Upper right pain can come from the gallbladder, especially after fatty meals. Upper left pain is less common but can involve the pancreas or, in rare cases, the heart.
Helping a Child With Stomach Pain
Young children and babies can’t always explain where it hurts or what it feels like. Watch for behavioral cues: crying, refusing food, wanting to stay very still, being unusually fussy, or not wanting to play. With older toddlers, ask simple questions like “Can you point to where it hurts?” and “When did you last go to the bathroom?” Constipation is one of the most common causes of stomach pain in children and is easily overlooked.
Offer small sips of fluid rather than full cups. For children under 22 pounds, 2 to 4 ounces of an oral rehydration solution after each episode of vomiting or diarrhea helps prevent dehydration. For larger children, 4 to 8 ounces per episode is the guideline.
Bring a child to the doctor or emergency department if the pain is severe, getting worse, or waking them from sleep. Pale and sweaty skin, listlessness, green or bloody vomit, or black or red stool all warrant immediate medical attention. In boys, pain or swelling in the groin or testicles alongside abdominal pain is also urgent.
Signs That Need Emergency Attention
Most stomachaches don’t need an ER visit, but a few patterns are genuinely dangerous. Sudden, excruciating pain that comes on all at once can signal a ruptured organ, a blocked blood vessel, or an obstruction that needs surgery. If your abdomen becomes rigid and the pain gets sharply worse when you cough, tap your heel on the ground, or release pressure after pressing on your belly, that suggests the lining of your abdominal cavity is inflamed.
Fever combined with abdominal pain, prolonged vomiting that won’t stop, fainting or feeling like you’re about to faint, and any sign of blood in your vomit or stool are all signals to get evaluated urgently. Pain that started mild and has steadily worsened over several hours, especially in the lower right abdomen, shouldn’t be waited out at home.