Hey guys so today's video is all about appendicitis we're going to be talking about what
it is, what causes it, what the symptoms are, how it's diagnosed and what can happen if it's left
untreated so it's a super important video and also if you do think you have appendicitis you need to
speak to your healthcare professional as soon as possible so let's begin now before we begin
if you do want to find any specific information quite quickly because i imagine this is that kind
of video where you might want to find out exactly what the symptoms are or how it's diagnosed or how
it's treated i am going to leave a full breakdown in the description below so click on it and click
on any point of information that you want just to get you to that information quicker let's begin
so appendix removal is actually one of the most common procedures done worldwide and the appendix
is found on the lower right abdomen it's just a little pouch that comes off the large intestine
so your large intestine is part of your digestive system and it absorbs all the water from the food
and it also absorbs some electrolytes and then it pushes all that waste food down
towards your rectum now your appendix as i mentioned earlier is towards the lower right
abdomen so just down here you can't really see any angle but it's the lower right quadrant of your
abdomen and it starts at the start of the large intestine so it's a little pouch and to be honest
with you the actual function of the appendix is not very well understood so unlike everything else
in the digestive system which you understand what it does the appendix no one really knows what the
purpose of it is so some scientists believe that the appendix is what we call a vestigial organ so
it's no longer really required it has no purpose however some other scientists believe that the
appendix is where all the good bacteria is stored so as you can see no one really fully understands
the purpose of it so the next question is what is appendicitis well appendicitis is basically
the inflammation the swelling of the appendix and the cause of it is usually unknown it's expected
that about 50 of cases are caused by some form of blockage and that blockage can be for example an
enlarged lymph node within the intestine within the large intestine that's causing that blockage
or there might some food waste that's compacted in there and it's causing that blockage which then
causes that swelling now appendicitis is most often seen in patients between 10 to 30 years
old however it can happen at any age as well so don't think oh i'm not in that age group and it
doesn't apply to me because it can happen at any age group and the other thing is sometimes when
you have appendicitis it can burst as well the appendix can burst and this can be very painful
and i'm going to discuss this a bit later on so now let's look at the symptoms of appendicitis
to begin with appendicitis most people and by that i say most people because with abdominal pain the
pain can vary for different people that's really important for you to remember that you might
not have these typical symptoms you might have different symptoms and it could be appendicitis
but for most people the pain begins around the belly button area there's some pain there's some
more comfort and then after a few days the pain can go to the lower right abdominal side which
is below the belly button on the right side and it can be quite painful it can be painful to cough it
can be painful to walk and sometimes some patients when they press on the area and release the pain
can be quite agonizing as well but these are the typical symptoms but not everyone can have these
symptoms too so please do remember that you may also experience a few other symptoms for example
a fever nausea vomiting flushing constipation loss of appetite these symptoms can vary for different
people and the list does go on so i'm gonna leave more information in the description below for you
as well so moving on to diagnosis look it can be a little tricky to diagnose appendicitis and you
should definitely not do it yourself you should always speak to your healthcare professional
when you do speak to them it can vary on what they do to test for it for example if you have typical
symptoms of appendicitis which we spoke about earlier one test that i always do is i always
touch the lower right abdomen and you press on it gently and when i release it's really painful
for the patient that is what you call a typical symptom of appendicitis and it's really easy and
quick to diagnose and will send you on your way to hospital because it needs inspecting however
please remember that 50 of patients what we call atypical so their symptoms aren't like the typical
symptoms that are associated with appendicitis some patients have pain around their liver areas
some people have pain around their intestine area so it's very different and it's very difficult
to diagnose from a youtube video telling you about these symptoms so this is a very broad
sort of aspect of symptoms for you to be aware of and just remember that the symptoms aren't always
typical you might not have the sort of typical symptoms that everyone's used to for appendicitis
so the moral of the story is that if you have any sort of signs and symptoms any sort of
abdominal pain any of the normal symptoms that we spoke about you need to speak to your healthcare
professional please don't try and self-diagnose yourself with appendicitis this is the worst thing
that you can possibly do because your health is the most important thing so please do speak to
your healthcare professional if you experience any symptom of abdominal pain anything out of
the ordinary any of the symptoms that we spoke about and any of the atypical symptoms that we
spoke about that's the most important thing and in this situation your healthcare professional
might do a blood test they might do a urine test they might do a ct scan an ultrasound
they might even do a laparoscopy where a small incision is made and a small camera is put in
just to see what's going on there so they can physically see if the appendix is inflamed or not
i will leave more information on diagnosis as well if you are interested but like i say the
moral of the story is if you have any symptoms please do speak to health care professionals
just a phone call and they'll get you in for an examination and it's super quick and like i said
your health is the most important thing now the next question is how is appendicitis treated so if
you've gone to hospital and they've diagnosed you with appendicitis most commonly they're going to
treat you straight away by doing an appendisectomy this is the removal of the appendix it's a minor
surgical procedure and like i said it's one of the most common surgical procedures done
sometimes as well they may choose to remove your appendix even without making a diagnosis
just because sometimes it's safer to reduce the chance of it bursting so please bear that in mind
as well now the good news is that this is a very common procedure done here in the uk and worldwide
so don't worry too much about it it's usually done by open surgery or by a keyhole most commonly it's
done by keyhole but this is determined on an individual basis and recovery time is quite
quick it takes a couple of weeks and if you are wanting more information about the surgery i am
going to leave loads more info in the description below so if that interests you click on that and
give it a quick read so the next question is what happens if you leave appendicitis
untreated because i know the thought of surgery can be quite daunting but please remember this
if you do leave appendicitis untreated it can actually be life-threatening and this is
serious stuff because what can happen is that infection can get worse the abscess can grow and
it can burst and it can become life-threatening so for example you can get something called
peritonitis this is where the lining of the abdomen becomes infected from the burst appendix
that bacteria is going to go onto the lining and then that can become affected which can then
spread to your other organs and damage them so as you can see it's severe it's life-threatening
another thing that can happen is the abscess where the appendix is can just keep getting bigger and
bigger as the puss forms in there and collects as your body tries to fight that bacteria be more and
more pus collecting in the abscess which again it can eventually burst and also cause so much
inflammation now there is so much pain and lastly if appendicitis is left untreated it can actually
cause something called sepsis which is again life life-threatening where our body's immune system
overreacts this can be very life-threatening and it can happen in about 17 to 32 percent of
appendicitis patients so the moral of the story is if you experience any abdominal pain any
abdominal discomfort anything out of the ordinary go with your gut feeling and go and speak to your
healthcare professionals so they can examine you so it can diagnose you and find out exactly what
is going on it might not be appendicitis it might be something else but the most important thing is
that you do speak to your healthcare professional i will also leave more information in the
description below on when you should see medical advice and more importantly when you should seek
emergency medical advice so please do read it this is super important because your health is
the most important thing so that's the end of this week's video i really hope you found this
information helpful you now know all about the appendix what it does well what it doesn't do the
symptoms appendicitis the diagnosis the treatment what happens if it's left untreated when to seek
medical advice and loads more you're a bit of an appendix pro now so you know everything there is
so please make sure you do the right thing thank you for watching as always i will see you next
week and always sending you all some vibes hey guys thanks for watching this week's video make
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