How do patients with acute appendicitis usually present?
In order to more clearly define how patients with appendicitis typically present, consider the following story of Tyler, a previously healthy 10 year old boy who developed acute appendicitis. Tyler is your typical 10 year old boy; he likes school, likes his friends, and loves playing basketball. Last night he stayed over at his best friend’s house after playing hours of basketball and eating loads of pizza, and today he woke up with a pain in his abdomen. It seemed as though this was the type of vague abdominal pain that Tyler had complained of many times before – and you figure that it’s probably just a combination of a sprained muscle and too much pepperoni. And he certainly seems well enough to go to school, so you drop him off at the bus stop, figuring that school will probably take his mind off the pain. However, shortly after lunch your cell phone rings and it is the school nurse calling to say that Tyler has started to throw up, and now has pain in the right side of his belly th
