We’re all old enough to understand when we’re having stomach ache… aren’t we?
We used to call it belly ache but we’ve grown up now, so to spare anyone the secondhand embarrassment of an adult or late teen saying tummy ache, we opt for ‘stomach ache‘.
But in actual fact, we were wrong and we were actually right when we were little.
Your belly – we know it now as the abdomen – is the area of your body between your chest and pelvis, so technically any ache in between there is coming from your belly.
Meanwhile, your stomach is located in the upper left part of your abdomen and the majority of the time we complain about ‘stomach ache’, we’re actually holding our intestines.
Newsflash: The stomach is actually located partially behind your ribs and under the lungs.
Taking to Reddit, one person suggested he was failed at school, sharing: “The anatomical location of our stomach. Man…my childhood was a Lie.”
@drdanmonti If you were today years old when you learned where your stomach is, drop a 👋🏼 #bodyscan #doctorsoftiktok #mri
While another explained: “The stomach may be in the left upper quadrant but your internal organs have nerves that don’t do a good job of telling your body where the pain is coming from.
“It’s only when inflammation gets to the abdominal wall when your body starts to get really good at knowing where the pain is.
“Anyone who has had appendicitis might have experienced this with spread out pain across the belly when it’s just the appendix that’s inflammed that will eventually become pain specifically in the lower right of the abdomen when the inflammation eventually reaches the abdominal wall.”
We’ve all lived the same childhood, it seems!
“When I moved to the US, it was so confusing when people were talking about the stomach (ache or pain) and referring to the abdomen area,” one person wrote, which set of a hilarious chain.
“Because intestinal ache sounds weird,” another added, while a third commented: “Thats why in actual English its a Belly ache.”
To which someone replied: “Is it? You sound awful sure of somethings that likely pretty dependent on dialect. I’ve never use the term belly ache and most people i know are the same.
“Its either tummy ache colloquially or stomach ache if you don’t want to sound 7 years old.”
Concluding the ‘argument’, one Redditor added: “American, also hear it called bellyache. This argument is of the lowest grade.”
You learn something new everyday, right…
