did a 2hr run sat morning–easy pace, felt fine. get home and hop on the bike for a 90min ride. halfway thru the ride–honest pace, not hard–my side starts to cramp. by the end of the ride it feels like my entire abdomen is cramping up, and the spot where the side stitch appeared is hurtin’ like hell. i thought i might have mixed the gatorade too strong and forgot about it. for the next 3 days, anytime i do something above an easy pace, the stitch starts to appear. hell, when i’m at work and just take a deep breath i can feel a tinge of pain where the stitch showed up. anyone else had this happen? i’m not too worried–i’m more curious than anything. figured someone out there in slowtwitch land had this happen before.
did you crack a rib maybe? I think I’d get it checked out.
have you gone to the bathroom lately?
i know that’s personal, but I experienced something like this in high school. i ended up going in the hospital for 4 days. i was dehydrated and over trained, plus didn’t have alot of bathroom activity (if you know what I mean).
so, my advice is–eat some high fiber foods strictly vegetarian foods and drink a gallon of water so that your kidneys can have a break from protein and you will go to the bathroom. lay off of training for a day. if it still hurts the next day then get to the doctor asap.
Maybe you pulled a muscle in your abdomen. I know when I do long runs or even extended periods on my bike I sometimes get strains and/or cramps in my stomach muscles. It most often occurs on very long runs at higher HR’s where I’m really utilizing my stomach muscles to help me breathe. It’s generally the muscle that runs from my side to below the belly button.
dehydration may have been a big factor–to be honest, i am not sure what causes side stitches. looking back, i probably did not drink enough water, so when i chugged the superstrong gatorade i made, i thought that just made my stomach very unhappy. i’ve had something like this happen once before–i went out on a ride with some people MUCH faster than myself. had to go full blast just to keep up and developed a stitch pretty quick and felt it for a couple days. thanks for the suggestions guys!!
if you think you are dehydrated and you now feel pain, no doubt your body has been taxed. when your body goes through something like that it traumatic. personally, i think it would be a good idea to take a day off and eat lots of watery foods…so watermelon, grapes, celery, carrots, oranges and lettuce, will all help you make the appropriate come back. nurse yourself for a day with these foods so that you can make the pain go away.
when this happened to me in high school I ignored it until it got so bad that I had to go to the ER. well, sure enough I had to stay for 4 days. they kept taking my blood though and it made me very weak. I tried to get up to go to the bathroom and ended up falling and cracking my head so hard that I bled–i have a 2 inch scar. the whole situation was very bad and unnecessary. had I just rested a little, and eaten some replenishing foods (like those I mentioned) I could have avoided the entire fiasco.
So, in short, pay attention to yourself and rest a day, maybe two. you’ve got a serious nutrition problem and you need to handle it before you end up getting into deep trouble.
don’t make me call you mother!
kittycat
Yes, I’ve had this happen to me. This is what I think happened to me.
(1) I did a race (2) crap/side stitch came on strong (3) I kept going despite of the pain (4) muscle (diaphragm) is injured. The next few days afterward I could feel what I had done, breathing became more difficult. After about two weeks, the stitch was much better but I had to let it heal just like any other muscle.
Avoiding the side stitch is paramount and they are still a bit of a mystery. I did a lot of research two years ago on this topic because it was bothering me on almost every run. Side stitches usually occur when running and not cycling because of the up-and-down nature of the sport. In my research I found that eating to much before exercise plays a key role because when you eat, you engorge your liver with glucose, this makes your liver heavier, and there is a common ligament that connects your liver and diaphragm. When the “heavy” liver starts bouncing up-and-down while running, it pulls on your diaphragm and that causes the dreaded side stitch.
Experts say once you get the side-stitch only stopping will cure you of the pain but altering your breathing can help you continue with reduced discomfort. The key is to exhale when your left foot hits the ground; this sequence seems to help and I have tested it many times. I would say it reduces discomfort by 50%.
Good luck and do a google on this topic; you will find more good tips.
Dave in VA
I’ve had this problem twice, once of my own fault. I did 1200 or so situps/leg lifts/crunches/etc one night when I was bored…it was painful to live for about 5 days afterwards. But the other was actually caused by a misaligned vertebrae in the upper middle of my back. It hurt for a couple of days before I discovered this accidentally. I was leaning back and stretching my arms backwards over the top of my desk chair and right in the middle of my back…POP! The pain instantly vanished. I’ve been a fan of occasional chiropractor adjustments ever since, and have been amazed at the number of odd pains or stiffnesses that seem to be directly spine-related. Something to think about, at least.
I’m not sure, but I think you can actually pull or tear the muscles in your diaphragm.