What It Could Mean If You Have Stomach Cramps After Eating
Stomach cramps after eating are the absolute worst. Many of us can agree that eating something delicious is (or should be) the best part of the day! Even if you don’t take special joy in food or spend a ton of your time deciding what to cook for dinner, eating is something we have to deal with as part and parcel of living as human beings. So if you get stomach cramps after eating, you’re probably determined to make them stop ASAP.
It’s worth noting that experiencing some cramps in your midsection after eating can be no big deal as long as it doesn’t happen often. “Having an occasional belly ache is not a problem—it’s essentially normal,” William Chey, M.D., professor of medicine at the University of Michigan, director of the GI Physiology Laboratory, and codirector of the Michigan Bowel Control Program, tells SELF. But consistently feeling like your stomach is tying itself into knots after you eat isn’t normal, and it can have an impact that lasts long after you’ve left the table (or the couch). Not only are stomach cramps painful at the time, but persistent ones can make you apprehensive every time you try to eat, particularly when it’s unclear why the cramps are happening and what you can do to try to relieve the pain.
Keep reading to learn why it can be hard to know what’s causing your stomach cramps after eating, how the digestive process may factor in, and the most common causes of abdominal cramps after eating—plus what you can do about them.
First up: Is it actually your stomach that hurts?
Before we get into the most common causes of a crampy middle after eating, let’s clear up something many of us have been unknowingly getting wrong since we were kids. When you say your stomach hurts, chances are you’re talking about the part of your torso between your chest and your hips. This part of your body is technically your abdomen. Your stomach starts a bit under your chest on your left side and extends down into the middle of your torso. (Check out this diagram from the Mayo Clinic to get a better idea.)
It’s no surprise, then, that figuring out exactly what hurts in this general area can be tricky. “There are organs that overlap,” Nitin Ahuja, M.D., M.S., assistant professor of clinical medicine in the gastroenterology department in the Perelman School of Medicine at the University of Pennsylvania, tells SELF. “The small intestine occupies a lot of space, and the colon [the large intestine] sort of drapes around the entire abdomen and overlaps [part] of the stomach as well.”
Also, depending on what is going on, the nerves in the abdomen may not be “as good at localizing pain,” Dr. Ahuja says, so it might be hard to tell where the pain is coming from. Keep all of this in mind as you try to figure out what might be causing your post-eating cramps. Now, for the next bit of background information you need to know, since high school biology was a long time ago for some of us…
Here’s how the digestive system works.
Or how digestion should work when everything goes according to plan.
Your body employs multiple organs to turn the food you eat into energy. When everything is going well, you should barely notice this process, which is good because it can actually take a pretty long time. The Mayo Clinic estimates that it takes two to five days for a mouthful of food to go through all the various digestive processes and come out the other end looking unrecognizable.
First, though, this all starts with one bite. Between the chewing action of your mouth and the enzymes and lubrication from your saliva, you start to break down what you’re eating, the National Institute of Diabetes and Digestive and Kidney Diseases (NIDDK) explains. Once the bite is small enough to swallow, your tongue pushes it to the back of your throat into your esophagus, which begins to contract automatically in a motion called peristalsis.
The first organ the newly chewed food encounters after this is the stomach. Muscles in your stomach walls churn the food and release acid and enzymes, slowly mixing the food into a paste called chyme. Your stomach gradually releases the chyme into the small intestine, which reduces it further by mixing it with enzymes from the pancreas and from bacteria, along with bile from the liver, all while pushing the chyme further through the digestive tract. The walls of the small intestine absorb the extracted nutrients and water, which move into your bloodstream.
Even getting to this point can take an impressive six to eight hours. Once the small intestine has gotten everything useful it can from the food, the waste products move into the large intestine. For the next 36 hours or so, the large intestine absorbs water from the waste products and turns what’s left into stool, which moves to the rectum (the end part of the large intestine) through more peristalsis. It waits there until you suddenly have the urge to go, at which point it is passed out in a bowel movement. Try not to think about that at lunch.
Now, here’s why you might be dealing with abdominal cramps after eating. You’ve got the anatomical and digestive basics down. Here’s what might be up with your abdomen:
1. You might have eaten more than your stomach could handle.
Experts say this tends to be the most common cause for this specific type of discomfort. “I’m sure all of us have had that situation where we’ve eaten too much and we get stomach cramps,” Suneeta Krishnareddy, M.D., M.S., assistant professor of medicine in the faculty of digestive and liver diseases at Columbia University Medical Center, tells SELF. “It’s usually just caused by the stomach stretching—because it is a very stretchy organ—because there’s too much food in there.” This stomach stretching can also happen because of the bacteria in your G.I. tract trying to help you break down the food, which can cause gas and distension, Dr. Krishnareddy says. “That stretch in some people causes pain or cramping,” she explains.
To be super clear, we’re not saying there’s anything inherently wrong with sometimes eating “a lot” (and that definition varies from person to person). Eating past the point of fullness on some occasions can actually be part of having a normal relationship with food. And, of course, if you deal with a disordered eating issue like binge eating disorder, navigating how much you eat can be really complex and not feel entirely under your control right now. So, seriously, no judgment here. But if you’re dealing with stomach cramps after eating often and think it’s because you have a hard time not eating past the point of fullness, talking to a doctor, therapist, or registered dietitian may help.
2. You might have a food intolerance.
If you find that your cramps keep happening after you eat certain things, you might have an intolerance to a specific food substance. Common culprits of intolerances are foods that are designated as fermentable oligo-, di-, and monosaccharides and polyols (FODMAPs), “which is a fancy designation for poorly-digested carbohydrates,” Dr. Ahuja says. Examples include fruits like apples and pears, veggies like cauliflower and lentils, and dairy products. In fact, trouble processing lactose (the sugar in dairy) is the most common type of food intolerance, according to the Cleveland Clinic.
In addition to getting abdominal pain when you eat that particular food, you might also deal with symptoms like nausea, bloating, gas, vomiting, heartburn, diarrhea, and more, the Cleveland Clinic says. And keep in mind that different people can be intolerant to the same food to different extents. For example, Dr. Krishnareddy explains, someone who is mildly lactose intolerant may be able to digest cheese and yogurt but not a milky latte, whereas someone with a severe intolerance may not be able to digest any form of dairy very well.
3. You might have a food allergy.
A food allergy is a step up in severity from a food intolerance. If you have an allergic reaction to a food, it means your immune system has mistakenly identified that food as a potentially harmful invader and mounted a defense against it, the American Academy of Allergy, Asthma & Immunology (AAAAI) explains. That immune system defense is what leads to symptoms like abdominal cramping, a tingly or itchy mouth, hives and overall bodily itching, facial swelling, diarrhea, nausea and vomiting, and even potentially life-threatening trouble breathing.
According to the AAAAI, the most common food allergens are proteins in cow’s milk, eggs, peanuts, wheat, soy, fish, shellfish, and tree nuts. If you notice you’re constantly dealing with pretty intense symptom flare-ups after eating these (or other) foods, an allergy could be to blame.
4. You might have irritable bowel syndrome (IBS).
On top of abdominal pains (that sometimes happen after a meal and may get better once you poop), symptoms of irritable bowel syndrome can include excess gas, bloating, diarrhea or constipation (or alternating periods of both), and seeing mucus in your stool, according to the Mayo Clinic.
It’s not clear exactly what causes IBS, but there are a few theories. People with IBS may have abnormalities in how their brains and guts interact that lead to digestive problems and pain, the NIDDK explains.
This can manifest in a few different ways. Dr. Chey says that people with IBS may have large intestines that contract more strongly and more frequently when they eat a meal than other people’s, which can then cause abdominal pain and other issues. Another theory is that people with IBS are “extra sensitive to the stretch that is normal in the intestines from the breakdown of food products,” Dr. Krishnareddy says.
5. You might have inflammatory bowel disease (IBD).
IBD is an umbrella term for two conditions that both cause chronic inflammation of various parts of the digestive tract: Crohn’s disease and ulcerative colitis. People with either type of IBD often experience periods of remission followed by flare-ups, according to the Mayo Clinic.
The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) explains that Crohn’s disease usually affects the part of the small intestine that meets the large intestine, but the characteristic patches of inflammation it causes can be anywhere from the mouth to the rectum and seep through multiple layers of the G.I. lining. Ulcerative colitis, on the other hand, affects continuous portions of the large intestine and/or rectum, with the innermost lining becoming inflamed.
If you have Crohn’s disease, you’re likely to deal with abdominal cramping, diarrhea, and weight loss, and might also have additional symptoms like fatigue, nausea, joint pain, and anemia, the NIDDK says. With ulcerative colitis, the most common symptoms are abdominal pain and diarrhea (specifically containing blood or pus), the NIDDK notes, though you may also have issues such as fatigue, nausea, anemia, and an urgent need to use the bathroom. (As you can tell, Crohn’s disease and ulcerative colitis can have pretty similar symptoms.)
If your abdominal cramps are making life miserable, try to talk to a doctor.
Treatments for the above issues can vary wildly. For instance, if you think the issue is that you have a hard time processing beans, which then leads to painful gas, over-the-counter medications like simethicone (the active ingredient in products like Gas-X) may help with the distension that causes your pain, Dr. Krishnareddy explains.
However, if you’re experiencing cramps that are pretty severe, along with other symptoms that make you think you might have a chronic issue like IBS or IBD, it’s really important to try to consult with a doctor—particularly because taking over-the-counter medications won’t treat the real issue at hand.
“These medications can decrease the symptoms just enough that the person doesn’t go to their doctor to get evaluated,” Dr. Krishnareddy says. “But it’s not actually [addressing] the underlying problem.”
Ultimately, if getting abdominal cramps after eating is affecting your life, it’s time to consult the professionals. “If you’re having symptoms that are occurring frequently enough to interfere with your ability to conduct your daily activities, you need to see a doctor,” Dr. Chey confirms. This is especially true, he says, if you’re having serious symptoms like vomiting (with or without blood), seeing blood in your stool (which can sometimes look like tar instead of being red), or inexplicably losing weight.
Even if your cramps come without these types of symptoms, it’s good to look for an explanation if you’re dealing with them persistently. “In many cases—especially with Crohn’s—it’s just a vague abdominal pain, which is why it takes so long to reach a diagnosis,” Dr. Krishnareddy says. “That’s why I always tell people if you feel anything is wrong with you, or out of the ordinary, it’s always better to get checked out by your doctor.”
Trust your gut when it tells you something’s wrong. At the very least, your doctor should be able to ask you some questions that get you closer to figuring out what’s going on.