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How do you describe abdominal pain? There are lots of words because there are lots of different types of abdominal pain: there are dull aches, dragging sensations, sharp stabbing pains, intermittent ones – most of us have had ‘tummy ache’ at one time or another since childhood and we become pretty good at describing the various types. Of course, some tummy aches are minor – the results of eating too many chocolate eggs at Easter, for instance – but others can be agonizing pains that literally floor us. They often feel worse when we don’t know what is causing them: fear is a highly aggravating factor in our perception of pain.

Pain in the abdomen is like pain in any other part of our bodies, warning us that something is not quite right. Our expectations of a pain-free life often lead us to view pain itself as the problem – we imagine that if we can get rid of the pain, the problem is automatically resolved. Not so. Pain is an alarm device that lets us know our bodies are not functioning properly. Pain should be listened to.

Fear, worry, stress and anxiety can subtly alter our perception of pain and can, in some cases, make us feel pain where, medically, there isn’t any. It’s what lies behind so-called ‘psychosomatic’ illnesses – diseases that our minds can trick us into believing we have. The mind is a very complex organ that scientists still do not understand and it can change our perception of pain in both negative and positive ways. One little girl I know quite happily had several dental fillings done with no anaesthetic, simply because she had overheard her father saying that he never used any anaesthetic when he visited the dentist. The motivating force – her father’s approval – was enough to make her cope with the pain. When we are strongly motivated, we feel pain less intensely.

The fact that emotional states can affect our perception of pain makes it notoriously difficult to assess. And to compound this further, scientists have found that people have different pain thresholds, making one person’s ‘agony’ another’s ‘discomfort’.