What causes a person's appendix to burst?

Question

& how can it be prevented?

Answer 1

These people who wrote the following article can say it much better than I can. I hope that if you feel you have appendicitis that you go to the doctor or ER ASAP.

Here is the article:

The appendix is a hollow, wormlike structure attached to your intestines. It lies in the lower part of your right abdomen at the belt line. In early life, your appendix produces immune cells. For some people, several different mechanisms begin a process of inflammation that usually progresses to rupturing of the appendix and spilling of its toxic contents into the abdomen, if it is not treated. Appendicitis is most common in the teens and 20s, but you can have it at any age.

How bad is it?

Out of every 100 people with a ruptured appendix, between three and 15 die, depending upon their general state of health. The rest will be very sick for a while and need hospital treatment. But if it is surgically removed before it ruptures, less than one in 1,000 will die.

What causes it?

Most of the time, the tiny channel inside your appendix gets plugged up with a food particle, causing it to swell, get infected and fill up with pus. At other times, an infection seems to start things off. Typically the swelling reaches its limit in less than a day, after which the appendix will burst and spills its contents into the abdomen.

How do I know I have it?

The standard sequence of events begins with four to six hours of generalized abdominal pain, often around the navel, followed by nausea and vomiting, followed by localization of the pain at your appendix in the lower right abdomen. That area becomes very tender to the touch. It will often hurt to walk or jump up and down. Many people have a low-grade fever and do not feel like eating. Just after the appendix ruptures, your symptoms will generally ease off for a while. Pain from appendicitis actually gets better when the appendix ruptures and before peritonitis has a chance to set in. But don't let that lull you into delaying to seek help.

What can I do about it?

Appendicitis requires immediate medical attention. The standard treatment is emergency surgery. Because there are many variations to the typical history and many other possible diseases that produce similar symptoms, the surgeon may not be exactly sure what is going on. From your story, the examination and laboratory tests, your doctor will decide the safest course of action, which may be immediate, exploratory surgery or a CT scan of the abdomen. The new generation spiral CT scanners can accurately determine if the abdominal pain is from appendicitis or another more benign cause that doesn't need surgery.

Points to remember

Appendicitis most commonly occurs in people between the ages of 10 and 30 years old. But it can occur at any age.
Spiral CT scanners have revolutionized the diagnosis of appendicitis and have decreased unnecessary exploratory surgery in cases where the diagnosis is questionable.
Severe or progressive abdominal pain, particularly with vomiting, always needs immediate medical attention.

Answer 2

A person can survive after a burst appendix for 4-5 days or more. As soon as the appendix rupture the omentum in the abdomen immediately surrounds the appendix and arrest further spread in the abdomen. It will than form an appendicular abscess which has to be drain out with an operation. The best treatment is immediate operation before the burst if already burst generalised peritonitis may or may not happen(if yes unlucky but still manageable). Before the antibiotic the omentum usually keep the appendix surrounded making other organs in the abdomen safe. Nowadays people dont usually dies of burst appendicitis.

Answer 3

It's not always clear why appendicitis occurs. Sometimes it's the result of an obstruction when food waste or a hard piece of stool (fecal stone) becomes trapped in an orifice of the cavity that runs the length of your appendix.
Appendicitis may also follow an infection, such as a gastrointestinal viral infection, or it may result from other types of inflammation. In both cases, bacteria may subsequently invade rapidly, causing the appendix to become inflamed and filled with pus. If not treated promptly, your appendix eventually may rupture.
Please see the web pages for more details on Appendicitis.

Answer 4

Obstruction of the appendiceal lumen has been attributed to a number of common sources including from fecaliths (a hard mass of fecal matter), normal stool, viral induced ulcers, or lymphoid hyperplasia. Once this obstruction occurs the appendix subsequently becomes filled with mucus and distends, increasing intraluminal and intramural pressures, resulting in thrombosis and occlusion of the small vessels, and stasis of lymphatic flow. As these progress, the appendix becomes ischemic and then necrotic. Rarely, spontaneous recovery can occur at this point. As bacteria begin to leak out through the dying walls, pus forms within and around the appendix (suppuration). The end result of this cascade is appendiceal rupture causing peritonitis, which may lead to septicemia and eventually death.

A number of environmental factors involving diet and hygiene have been proposed to be alternate causes of appendicitis, none of which has been studied in detail. According to the Medical Journal of Australia, "Dietary theories, notably an inadequate fibre intake, have been advanced to account for the geography of the disease, but it is clear that diet can not fully explain the epidemiology."

Answer 5

When the inflammation gets to be too much and the appendix can't no longer stretch then it burst.
It is very painful, so go to the hospital before this happens.
The more painful the worse.

Answer 6

infection and inflimation

i guess the only way it can be prevented is by goin to the doctors if you have any weird pain

Answer 7

infection.
prevention: to see a doctor as soon as you start having signs and symptoms. abdominal pain, fever.