Sharp Pulling Pain in Belly Button - Part 2

I'm a Medical student with the same problem described here and I will do my best to explain what is going on. Occasional sharp pain aggravated with urination and or stretching of the abdomen. Relieved by hunching over. There is a ligament that connects from the bladder to the umbilicus called the median umbilical ligament. As a fetus this structure is called the urachus and is essentially a tube that drains urine back into the mother through the umbilical cord. People that are experiencing the type of pain described here on this forum likely have remnants of the urachus. These remnants present as pouches (cysts, sinuses, ect) that become easily irritated. Here is my reasoning. When the bladder is emptied it becomes smaller and is "pulled" deeper into the pelvis. This in turn pulls on the median umbilical ligament that in our case didn't form properly and can be described as a urachal remnant. Back extensions or popping out the belly would reproduce the same symptoms as urination because once again that structure between the bladder and umbilicus is being stretched taut. In my experience I get this pain after vigorous exercise for long periods of time where my abdomen is being stretched or twisted. Many people on here refer to this pain as a pulled muscle, but I don't think that is the case. This pain comes from below the rectus abdominis (six pack muscles). Unfortunately this is just something we must put up with i'm afraid. That is unless it becomes constant where potentially an abscess forms. An abscess can occur anywhere in the body and is essentially a walled off isolated infection that antibiotics for the most part cannot get to and therefore must be surgically drained. The only solution would be surgery and in my opinion the risk of surgery for this problem is simple not worth it. Here is a case report of this exact problem with pictures to help understand what is really going on. Hopefully this gives people closure. http://www.ijars.net/articles/PDF/2145/19570_F(P)_PF1(Om_Vsu)_PFA(GH)_PF2(VsuGH).pdf

It's not a UTI. There's actually no infection. I know many people who have had UTI's in the past, yet no one has experienced this pain. With all of my google searching I believe it could be Painful Bladder Syndrome.

I know that the MD provided his answer. That being said (since I don't seem to match those 2 diagnoses), I thought I would throw in my own 2 cents just from my personal observation of this pain. I am a young, in shape female. I felt this pain temporarily this morning..and only upon feeling it remembered that I have felt it at random points in the past for short amounts of time as well (in seemingly un-patterned occurrences). The only thing out of the ordinary this morning was that I woke up realizing I had to urinate (and went to bed the night before without doing so). I then had to wait for a roommate to get out of the bathroom for an additional 20 minutes before I could get to the restroom. It was a few minutes after urinating that I felt this pain starting. My theory is that this pain (the sharp string-like pain from bottom of the belly button to the bottom of the groin) may be related to holding in urine for too long... anybody else notice a correlation between "holding in" urine and the occurrence of this pain?

Absolutely I do! In fact that seems like the only thing that triggers it, if I go swimming in the sea, or cycling for a while, I seem to not notice my bladder getting full (same goes for sleeping and holding urine), and even hours after I've come home, I seem to not feel like I need to urinate, and all of a sudden I go to get up out of my seat, or off my bed, and stretch my abdomen and BAM!! It's there. It's actually gotten to the point where I can predict it based on the last time I've urinated, how much I've been drinking, and what I've been doing. Now once it does strike, all I can do is not stretch it, and go to the bathroom multiple times, quite frequently, and pass a tiny bit of urine as pain allows, until I'm slowly able to pass more and more urine and able to stand straighter and straighter until it's basically gone. When I have the pain, urinating is painful because if you ''let go'' of your bladder too much, it tries to shrink and pull on the urachus, so a little at a time is how I do it.

What I was worried about is whether the bladder is actually full during the episodes (which worried me immensely), and once we were on vocation and I got the pain and it was quite strong, and I was quite worried, because it was the longest episode I have had and we were away from home with lots of people around, so I didn't have a safe spot to just lay and do my thing without being bothered, or being seen hunched over!
My big worry was basically, ''Is my bladder actually full right now, or did something else trigger it?''. We ended up going to the hospital a few hours later, all the while I hadn't peed at all, and the doctor did an ultrasound scan of my bladder area, and gave me a strange look and said ''it's completely empty...''. I have to mention by that time it had pretty much gone away, and the look on the docs face was basically ''Are you kidding me? Did you just make that sh*t up?'' That experience proved to me that the bladder isn't necessarily full every time you have the pain.

I'm 19 male. I don't think gender has anything to do with this, it has to do with the bladder being connected to the urachus, which can happen to either male or female, and the differences ''down there'' don't come into play at all if you think about it. it's to do with how the bladder relates to the abdominal area around it, and the urachus, so whether you have a penis or a vagina doesn't make a difference. The best response so far has been from the MD above, it makes perfect sense. Search for me on the famous social media sites with the words 'face' and 'gram' in them, by ''swansea road bikes'' and swansea_road_bikes respectively.

37 yo male here. I’ve had the same issues for years. Stabbing belly button pain with a similar yet not as intense nerve pain on the tip of the urethra. Only common thing I’ve noticed is that it completely subsides if I carry more body fat +7-8% anything lower it starts happening and gets much worse around -4%. It’s not associated with a full bladder at all.

It's just dehydration, if you move or push hip fwd it feels like a tear same when u urinate, try drinking a big glass of water and after 15/20mins it will of gone, keep drinking water and you won't feel it again

It’s about damn time I finally found something about this problem!! I’m a 32yr old male and have had this extremely painful issue for probably 15 years or longer. It happens randomly, but it’s always when I stand up or move suddenly. I’ve also noticed that I usually have to pee when this happens, and if I can’t hold it any longer it can intensify the pain dramatically. The only thing that has ever helped me at all is hunching over and taking the pressure off of that area. Not only is that very embarrassing to be perfectly fine and then suddenly have to hunch over and not be able to do anything for a few hours, but No One has ever understood wtf I was talking about. I’ve seen 4-5 doctors and got all the usual responses. Doing my own research I feel like it has to be some sort of hard to detect hernia. There is no bulging whatsoever, but everything else fits perfectly. This just happened to me and I’m still kinda in the fetal position to keep the pain from coming back. I hope someone figures this problem out soon!!!! Thanks, Nick

I'm a 31 year old female and I've had this problem on and off since I was about 12 or so. It disappeared through my teenage years and it didn't start hitting me regularly until my early to mid 20's. I had the same pain and triggers that all of you have (intense exercise and dehydration being the most common trigger).
Anyways I've developed some (presumably unrelated) pelvic pain as of late and was referred to a physiotherapist that specializes in the pelvic floor. Upon examination she noted that my pelvic floor was way too tight and constantly being tensed. Over the next few months of physio she taught me to relax and stop tending my pelvic floor. I can now tense and relax it on command.
Why am I telling you this? Well, the dreaded pain hit me a few months ago after I had spent a half hour chipping ice off of my sidewalk. It was probably due to the fact that I was not drinking much water that day, combined with the strenuous work.
One thing I noticed when the pain began to get bad was that if I tensed my pelvic floor as i was trained, it made the pain worse and/or trigger it again. My hypothesis is that your pelvic floor muscles are intimately involved with your bladder. When they spasm or cramp (because they're held so tight) they pull on your bladder which also pulls on the umbilical ligament. So, naturally if you can learn to relax your pelvic floor muscles and keep them from cramping or spasming, perhaps the belly button pain can be prevented.
Looking back, as the pain became more frequent I would tense up more and more all the time to prevent it, which becomes a vicious circle as that can potentially cause more spasms.
Anyways I'm not a doctor or any kind of medical specialist, these are just my observations. If you can find a sympathetic and understanding physiotherapist that understands the pelvic floor try talking to them about it and see what they say. If they check your pelvic floor and it's super tense there's nothing to lose by learning to relax it. After going to so many doctors who basically said nothing was wrong I realized I should have gone to see a physio years ago. I had no idea what they did.
Another thIng that helped lessen the occurrence at least for me was regular massage if my abdomen, especially skin rolling. Look up what fascia is- dealing with the fascia on my abdomen, especially the area around my belly button has helped me feel more at ease.
My best wishes to all of you, I know how awful this can be.

Same pain. I would also describe it as a string pulling from belly button to pelvic area. It's been going on off and on for about 3 or 4 years. I'm 35. I tend to feel it when I've stretched big like during a yawn or yoga or when I pick up my youngest daughter. She is 3 but she is tall and constantly mistaken for a 5yr old. Seems to me that the most common responses are an umbilical hernia or torn muscle. My instincts tell me small hernia.

Yikes!!! I'm a 46 yr.old female that was in excellent physical condition doing 2 hours of cardio and weights 4 days a week. I started getting chest pains that I thought were just muscle cramps but got to severe so I had to stop going to the gym on a temporary basis and my job is physically demanding so this was supposed to be a temporary fix to see what was happening with my body. about 4 months later I had my first heart attack. then about a month later I was having problems peeing so one morning at 3 a.m. I took myself to the emergency room and they diagnosed me with a combination of fibroids a UTI and a yeast infection. they said the combination must have just pushed on my urethra. the doctor gave me antibiotics and a pill to clear up yeast infection which worked immediately. the days leading up to my non peeing incident we're about 2 or 3 weeks before that I had trouble going and noticed if I pushed on my lower abs I will go and I started getting a pain under my belly button. The pain in my belly button have been coming and going since December and my urinating is still not back to normal, the stream is slow and sometimes I have to wait before it comes out at all. It feels like being jabbed with a hollow straw from the inside. I don't even know which doctor to go see about it I guess I should go to my primary. If anyone knows what that pain is under the belly button please let me know thanks

That's why I decided to reply to this thread. 19 year old female here, I am actually a vegan and rarely eat highly processed / junk foods - the only abundance of sugar I would get is from fruit (fresh, never with added sugar or anything), and that sugar would be in its bioactive form. The thing is, I've only been eating this way for about 4 months now, and I've had this kind of pain about twice - three times a year since I was 12. I've never really been a sugar fiend; I've always eaten a low amount of junk food and have tried to take care of myself.

I'm having this excruciating, string-like pain from behind my belly button to my urethra (only when abdomen is stretched or I try to pee) for the first time since going vegan. Might be worth noting that I went with my sister to a froyo place last night, and seeing that they offered non-dairy, had some myself. Probably a lot of refined sugars were in there. I'm going to avoid that sh*t like the plague now, since noticing I've had none of this pain when I do so.

If it keeps coming back, my thinking is the umbilical hernia / endometriosis explanation makes more sense. I will see a doctor next time this happens, if I can't connect it to sugar aggravating yeast bacteria or something.

mins half in and half out its kinda funky and it burns like a biotch bad like you describe with very little provocation!! it sux!!

16 year old female. This feeling happens to me very randomly- not too often, but more primarily around the time when I have my period. The string analogy is perfect- that is exactly what it feels like. Other girls out there - this is a common symptom of endometriosis! As is increasingly painful periods, gastrointestinal issues (diarrhea or constipation) while on your period, and even infertility. Worth going to a doctor about.

Found this interesting paper written just recently. It doesn’t describe our pain but it does discuss the pulling pain from belly button and Urachus. Thoughts? https://www.hindawi.com/journals/criem/2018/6051871/

Hi there! How are you going a year on from your surgery? Did the pulling pain ever return or can you confidently say that the culprit was the median umbilical ligament/ Urachal cyst? I am waiting to get this surgery myself so would love to hear from you!