Spleen pain can feel like tenderness in the abdomen or feel like abdominal pain or even gas pains in some cases.
Spleen pain is most often felt as a pain behind your left ribs.
The spleen pain may be tender when you touch the area.
And this can be a sign of a damaged, ruptured or enlarged spleen.
Signs of a ruptured spleen are pain behind your left ribs and tenderness when you touch this area and dizziness and a rapid heart rate (a sign of low blood pressure caused by blood loss).
An enlarged spleen typically causes no signs or symptoms, but sometimes it causes pain or fullness in the left upper belly that can spread to the left shoulder.
A feeling of fullness without eating or after eating a small amount because the spleen is pressing on your stomach.
A ruptured spleen is an emergency, whether it's minor or severe.
Any internal bleeding can be life-threatening if it isn't managed.
Fortunately, most splenic ruptures can be managed with conservative methods that spare your spleen.
But this depends on recognizing and treating your injury quickly.
If your spleen becomes too big, it can start to remove too many red blood cells from your blood.
Not having enough red blood cells can lead to a condition called anemia.
If your spleen can't create enough white blood cells as a result of its enlargement, you might also experience infections more often.
The spleen can become damaged or may rupture (burst) after a forceful blow to the abdomen, car accident, sporting accident or fracture to the ribs.
Rupture can happen straight away or it may happen weeks after the injury.
Signs of a ruptured spleen are: pain behind your left ribs and tenderness when you touch this area.