Understanding New and Severe Abdominal Pain

Two structures in your upper abdomen's midline are quite close to your back. They can give you abdominal pain and back pain all at once. They are the pancreas and, less commonly, the aorta (your largest artery). Because of your pain in the back, your doctor will consider inflammation in the pancreas (pancreatitis) as one possible diagnosis and may choose to evaluate you with an imaging test that can view the pancreas well, such as a computed tomography scan (CT scan).