It's when the abdomen becomes larger than normal, due to swelling or other causes, such as swallowing too much air, eating too much, having too much salt in the diet, edema (water in the tissues) or disease.
Distention can have serious implications for health, especially if it is not related to the benign situations, above.
http://www.nlm.nih.gov/medlineplus/ency/article/003122.htm
What does it feel like?
You may feel your pants tightening or your skin feeling as if it is being pulled taut, heavy, belly is in the way, nausea or pain. If your heart or lungs are being crowded, you may have shortness of breath and associated dizziness.
What else may it indicate?
There are many, many illnesses and conditions that result in abdominal distention, some being relatively minor and some indicating a serious disease process.
If it gets worse, the pain is severe, or you are having real trouble breathing or doing normal tasks, you'll need to see a doctor and/or go to the ER.
What about in Celiac Disease or Non-Celiac Gluten Sensitivity?
This is a sign of the disease process. It can also be used to identify having been "glutened." It's as sign of systemic inflammation, or specific inflammation in the gut. If you have CD or NCGS, you'll want to keep an eye on certain factors, associated with abdominal distention. Shortness of breath, rapid heart-rate, blood pressure changes, dizziness, pitting edema (where you can press on a body part and an indentation stays for any period of time), and fatigue can all be alarming, and rightly so. Make sure that if this occurs, you let your doctor know, so that proper care can be taken to ensure your well-being.
It can also serve as a way to develop your treatment plan for dealing with those times when you are glutened, and hopefully circumvent the nastiest part of the situation and get you well, rapidly.
RG
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