Could this be Gallbladder?

[2beskinny 4]

I hope this is a better place to post this thread, I have not been feeling the love in Post Op forum which is where I am 99% of the time. I am 6 months out and you can see my progress below. I have occassionally had very strange INTENSE pain on the right side of my chest area. It seems to radiate all around in "the middle" between my ribs and shoulders, but definitely more to the right side. If I force myself to start burping a little, it seems to ease up a bit. I can feel it sort of high up in the center of my chest (like I said, sort of radiating) below my collar bone area. This pain has come on out of the blue about 3 times in the past 6 weeks. Never any trouble breathing. I am wondering if it could be gallbladder? It does seem to be located a bit highter than where I read gallbladder pain located on google. The net says that gb pain is right side below at bottom of rib cage...mine is closer to right were the underwire of my bra hits. I know I will probably make an appt. with my GP to get some bloodwork done, but was hoping for some input from anyone if they have experienced this before. I don't consider myself a "rapid" loser by any means and purposely was not trying to lose quickly to avoid Hair loss and gallbladder! My mom had hers out in her 40s so that is probably what it is. I also wonder if it could just be gas since it seems to be alleviated a bit by the burping? Maybe gass gets trapped in the lower stomach and has a hard time getting out because of the restiction???

[Jodi_620 37]

Yeah, being on the right side it could be gall bladder. Maybe talk to your band surgeon that way he can asses not only whether is it gall bladder but if not also if it could be band related. My lap band surgeon assessed my gallbladder problem and he is the one who removed it for me too.

[eko 1]

It the pain happening after you eat? Is it with certain foods. If the pain occurs after eating with specific types of food, it certainly could be gallbladder. 3 times in the last 6 weeks makes me think it is not the band, but I am not an expert.

[muelle 64]

I had my gallbladder out about 5 years ago (pre-band) and your pain does sound like it could be gallbladder. The pain is really intense, I compare it to natural child birth, and comes on suddenly, then leaves with no explanation. I also had terrible heartburn, and sharp pain in between my shoulder blades. I ended up in the ER after suffering these "attacks" going on for 6 months. My blood tests came back normal so they scheduled an ultrasound and found my gallbladder was full of stones, so it came out a couple weeks later. Gallbladder disease, or whatever you call it, runs in my family. My 11 year old daughter is going through the same thing right now Good luck!

[honk 780]

Blood tests will not tell you anything. The best test is an ultrasound. Eating something higher in fat will bring one on. So the next time you get one look back to what you ate. The worse it gets the more frequenty they will come. The pain is excruiating! Horrific! If you've had these pains you know I'm not exaggerating.

Gallbladder problems do run in families. I think all my mother's siblings male and female had it removed. It is often seen in the Female, Fat, Forty and Fertile group. After losing 100 pounds I had to have mine out at 19! Today they do the surgery Laproscopicly mine was regular surgery so I have a big scare (size of port incision.). The silver lineing is that eating fatty foods' leads to terrible pain, if that's not a determent I don't know what is!

[shanrich96 0]

Just and FYI I was surprised when my nurses told me it was a common occurance after lapband surgery.

[OnMyWay2Thin 45]

I had mine out last year. Evidently, if you lose weight fairly quickly over a short period of time and you are prone to having a gallbladder problem, this will bring it on. Muelle explained the pain perfectly. Excruciating pain... Mine radiated in the right frontal area and between my shoulder blades. It was horrible. I didn't really have any symptons, maybe some stomach pain for a few days prior but then woke up in the middle of the night and thought I was dying!! Went in the hospital and they had it out with a few hours, that's how bad it was. I requested my lapband surgeon to do it and he came right in (delaying his vacation!) Definitely get it checked out, the pain relief you will get if that is it is night and day!

Good luck!