Gall bladder information....

[piercedqt78 658]

I have received several very nice and encouraging emails and several questions about my experience with my gall bladder. Since there are so many people with questions I thought I would make a thread about it, who knows it just might help someone else. I started having pain just under my right rib cage almost 18 months ago. Sometimes it was a burning pain and sometimes it felt like I had a ballon inflated under my ribs. I would wake up at night feeling like there was a knife sticking in my side. In that time frame I have had 3 ultrasounds and each one came back fine. I asked my surgeon to remove my gallbladder during banding and he said no, it was too risky as it can cause infection around the port and band. After surgery I was told my gallbladder was fine and didn't need to be removed anyway. The pain continued. My PCP treated me for gastritis (sp?), heartburn, reflux, GERD and anxeity. Nothing was helping. I went to my new band doctor and told him that I either needed an answer as to what was causing this pain or I wanted exploratory surgery so he could have a look around in there and possibly find a cuase. The pain was preventing me from eating and by this time I wasn't sleeping either. It had progressed from greasy foods bothering me to everything I ate causing me pain. Dairy was a really big one, I was living on propel and applesauce. The new band doc said that there was a test called a HIDA scan that would check the function of the gallbaldder. We set it up for the very next day. The test was simple enough they put in an IV and injected some dye into it. The a machine took pictures of the path of that dye from my liver to my gallbladder to my intestines. The after about 90 mins of laying still for the pictures, the tech injected a fat enzyme into the IV and that caused the same pain that eating was causing. Basically the machine takes a second set of pictures and the gallbladder should be about half the size it was in the first set of pictures. Mine didn't shrink at all. Also the tech said that the pain was a good indicator and that was actually part of the diagnosis process. My surgeon called me the very next morning and said that my gallbladder wasn't working properly, less than 25% and it needed to come out. I had surgery a few days later and I haven't had that pain after eating since. I am able to sleep on my back again and I even managed to sleep on my right side last night. If you are having pain on the right side, or even in the right shoulder, have it checked out. There is no reason to live with pain, especially if it was be treated. If anyone has any questions feel free to ask. ~Mandy

[Alexra 0]

Thanks for that information, I just called my Dr this past week because of a similar pain, We think it may be related to my new increased workout schedule, but if it doesn't subside by Wednesday I am going for an ultrasound as well.