Aa
Aa
A
A
A
Close
Avatar universal

ARE THESE SYMPTOMS OF GALLBLADDER DISEASE?

HI THERE,
MY NAME IS LISA AND I AM 30 YEARS OLD. I HAD LAPROSCOPIC SURGERY FOR REFLUX ESOPHOGHITIS 6 MONTHS AGO, AND AM FEELING MUCH BETTER AS FAR AS MY GAS,BLOATING, ETC. DURING BY FIRST FEW WEEKS OF RECOVERY, I HAD A BAD PAIN BELOW MY RIGHT BREAST, THAT FELT LIKE SOMETHING JABBING ME.  I TOLD THE DOCTOR AND HE SAID IT WOULD SUBSIDE, THAT MY INSIDES WOULD TAKE A WHILE TO GET BACK TO NORMAL.  IT DID SUBSIDE UNTIL ABOUT 4 WEEKS AGO, IT CAME A FEW TIMES A WEEK, AND NOW I GET IT EVERYDAY SOMETIMES 2 OR 3 X'S.
THE PAIN IS BAD, AND I FEEL PRESSURE AND BLOATED BUT IT DOES NOT LOOK INFLAMMED IN THAT AREA. I HAVE BEEN REALLY ILL AS WELL, HAVE LOST 12 POUNDS IN 4 WEEKS, SWEATS & CHILLS, FEEL CLAMMY,OVERLY TIRED AND EXHAUSTED, DIZSZY AND NAUSEOUS, AND TO TOP IT ALL OFF I ALSO GET THIS AWFUL PAIN IN MY LEFT BREAST. THE LAST TIME I GOT THE PAIN IN MY LEFT BREAST I WAS SCARED I WAS HAVING A HEART ATTACK AND WENT TO EVERGENCY. IN THE PAST 4 WEEKS I HAVE BEEN IN AND OUT OF HOSPITAL AND EMERGENCY AND HAD ALMOST EVERY TEST YOU CAN IMAGINE, WITH " NO ANSWERS " ! I AM FEELING SO HELPLESS, AND MY WORK AND HOME ARE BEING AFFECTED. MY FAMILY DOCTOR SAYS ITS ANXIETY AND STRESS, BUT I KNOW ITS NOT! ALL MY TESTS SAY THAT I AM IN GOOD HEALTH.  THE ONLY TEST THAT I AM STILL WAITING ON IS A GALLBLADDER SCAN WHERE THEY INJECT THE TRACER IN YOU. THIS TEST WAS BOOKED NOT BY MY FAMILY DOCTOR BUT BY THE SURGEON WHO DID MY SURGERY! DO YOU THINK THAT MY SYMPTOMS ARE GALLBLADDER OR SOMETHING ELSE?

FEELING HELPLESS AND TIRED
THANKS SO MUCH
LISA
10 Responses
Sort by: Helpful Oldest Newest
Avatar universal
Lor
Have you looked up Sphincter of Oddi dysfunction? Many people suffer from this after having their gallbladders removed. I had my gallbladder removed and had horrible pain for a year and a half before finally I found a Dr to listen to me. I saw so many Drs trying to get help all said it was just IBS. I couldn't believe that. My pain was only in the upper abs right below the sturmun. It would spread around to my back - sometimes the back pain was as bad as the stomach pain. Most people who suffer from SOD have problems after eating. My problem was not eating - if I went with an empty stomach the pain would come on. It was pain like nothing I've ever experienced. Go look up SOD at borland-groover.com  There is only one test to diagnose this problem. Everything else will come back normal.
Helpful - 1
Avatar universal
I have been reading all the Gallbladder stories and I will tell you about my experience so far.  I am 34.  I think back in 1995 I started getting pains in my Duodenum area and I gained 30 pounds in 1 month.  I wondered why? The only thing i had ever taken (medicine) was the "phentermine"  not the phen phen but just the Phentermine.  I think it ruined my body now thinking back.  If any of you have taken it and then started feeling like you had an ulcer and your Gallbladder removed let me know.  But back in 95 I went to the Dr and tehy put me on Prilosec without an upper GI.  I took it for 3 years until i got pregnant with my child.  After having my son i went back on it because i got a gnawing feel in my Duodenum.  I could be having the best time in my life at Disney World and have to stop and eat evey hour.  The food made the pain go away for a whole hour.  But anyway I also bloated after i ate and belched.  My belching was what we call a "vurp"  (when you burp you can taste vomit)  My weight shot up from 140 to 170 in a month and then when i got pregnant i only gained 30 punds and never lost any of it 2 1/2 years later.  I hired a personal trainer and worked my butt off and no results.  I have been on Prozac and many other anti depressants becasue they said i was anxious.  Well I am a Air Force wife and I just moved to Athens, Greece and when i got here my 11 years old was diagnosed with Diabetes Type 1 and then 2 months later I had to get my Gallbladder removed.  This is how it all came about. (let me mention I am the 4th American woman that moved to Greece in the last few years that had her Gallbladder removed here in Greece.)  We think it is the Olive oils here or something to do with the food that triggers the stones to start moving around.

I read that most people (woman mainly) have stones and they can be the size of sand to a gold ball.  Well the sand ones can be removed thorugh BM's if you take olived oil with lemon jusice at night and the morning.  Now only one of mine was the size of a birds egg (a robins i would say) and the rest were little.  I swear i at the olive oil and it moved it into the bile duct and caused my pain.

But mine all started on a Wed oct 23 2002 and I had running stools and bad cramps like i had eaten a whole box of exlax.  I thought on well just a 24 hour bug.  Then on Thurs night i had a hard stool and it was darker than usual and at midnight (I never have a BM at midnight)  then i got up to do my daughters insulin shot at 6:30am and I had to urinate so so so bad and when i did it took forever ( a small stream came out)  right after that I had the worst cramps in my right side and i felt dizzy, and was going to throw up until i laid down.  After 30 mintues i had a slight cramp but nothing big.  I went to the hospital (oct 25 2002)and the Greeks love to do test on you so I had and Upper Gi and the rear end deal (not sure of name) they did x rays, blood test and an ultra sound and there they would find several small stones with ULTRSOUND.  They told me i had an option to stay and get surgery at 7pm (Greeks work very late)or go home and return when the attack hits again in weeks, months or years.  I told them i am already prepped to go with IV, Enemas and fasting so lets do it.  Well when they went in they found the BIG STONE that was hidden and I had pus in my gallbladder which is not good.  So make sure they really look the ultra sound over.  Dr Linos is a very good surgeon from the Mayo Clinic/Harvard and he has removed 3000 gallbladders and he could not see the large stone.  Now the surgery left (4) tiny holes in my body and the one is inside my belly button that you cant see but it hurt the most.  The other 3 are below my breast, one on the right side and a small slit where they drained the stomach. Now I had bad shoulder pains from where they blew me up so expect that too the next day after surgery.  I have had a c section and the Laproscopic surgery was half of that for me.  I had a great medical team so i did not get sick from the surgery and they kept ahead of the pain with pain killers.  Now i feel so much better and have not had any trouble and hope i dont like some of you.  I have lost 8 pounds since Oct 25th and I dont have the urge to eat every hour.  I have to make myself eat.  Now i dont eat fat anymore and my BM's are perfect unless i eat a lot of fiber.  Prunes are very dangerous to me now but i still love them to help get me past a sweet tooth.

There is another interesting thing to check into. If you are around 45-50 and when you eat and shortly after you get bloated and gas you may have low stomach acid.  Many people take anti acids when you feel that way ut actually you dont have enough staomch acid to digest the foods you ate and then you go and take an antiacid to take out more of the stomach acid you had left?  There are things you can by to give you more acid before eating.  Go to www.google.com and type in low stomach acid and read all the neat things.  My Mom has it along with Diabetes type 2 and Hypothyroidism.  Her doctor said most 50 years olds have low stomach acid instead of to much so there is something to ponder.  I hope i helped with my experience.  Good luck to all of you and hope you all feel better soon.  Gwen

PS i would fly back from the states to get an operation from Dr Linos, he was great and most Americans here agree.  So dont worry about me here in Greece. It all went better then in the US (really)

Helpful - 0
Avatar universal
Hello,
    My name is william.   I am 41 and just had my Gallbladder removed.  But here is the kicker:  I still have bad symptoms.   I know that if I hadn't removed it that I could have suffered other illnesses but mine are still pretty bad.   I'm looking for anybody who may suffer the same way out there.

Before my GB was removed my symptoms were really kind  of mild.  I'd wake up in the morning every morning with the same identical symptoms.   Moderate pain in my right mid back and it would be kind of tight in the muscles.   This had been going on for about 3 months when I decided to become proactive and do something about it.   I also suffered with mild nausea daily.  When I ate it seemed to get a little better?  This is backwards from what I see from other GB suffers.   After going to the doctor he got me to take a HEIDE scan.  The results were a 27% efficient GB.  He said "It needs to come out".  He believed that it would solve my problems.    So He refered me to a sergeon who did the surgery.

Well its been 1 week now and boy it is tough to eat.   And worst of all I still have nausea  just the same as before.   I'm lookin for others who may have been down this road.

Thanks William
Helpful - 0
Avatar universal
Hello,

       I am 41 year old male that just had my gallbl. removed.   Before I had it taken out, my symptoms were different from what I understand are most common.   I would wake up every morning with mild to moderate pain in my mid right back area and kind of sore.  As the day went on those syptoms would die down but nausea was with me seems all day.   I started having cases of shortness of breath intermittantly.  After no longer being able to live with the nausea.  I went to my doctor who prescribed a heide scan.   The results were that my GB was at a 27% efficience (kind of dead).   The doctor believed that the removal of my GB would solve my problems.
Ultrasound revealed that I didn't have any stones at all in my GB.   This is what is rare about the thing.

So,  reluctantly by with despair I scheduled the GB removal.  The surgery (done on 10-25-02) was OK no problems except there was alot of people having surgery that day in this hosp. and I think that the nurses were overwhelmed......  When I woke up in intensive care I was hollering for about 15 minutes because of the pain.  After the nurses finally getting to my side they issued me 3 different kinds of pain med. until demoral did the trick.  The surgeon did a good job though.

My problem now is that I still have nausea which seems worse after I eat (the wrong thing) but even when I eat lowfat.   I also am  still having pain in my back and when I breath in the area where my GB used to be hurts.   I know that some of these symptoms are to be expected but I'm searching for help about the nausea.   Is is supposed to stay with me or will it go away?  Your comments are appreciated Thanks
Helpful - 0
Avatar universal
I feel like printing this page out and taking it to my doctor.  I, too, have had nothing but pain and diarrhea since I had my gall baldder removed 18 months ago.  I have lost 40 pounds, have constant pain in my URQ, especially if I don't eat.  The doc prescribed cholestyramine to soak up the excess bile, but I immediately became constipated with even one dose.  He thinks its just anxiety.  Well now hello, wouldn't you be anxious if you had similar results?  I don't buy it. Now they say IBS, but you aren't supposed to settle for that diagnosis with more than 15 pounds of weight loss.  

My lay person's conclusion is that doctors are willing to treat you if its a billable and profitable procedure, but unwilling to assess for less concrete or deeper causes such as malabsorption due to the altered intestinal chemistry post-surgery.  I feel depleted.  My initial research leads me to think I now have many symptom of magnesium and Vitamin K deficiency; heart arrythmias, chronic diarrhea, bone and joint pain, and guess what, a bit of anxiety, which is linked to magnesium deficits in neurotransmittors.  But I have just discovered the term "Sphincter of Oddi dysfunction" on this board.  This sounds like it.  

I really hate having to do all this research to hand to my doctor, but he doesn't seem interested in pursuing this any more, and only follows up when I come in saying, "Yup, still a problem".  Yet I keep loosing weight.  He doesn't take me seriously because I "look great" now.  Yeah!  I was 175lbs. now I'm 130lbs. But I don't feel great. I have to run to the bathroom with a minute's warning sometimes. Try teaching a class of 20 when it hits you. I dread going shopping.  My face in in a permanent unconscious snarl from the pain.  While I'm sorry many of you have similar misery, I'm glad that I can point to others who are having similar complaints AND lame responses from their doctors.
Helpful - 0
Avatar universal
Well I had my gallbladder removed 5 years ago and have recently been diagnosed with Graves Disease.  I know have a sharp, hot bubbly pain right in the area of my bile ducts/liver and have an elevation in my liver enzymes (can't recall which the doc mentioned).  Neg on Hep tests, and wondering if I have now developed something in the bile ducts?  Any other people have long-term post op problems, and or can share any info on possible bile duct concerns?  Many thanks!!!
Helpful - 0
Avatar universal
First off, let me start by saying that I AM NOT TRYING TO SCARE YOU.  I just want to share my experience so that you can take it into consideration if and/or when you are faced with making your own decisions.

I am 31 years old and have recently suffered from pancreatitis and had my gallbladder removed (07/22/02).  

I began having attacks in April 2002 and didn't really think much about them - other than the pain was UNBELIEVABLE!  I thought that I could just wait until I WAS READY to go to the doctor and they would do "the testS" and schedule the surgery.  I had heard from so many people how gallbladder surgery was "no big deal."  DON'T GET ME WRONG - I do know MANY, MANY people who have had the surgery with ABSOLUTELY NO PROBLEMS.  I think that is why I postponed dealing with mine.  I thought it was about like your tonsils - have it out when you're ready - NO BIG DEAL!

My attacks had seemed to be "solved" by vomiting.  So once one subsided I didn't really think about it until the next one.  I didn't have them on a daily basis.

I finally had an "attack" on July 17.  THIS TIME vomiting not only didn't "solve" the attack, it created more pain.  I called my primary care physician to try to get in and was told it would be two days, but I should go to the emergency room.  Eventually I relented and went because the attack was affecting my ability to breath normally.

After numerous test (sonogram, blood tests, urine test, and x-rays)I was told that the wall of my gallbladder was thickened and would have to come out "sometime".  I thought for sure they were going to send me home and that I had just wasted 7 hours of my time.  Finally I was told that they were going to admit me because my amylase and lipase levels were off the charts and that I had an inflammed pancrease.  The PA in the ER made it sound like it was most likely my gallbladder that had inflammed the pancrease, that they had not found any stones, but that they would go ahead and admit me.  I knew very little about pancreatitis and was more interested in them making the pain subside.  

The first doctor that saw me once I was admitted told me that if I were 50 years old and came into the hospital "in the same condition" as I was in my chance of survival would have only been 50/50, but because I was younger the outlook was much better.

Well, I spent six days in the hospital.  They finally got the pancreatitis under control and were able to take the gallbladder out.  They never did find any stones.  I had a CT and a HIDA scan done and the surgeon even warned me that they may find them "after we get in there".

I am now two months post-surgery and, unfortunately, still dealing with a lot of problems.  It makes me wonder if I had taken care of the problem when I frist started having problems if maybe I would have been one of the "lucky" ones who had the experience that was "no big deal".  

I guess what I am trying to say is make sure you are educated on the reprecussions of "not having your gallbaldder out" if in fact you are having problems with it.  Make sure you talk to your doctor and have them explain (until you understand) what the pros and cons are and what your choices are.  I would hate to see you suffer any more than necessary.

I hope all goes well for you.  GOOD LUCK!
Helpful - 0
Avatar universal
I have been having similar problems...I had my gallbladder removed in July and was fine for about a month 1/2.  I had pains in my left breast area with wierd feelings down my arm...I as well went to the emergency room where I checked out fine.  I'm now being treated for anxiety because of the stress I started to experience not knowing what was wrong with me!  I had a barium swallow done today and again, nothing wrong.  Everyone keeps saying that it will take your body time to get used to post surgery.  I keep hoping that they actually find something so they can treat it and not have me worried that something terrible is wrong.  So I know what you are going through...good luck to you!
Helpful - 0
Avatar universal
THANKS FOR RESPONDING TO MY QUESTIONS.
ITS GOOD TO HEAR I AM NOT GOING CRAZY AND THAT ITS NOT JUST IN MY HEAD LIKE OTHER PEOPLE THINK!
AND FOR YOU NUTCASE, I HAVE TO TELL YOU THAT IT HAS BEEN 6 MONTHS SINCE MY SURGERY FOR REFLUX, BUT I TRULY DIDN'T FEEL 100% BACK TO NORMAL UNTIL THE 4TH MONTH, YOU'RE INSIDES HAVE BEEN THROUGH ALOT. GOOD LUCK TO YOU AS WELL, AND KEEP ME INFORMED, BECAUSE IF INDEED I DO HAVE GALLBLADDER DISEASE, THE NEXT QUESTION WOULD BE IF IT IS WORTH IT TO HAVE IT REMOVED.

TAKE CARE

LAMBROSE
Helpful - 0
Avatar universal
I had gallbladder disease and suffered with it for almost 2 years.  At first I had severe pain in URQ as well as chest pain.  I had terrible nausea and lost 14 lbs in 2.5 weeks. It definitely feels like an attack of pain which gradually declines but does not completely go away.  I felt very dizzy and thought something very serious was wrong.  Ultrasounds did not show anything serious and I was told it was anxiety and non ulcer dyspepsia.  Doctors and specialists did not detect it until I found the right doctor.  I should have had the Hida scan, that is the one you are scheduled for. That is the definitive test for this problem.
Helpful - 0

You are reading content posted in the Digestive Disorders / Gastroenterology Forum

Popular Resources
Learn which OTC medications can help relieve your digestive troubles.
Is a gluten-free diet right for you?
Discover common causes of and remedies for heartburn.
This common yet mysterious bowel condition plagues millions of Americans
Don't get burned again. Banish nighttime heartburn with these quick tips
Get answers to your top questions about this pervasive digestive problem