Gallbladder inflammation and Coffee?

I'm a 44 yr old fit and petite female.  For the past 5-6 years I've had intermittent gallbladder pain, maybe once every 3 months or so.  I know it is this because the pain is very distinct, upper right quadrant, feels very tender with rebound when I try to press in that area.  No nausea but lots of belching and no desire to eat when it's happening.   It has ALWAYS been precipitated by my drinking coffee.  Let me say that I've had a 'bad' stomach my whole life (many tests and nothing ever found) and coffee has been a love/hate relationship for me. It gives me indigestion and heartburn so I go off of it for a while but eventually come back.  

After the 2nd or third gallbladder pain episode the first year, at my primary's prompting,  I had an ultrasound and though it showed that my gallbladder was swollen/inflamed (this was during an episode), there were NO stones.   Another ultrasound was done a few weeks later and my gallbladder went back to normal (flat and not swollen).  When the attacks happen, they last about 2 days the pain just quiets down on its own.  This is not the stabbing, run to the emergency-room kind of pain people talk of but rather a persistent pain that is very uncomfortable and very localized in the right upper quadrant.  When it's going on I do not want to eat and whatever I do digests very slowly.   I avoid all caffeine and high fats foods of course while this is going on.  

I have come to the conclusion after quite a few episodes over 5-6 years that the real instigator is COFFEE.   If I start drinking it regularly again, after about several weeks of regular consumption the heartburn comes back, and, eventually the gallbladder pain/inflammation.   I had a referral to a surgeon to consider a cholecystectomy but I don't feel like that's an answer to this. He even told me he could not guarantee this would relieve the pain.  I am just wondering if you've every had patients where caffeine/Coffee was a strong initiiator of cholecystitis?

[Ratnakar Kini, MD]

Hi,
There is no relationship between coffee and development of cholecystitis.I have never seen any patients with such association.