Re: Gallbladder problems?

Posted By KathyW on November 07, 1998 at 08:21:33:

In Reply to: Gallbladder problems? posted by Kathy Williams on November 04, 1998 at 06:23:38:






I first had heartburn attacks in June of 1996.  I continued having them intermittently.  I also had some upper abdominal pain and itching toward the middle between my ribs and to the right  that next fall.  I got a mild case of shingles??? in that area ( I had recently started on a fairly high dose of estrogen after a hysterectomy).  Finally in the spring of 1997 I went to a gastroenterologist and had endoscopy.  He found esophagitis grade II, gastritis, and duodenitis at that time and started me on 30 mg of Prevacid.  This  helped for a while, but I still continue to have problems.  Sometimes I feel a "gurgling" sensation in my throat and I get hoarse.  I have never had food come back up, but do get a bitter taste in my mouth sometimes.  I sometimes feel a tightness below my ribs that feels somewhat like the "heartburn", but it's more of a sick nondescript pain.  Sometimes I have pain behind my sternum that feels like gas is stuck.  This usually starts slowly, reaches a peak, then subsides in about an hour.  Antiacids don't help.   My stools have been pale, yellow, intermittently.  I have burning and stinging sensations in my arms and legs, that I have been told is a mild neuropathy.  I have occassionally had a severe pain in the right side that doesn't last very long.  I have been on and off of antibitotics during this entire time for chronic low-level sinusitis.  I keep "coughing" up small amounts of brown mucus.  An ultrasound of my gallbladder showed multiple stones with shadowing a year ago.  Another endoscopy at that time showed the esophagitis had cleared.  A 24 hour pH moniter did not show reflux, but I wasn't having symptoms at that time.  Another gastroenterologist said I might have to have reflux surgery.  That is an absolute last resort.  I can't get anybody to make sense out of any of this.  I never had any of the symptoms until the fall of 1994 when I had a really bad sinus infection that I didn't get treated for a long time.  I'm probably dealing with several things, but my doctor is now considering gallbladder surgery.  I'm having a test to see if if is functioning correctly Thursday.  After reading this forum, I don't know whethere to have gallbladder surgery or not.  Do you think it will help any of this?