Painful burping, no gallbladder

Hello, I'm a 39 yrd female; had my gall bladder removed over 4 yrs ago and a tummy tuck done over 7 yrs ago. 2 months ago I had a sensation of feeling full adn painful discomfort in my upper stomach that went all the way to my middle back between my blades; went to doctor and got Metoclopramide and Amoxicillin as well as Buscopan, within 4 days pain went from severe to mild and then light and now only when burping, this mild pain is now only under my upper right rib cage. I have a special diet of minimum to 0 carbs, high protein and fiber; pain continues and dr can't figure it out just yet, he insists is a digestive problem; this pain although is very mild and only when burping, it gets pretty bad when sitting down and then starts in my middle back again. All my scans and test came normal. Anyone suffering from this symptoms? Right now I'm taking metoclopramide before breakfast and dinner and Pantozol 40 once a day before going to bed.

[Jaybay]

No doubt there are several things for you to explore.  Could be you have sludge built up in bile duct or even pancreatic duct.  Could be a sphincter of oddi malfunction.  Could simply be a functional issue.  With 2 previous abdominal surgeries in your history, scar tissue (adhesions) could be causing the trouble as well.  What makes adhesions so frustrating for both the doctor and the patient, is that they rarely show up on tests (x-ray, CT scan, MRI, ultrasound, etc.) therefore, most surgeons will resist doing a diagnostic laparoscopy when all test results are negative.

I just had another surgery to deal with the adhesion problem.  They kept on coming back after gallbladder surgery in 1998, and since then I have averaged one surgery a year for that one problem.  The trick is to treat the symptoms of pain, nausea and vomiting for as long as possible before resorting to more surgery.  Why?  Because more surgery causes more scar tissue.  At some point, the surgery becomes more dangerous and problematic than a cure.

So many times digestive/ abdominal issues can be very difficult, time-consuming, and expensive to diagnose.  If you continue to have problems, you're going to have to keep on pushing for answers.  Try to be patient as there usually isn't a quick fix for these things.  

And one final word of advice: if a doc tells you it's IBS without running all those fun tests, find a different doc.  In my opinion, too many docs throw that diagnosis out and it's nothing but a lazy cop-out on their part.  I was told I had IBS when it was actually: gallbladder, appendix, endometriosis, adhesions.... you get the idea.  Good luck to you, and I'm really sorry to hear that you have to deal with tummy troubles.    :-)