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Severe Abdominal Pain with Vomiting

by 2305, Feb 07, 2009 06:01AM
I am a 42 year old female.  I was diagnosed with diabetes October 2007.  To control the diabetes, I have been put on the following medications:  metformin, lisinopril, zocor, and baby aspirin.  Ironically, since being put on the meds I have been experiencing severe reoccurring upper abdominal pain coupled with vomitting.  On a scale of 1 to 10, I would say the pain is above 10.  The pain is similiar to labor pain.  The abdominal pain would start in my upper abdomin (abdomen) area right below the rib cage.  The pain is reduced as time passes and completely gone by the 3rd or 4th day.  The pain initially occurred every 3 months.  Then it was every 2 months and now it has been occurring every 3 or 4 weeks.  The last attack I felt was December 22, 2008.  I haven't had an attack that severe since then but I have had some abdominal pain and felt nausea.  I had been complaining to my general practice doctor about the pain and he initially put me on Nexium thinking it might be acid reflux.  I had been taking the Nexium for about 3 months before I stopped taking it because it was not helping to relieve my pain.  I have had the following tests done:  ultrasound, x-ray (because of an emergency room visit), upper g.i., CT Scan, and HIDA Scan.  The x-ray did not show anything.  The ultrasound showed I had a little fat on my liver.  The only thing the CT Scan showed was that my intestines and rectum was full of stool.  The HIDA Scan showed I had a low gallbladder ejection rate of 6.6%.  Normal gallbladder rates should be between 35% to 75%.  The upper g.i. came back normal but there was a small hiatal hernia but no active esophagitis seen.  I had originally suspected that I was experiencing the severe abdominal pain and vomitting because of the medications I was on.  Metformin is known to cause severe abdominal pain and vomitting in some patients.  My G.I. doctor said my problems are indicative of a gallbladder attack secondary to biliary dyskinesia.  He is recommending gallbladder surgery to remove my gallbladder.  I told him that I really have strong reservations about having the surgery and he said I could either schedule an appointment with a general surgeon now or wait until I have another attack and have someone take me to the emergency room for a liver function test, amylase, and lipase.  That would be a sure way of knowing if it is my gallbladder and would result in surgery to have it removed.  I am torn as to what to do because I have done my homework and I've found that 50% of the doctor's recommend the gallbladder surgery and the other 50% say that it is not a guarantee to fix my problems.  I've found in my research that there are a number of people that have had the surgery, suffering from complications, and the pain is still there.  I have a couple of questions.  One is, will ejection fraction rate of my gallbladder eventually drop to a rate of 0%?  If it does, will that cause my gallbladder to burst and I find myself in a worse position?  Should I take a chance and have the surgery?  


This discussion is related to Acalculous gallbladder disease?.
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