Surgery or no surgery?

[Nat84]

I am trying to decide if I should have my Gallbladder removed. I am a female, 25 yrs old, eat healthy and work out regularly. About a year ago I started having stomach & digestive problems. Had an ultra sound and came back normal with no stones. So, was told I had IBS. Well, a few weeks ago I woke up with pain on my right side. Kind of mid-way down and actualy on the side of my abdomen under my ribs - not on the front. It was just dull pain so I ignored it. It felt kind of like there was a tennis ball in there, I thought maybe it was a pulled muscle. That night it started getting worse. After dinner, around 10pm, it became increasingly worse and all of a sudden I was in a full blown attack. I was exremely light-headed and had nausia. I couldnt move. Every move killed my side. Could not get in a comfortable position. Thought I was going to pass-out. I almost went to the hospital thinking something was rupturing inside me. But I waited it out and went to doctor the next morning. The attack went away but had tenderness and dull pain for a couple days later. Would hurt if breathed-in deep or sneezed, hiccup, ect. Was sent for HIDA Scan. 17% ejection rate. When they injected the CCK, I had a lot of pain but not on my side where I had the attack. Instead, it was the same pain I would get sometimes when I ate. It is in the middle of my stomach between my belly button and chest bone. It was very sharp pains and nausia. This pain was mimiked but more intense than I have felt before. I have not felt any more pain on my right side. I am still suffering from digestive issues: (diarrhea, daily loose stools, nausia (but never vomit), generalized stomach ache and cramping, burning feeling in my stomach, sometimes have hunger pains after I eat, gas, belching) plus fatigued, dehydrated and drained feeling. And I will have occasional sharp pains or burning & gurgling in my upper middle stomach with nausia and chills sometimes followed by loose BM hours later. The thing is -  it doesnt matter what I eat. I could eat a burger and fries and be fine, then eat a salad one day and feel aweful.
I have been told by my family doctor and the surgeon they referred me to that I need to have my GB removed and that I have Biliary Dyskinesia. I have read a lot that this surgery does not always not fix the symptoms. Not sure what I should do or if this is really the problem. I dont want to spend more money for nothing, but wondering if I should see a gastroenterologist? Will he just tell me the same thing? How risky is it to just keep the lazy GB? Should I wait to see if I have another attack? Why does my upper middle stomach hurt and not the right side? Also, what is this caused by? I am not overweight and do not eat bad. I do have high cholesteral. Could that be it? Could it be my birth control medication? Just dont want to go through surgery for nothing.

[michell221]

I went to the surgeon today and he said some people just have bad gallbladders no known cause. I have  biliary dyskinesia also.     He suggested I get it out since it would prevent the constant pain and future attacks.  He said they can do the surgery with just one incision in the naval but he mainly does this for models who cannot have any scars.  He said its harder to do this way and there is not much room so he recommended the regular larascopic method but said he will try to do 3 small incisions instead of 4 . He said he could also take a look around at the other organs to see if anything else is wrong .

I asked if he did the cholangiogram before to visualize where the cystic and bile duct is located.  He said he only does it about 40% of the time now but he will do it if it makes me more comfortable. From what I have read it can help reduce the risk of the surgeon cutting the bile duct by mistake and causing a bile leak.  which causes pain and bile  to leak in your abdomen and tissues if it happens.  He said that he has had over 1800 surgeries and has only had one bile leak and it was fixed with stents to drain the bile for 6 weeks.    I feel comfortable with him so I am going to get it out next wed.  

He did tell me that it is not written about much but there are a very few cases of gallbladder issues that have diarrheah as a symptoms so its possible but he cannot promise the gallbladder will fix the diarrheah issues.  He also told me 20% of his patients report phantom like gallbladder pain up to 3 weeks after surgery some similar to the pain before it was out.  He said that this has resolved in all of his patients.  He also told me only a very few have bad diarrheah from the gallbladder being taken out.  He called it dumping syndrome.  He said that usually the patients bile duct sort of takes on the role of a gall bladder and swells and holds the bile after an operation.  He said in a very few
( 6 patients his whole career) the patients bile duct did not do this and they had bile dumping which caused bad diarrheah after meals. He prescribed them welchol or questran for this to help with it.  He told me I could possibly have an infection in my gallbladder and thats why my white blood count is up,  He would not know until it comes out and they send it to pathology and we wait a few weeks to see if the WBC goes down.  

[michell221]

I am going through same thing diarrheah, nausea, but I do have pain on the right side, and sometimes left and also in the upper stomach area.  I meet with the surgeon tom.  My EF is 22% and the CCK injection caused same type of pains plus diarrheah.  .  I did not get my gallbladder pain either until after the diarrheah started so makes me think I have an infection or something that caused the upset stomach and my gallbladder to go bad.   My WBC has been high about 15 the whole time.  What is your WBC?

  Sometimes I am fine when I eat something greasy other times not and something lowfat will make it hurt.  I am tired, weak and have been dehydrated as well.   My GI does not think the surgery will help the diarrheah and may make it worse. He even said maybe I should get a second opinion at a bigger hospital about all my issues.  I will let you know what the surgeon says tom morning.  My primary says it should be out but the GI not so sure.  I am scared to get it out and have worse upset stomach since that is what bothers me the most because it makes me weak and dehydrated.  I get night sweats now and chills and wake up with that burning in my stomach. Often I feel really bad  for a few hours before a bowel movement.  I have been taking protonix since this started and it helps with the burning which I think is stomach acid.  I also started probiotics culturelle and align and they have helped me have more formed stools but it still is not right and I go a lot more than normal.

[Twinstacey]

Well if you go to a GI doc he is going to say remove it. But I had mine removed 6 weeks ago for Biliary Diskensia with an 2% enfraction rate.  I was having the same symtoms of upper abdomen pain, even diarrhea and loose stools (which doc told me Biliary Diskensia does not cause diarrhea) but it is wierd that my diarrhea start 1 month before I start having pain.  But when I had my gallbladder out it did not take away my pain.  I still have pretty much constant pain in upper abdomen and diarrhea is still there. I would hate for you to have your gallbladder out so young and continue to have problems but GI doc says if the enfraction rate is less that 30 % they recommend removal.  It is a tough decision to make, maybe you could try a gallbladder cleanse to see if it helps before removal.  I hope your feeling better...just thought I would tell you by experience that the removal does not always take away the pain:(