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gall bladder spasms? attacks?

I have had excruciating pain from the right side upper quad between sternum and rib cage that radiates up to the collarbone, right jawbone, right shoulder, right shoulder blade and it also feels like a knife stabbing and twisting through from front to back (right side between sternum and ribcage). These attacks cause me to wake up from sleeping, wringing wet with sweat, pain that will not subside with any kind of movement, positioning, (can't hardly breathe) massaging NOTHING!!!!!! and as quick as it comes on, then it just releases and I feel like I have a huge bruise near the middle right upper quadrant of the abdomen, and that feeling never goes away. I have had an ultra sound, nuclear study, EGD scope with biopsies (scope showed a red irritated patch and that's all), blood work -  ALL NORMAL - ALL NORMAL - ALL NORMAL (has any body heard those words) I did however go to the emergency room recently and the E.R. physician said he thought I was having gallbladder spasms and prescribed BENTYL. Now this has kept the attacks pretty much at bay but I still feel overly full when I eat, belch and other as well, and continue to feel that bruised feeling in my upper. Bouts of constipation and diarreha, fatigue, grouchy and just down right MAD!!!!! My husband doesn't understand he just thinks it's phantom and I must be dreaming it up. Famous words - ( why are you upset they said everything is normal) WELL, if everything was normal I WOULD NOT BE HURTING AND MY LIFE DEBILATATED. Can someone shed some light and tell me the direction I need to take.

Thanks,

PLEASELISTEN
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Avatar universal
I JUST GOT OUT OF THE HOSPITAL THIS MORNING FOR EXACTLY ALL OF THE THINGS YOU HAVE LISTED ON YOUR BLOG.  WE'RE THINKING GALL BLADDER ALSO AND WILL HAVE IT CHECKED OUT.

FEELS LIKE YOU'RE DYING WHEN IT'S GOING ON.

CALL ME WOODY!
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Avatar universal
If i could have found you post two months ago, I wouldn't have thought I was crazy -- you described my pain event.  Perfectly.  Spent 12 hours in ER with no heart attack or stroke or aneursym.  Finally diagonosed today with gall bladder spasms and prescribed hyomax (or something like that).  Never had the pain before and haven't had it since -- but I did want to know what the heck it was.  I know this post is old, but hope you are better. :)
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Avatar universal
Please post your question as its own post because this post is over 3 years old.
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Avatar universal
I have had the same problem. I was out of work for 3 months cause the pain was so bad. I had blood work, hida scan, ultrasound and all came back normal my ultrasound showed a small polyp but I was told that would cause pain, I met with a gastro doctor and prescribed me Bentyl and told me I have spasms. 2 months have passed now and I still get the pain with certain foods and bloated ALL THE TIME! never really hungry still.
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Avatar universal
i have been having gallbladder attack's ,and the er doctor said that he was 95% sure that it is my gallbladder,he set me up to have a pepist test,and they just said my gallbladder is just spasm.i sure thought they would have taken it out,i just can't hardly stand the attack's that i have..so what would the next step be since they are not going to remove my gallbladder..
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Avatar universal
Dont give up, do me a favor and look up sphincter of oddi in the search bar and see if that sounds like what you may have. If so then I have a support group for this and also for pancreatitis being most of the time they go hand and hand. If you think this sounds like what is wrong I will leave my link here for you if you want to join and get more information ( we have a ton ) and also 150 members too.  If this is not what you have though don't give up on whats really wrong with you. I had to go through two years worth of testing , GIs treating me like I was nuts, or a depressed house wife that was loney or looking for attention! After going through this over and over I finally found a GI in MN which is 14 hours drive for me , but is was so worth it. I was there for about 5-6 days, had a few test done including a ERCP with stents put in . I also got a dx of sphincter of oddi 3 and mild chronic pancreatitis ( see I wasnt crazy ) You dont know how bad I wanted to make copies of all of this and send it to all those quacks out there that told be it was IBS or something else stupid along those lines. I knew dang well that the pain I was feeling wasnt gas , but I finally won my battle after almost three years of fighting and it was sooooooo worth it. Also alot of GIs will prescibe bentyl for eirther SOD or IBS -its kinda of a dangerous drug and I got off it after reading about it on the net and from talking to others who were on it too. Theres a few other anti spasmic meds you can ask for though if you have a pcp to do thisfor you. Theres one I take and almost everyone on my support group takes called levbid. Also adding elavil with levbid seems to do wonders too with stopping the spasms. It use to be used for depression, but then they found out that it works great for keeping your pain down by acting with your brain receptors. I also know theres one call librax and nulev too , but neither one of those worked for me.
Feel free to email me if you want, the way I will leave my email is just the beginning and no end, but its through yahoo.com ( they block whole email addys here ) so I will do it this way hehe. Email is women_2020, and my support group is also in yahoo support groups called sphincterofoddi_pancreatitis, I will try and leave the link also below............hang in there!
http://health.groups.yahoo.com/group/Sphincterofoddi_pancreatitis/
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1 Comments
I have been having very painful spasms on the right side of stomach under rib cage for several years.  They usually las several hours and then stop. Recently they have not stopped and I sent to ER and then in the hospital.  They did all the tests, Cat scan, exray, MRI and the GI doctor thought I had  stones in the bile duct. They did an ERCP and performed a sphinceterotomy. That was a week ago.  The pain has been back for several days.  The doctor doesn't seem to know what it is.  He told me to come back in 2 weeks to see how I am doing.  The pain starts in the afternoon and then stops after 3 hours.  The pain spasms are very severe and I just don't know what to do.
82861 tn?1333453911
Sounds like the ER doc was right, but he probably should have called for a gastro or surgical consult instead of simply treating your symptoms and sending you out the door.  What did your nuclear study show?  I'm assuming that was a HIDA scan?  Another angle to pursue is sludge in the bile duct.  You'd need to speak to your gastro doc about evaluating that.  You may want to gather all your records and self-refer to a surgeon for an opinion about gallbladder removal, or at least a diagnostic laparoscopy.
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