Aa
Aa
A
A
A
Close
Avatar universal

Gall bladder Dysfunction

Hi there everyone! I have Lyme, Bartonella, Bebesia, and erchlichea. Currently I have spent 6 months in treatment and we're still going. Recently I have been having lots of stabbing pain in my right side under my rib cage. The pain sometimes wraps around to my shoulder blade. I've had a CT scan, ultrasound, a scan in nuclear medicine, and an endoscopy and nothing much has shown. They said possibly bile reflux but there wasn't that much bile in my stomach during the endoscopy. I've read where Lyme patients go into surgery and discover their gall bladder is diseased. The endoscopy I have next Friday will be for gallbladder and pancreas this time. Is it possible they'll find it diseased or something? I'm just so frustrated because the pain is that intense!
16 Responses
Sort by: Helpful Oldest Newest
Avatar universal
Maybe it's just because I know lots of people who work in olive oil production in Italy who have told me how easy it is to bribe inspectors to give out false certification, whereas I don't know enough people in Greece to have found out it's the same there! You're probably right, it's likely to be the same everywhere!
Though I would not underrate Greek food purity, the food they produce there is spectacularly good quality. At least, here in the Mediterranean we consider Greek yoghurt the best by far and I have to say their tomatoes seriously give Italian ones a run for their money.
The olive oil you can buy in the supermarket has always been filtered, this give it a longer shelf life but also takes out a lot of the taste. Greek oil seems to resist this filtering process the best, in teh sense that it still has lots of flavour even after this process.
Also I just did a search online and Wikipedia seems to agree with me that Spain is the worst for corruption regarding olive oil and Greece is the best. I think that has something to do with the insane subsidy system and production quotas of the EU common agricultural policy.
Helpful - 0
Avatar universal
Greek olive oil is better than Italian???!!!!   Why is that?  Having spent extended time in each country, I would put Italian food 'purity' over Greek any day.  Wrong?
Helpful - 0
Avatar universal
BTW there is a lot of corruption in olive oil certification in italy and Spain - in Spain it' sso bad you can safely assume all Spanish oil is garbage,  lots of bad Italian oil is passed off as good. North Africa oil is also bad stuff pretending to be good a lot of the time.

You should always buy Greek Olive oil if you can, it is by far the best in the world. (If you're getting it from a supermarket instead of directly from a farmer that you know, which is what Italians do).
Helpful - 0
Avatar universal
thanks for the tip about the lemon juice with olive oil, I didn't know about using oil too so I'll try that.
Olive oil is veruy powerfully anti-bacterial so manybe that is why it helps?
According to my sister it also stimulates your gall bladder to squirt out some bile, so maybe that's the way it works? Though of course not if your gall bladder has been removed!!!

IF you have low stomach acid, it can also help to eat pineapple or papaya after a meal  as they are not only acidic, but contain enzymes that digest protein. Pineapple has bromelain and papaya has papain.

BTW extra virgin olive oil has less than 1% free oleic acid but the inferior versions have much higher acidity levels.
You should look for "cold pressed" too.
"Cold pressed extra virgin oil" is the first pressing,
"Pure" is one of the official terms that specifies you are getting absolute junk oil, never use it.

I wrote a blog post explaining how to tell if you're getting good oil or not

http://siciliangodmother.blogspot.it/2012/03/sicilian-medicine-or-is-it-magic.html

(The first half is anecdotes about oil in Sicilian culture, scroll down if you just want the technical info).
Helpful - 0
Avatar universal
Here, Here! for olive oil.  I agree on the taste.

It is good to stick with Italian Extra Virgin olive oil where possible. I saw a program on TV that showed that at least half of domestically produced olive oils were doctored with other junky oils, especially the ones from California. The worst ones tested had very little olive oil in them. The best of the fraudulent oils had about half.  Some even said "pure" on the label.

As popularity of olive oil grew, crooks found a way to make a quick buck because no one was testing olive oil in this country to make sure it was pure. The FDA only responds to complaints, so buying a reputable brand is your best protection against fraud.
Helpful - 0
Avatar universal
PS  The tiny bottles of extra virgin olive oil sold in supermarkets are ridiculously expensive.  I buy the big bottles (it stays fresh a long time, keep it in a cupboard) or tins at a warehouse store, and refill a smaller bottle for the countertop.  Some are blends of olives from different countries, which is okay, the taste is just a little different if you're used to a certain brand, but the bottles/tins are marked with letters saying what countries the olives/oil came from.  Tunisia is a big exporter, also Greece.  I tend to stick with Italian if I can get it.

Helpful - 0
Avatar universal
Olive oil is loaded with good stuff.  It's all I cook with.  

Some say they can taste the olive oil if they are not accustomed to it, but very quickly the taste becomes undetectable and now food *not* cooked in olive oil tastes strange to me, esp. if it's been cooked with some junky oil.  Highly recommended for all kinds of reasons.  

Oh, and get the 'extra virgin' --- it's from the first pressing of the olives, and no chemicals are used to extract the oil from the olives at that stage.  Pure as it gets.  60 million Italians (and those are only the ones still in Italy) can't be wrong.  Mangia!  (Eat!)
Helpful - 0
Avatar universal
Great suggestion!  I had low stomach acid, too.  It took me a while to realize I had it, but drinking lemon water did help. (I didn't know about olive oil.)  Lemon juice lowers the body's Ph level, which helps both digestion and the immune system. Lemon water is a good remedy for nearly all late stage Lyme patients.  I would squeeze a half a lemon into a couple quarts (about a liter) of water and drink it over a couple days.

This wikipedia entry is a good description for hypochlorhydria, in case anybody else is suffering from it.  Dr. Scherr explains that it's caused by neurological interference in the Vagal Nerve, which controls breathing and digestion.  Too much acid results in heartburn.  Too little results in stomach pain, malabsorption, and other digestive problems.  (Taking antacids for this makes it worse.)

Xifaxin helped reduce my stomach pain, so I think I also had small intestine bacterial overgrowth.  

From Wikipedia on Hypochlorhydria

The decreased acid level itself can cause symptoms similar to gastroesophageal reflux disease, and impairs protein digestion by inhibiting the activation of the enzyme pepsin, whose activation is dependent upon a low gastric pH. Furthermore, low acid levels in the stomach are linked with bacterial overgrowth (as the stomach does not kill microbes normally present in food), which can manifest as diarrhea or decreased absorption of nutrients or vitamins. Risk of particular infections, such as Vibrio vulnificus (commonly from seafood) is increased. Even without bacterial overgrowth, low stomach acid can lead to nutritional deficiencies through malabsorption of basic electrolytes (magnesium, zinc, etc.) and vitamins (including vitamin C, vitamin K, and the B complex of vitamins). Such deficiencies may be involved in the development of a wide range of pathologies, from fairly benign neuromuscular issues to life-threatening diseases. A person with achlorhydria can suffer from stomach pains caused by the digestion of food that is not properly broken down by gastric acid.
Helpful - 0
4939681 tn?1361299299
Just a thought before searching for digestive enzymes.  I have hypochlorhydria that causes awful pain, constipation, bloating, etc and was getting ready to try digestive enzymes.  I found a website that mentioned trying 1/2 a glass of water mixed with a shot of lemon juice and a shot of olive oil 1st thing every morning to get your body geared up to digest food for the day.  It has made a world of difference.  Just an inexpensive quick remedy that you could maybe start with.  You should see results as soon as day two!
Helpful - 0
Avatar universal
I had my gallbladder removed a couple of decades ago. (Pre abx but probably because of Lyme)

I have never experienced any digestive problems from having it out. I eat everything, even hot spicy food and fatty foods. But that's just me.
Helpful - 0
Avatar universal
P.S. You can help your digestive system with diet. Have you already gone gluten and dairy free?  Minimizing saturated fat, sugar, and processed foods is very useful.  The liver creates bile and sends it to the gallbladder, which stores it until needed.  A fatty meal triggers the gallbladder to put out bile to help with digestion, which is why a diseased or stone-filled gb will hurt much more after eating fat.

Also, find some good digestive enzymes and take them regularly.  They help support your digestive process until your own system can recover.
Helpful - 0
Avatar universal
I have indeed experienced similar pain. It is part of the pain that put me in the hospital. MRI and CTs scan didn't show any blockages in the biliary tree or stones in my gallbladder, so they concluded that wasn't the cause of my pain.  

In hindsight, I was surprised the GI doc didn't recommend a HIDA scan to check the gallbladder further.  They were distracted by my brain lesions and thought a mysterious neurological problem was causing my GI distress and pain, not any actual problems with my GI organs.

The LymeMD blogger has described Lyme patients with severely reduced gallbladder function and/or pain. He describes one who had her gallbladder out and a PCR for Lyme on it came up positive. The gallbladder is a low oxygen environment and is an organ that Lyme is known to infect, although many doctors don't know this. (A nephrologist told me that Lyme doesn't affect the kidneys, despite documentation out there that sometimes it does.)  The gb can hurt like the dickens when it is infected.  A HIDA scan can show reduced function and help with a decision to remove it.

I really wanted to keep my gallbladder.  Surgeons will say you don't need it and be quick to remove it, but there are a whole lot of patients out there who wished they'd been able to consider other options.  Chronic constipation or chronic diarrhea are common lifelong results of losing a gall bladder.  Digestion problems are typical.

You don't mention what meds you're taking, but Rocephin is hard on the gallbladder and long term use sometimes results in gb removal. Unless you're willing to lose it, you shouldn't take Rocephin.  I started Bicillin LA shots instead of Rocephin for this very reason. My doc's PA put me on Ursodial to help support my gallbladder while we waited to see if it improved with antibiotic treatment.  (They always prescribe Ursodial with Rocephin.)

I am convinced that my gallbladder was infected.  Fortunately, the pain wasn't intolerable and I could wait until it improved with abx. It hasn't hurt in about a year now, but it did hurt for months.  I used occasional pain meds and heating pads to get me through it.

With Bartonella and Babesia, my other abdominal organs were affected as well. Babesia has cause my liver to swell up and hurt on multiple occasions. I showed pancreatic insufficiency on three sequential GI analysis tests, which makes sense given that I had poor digestion and absorption that improved when I took digestive enzymes.  I had pale stools twice, which is a scary sign that the biliary system is blocked or the pancreas is in trouble. Of course now I'm dealing with a stressed out spleen as we treat Babesia.  Other than some stomach problems from either Babesia or the meds, my digestion is vastly improved.

Note: The GI analysis I did was at Metametrix. They do a really thorough job that few other labs do. Mine also showed that I had h.pylori & campylobacter, excessive yeast and unknown parasites.  I took a PrevPac for the h.pylori & campy and Xifaxin for the unknown parasites.  Both noticeably reduced my abdominal pain.

I took Nystatin (useless) and Diflucan for the yeast.  The best yeast treatment I've taken is Lufeneron. It worked beautifully with no side effects or stress on the liver.  (It's never been approved for use in humans, but extensive testing on mammals shows it's safe. There's not enough money in it for human use to justify the high cost of getting it approved.)  Reducing yeast also reduced my abdominal pain.

Have you seen the article by Dr. Scherr called "Bell's Palsy of the Gut"?  It was really helpful for me to better understand what was going on in my gut.  When Bart & Lyme infect the 10th cranial nerve, the vagal nerve, it can interfere with the communication between the brain and the digestive system triggering all sorts of problems including pain.

If you do show gallbladder stones, there are a couple holistic docs out there who recommend a gallbladder flush.  I had never heard of this as I don't think mainstream medicine even knows it's possible. The standard solution for stones is immediate gb removal.  I did read personal stories of people who avoided gb removal thanks to the flush. Usually, significant diet changes are required to prevent new stones, especially going gluten free and reducing fat in the diet.  If I ever do get stones, I will try the flush first.

If you don't have stones, by default, your docs will probably conclude your gb is diseased or failing. Then you'll have to decide what to do. Removing it eliminates the pain, but the gb is gone forever. (I have a relative w/o a gb and she is frequently running off to long trips to the restroom. Definitely cramps an active lifestyle, no pun intended!)  If the pain is intolerable, then this is probably your only option, especially since you don't know how long the pain will last.

Have you talked to your LLMD about it?  An experienced Lyme doc's advice will certainly be more qualified than mine.
Helpful - 0
Avatar universal
I hope that 'they' can find out what's causing such pain.

You mentioned endoscopy. Perhaps the full name of the procedure your doc is going to perform is
ERCP (Endoscopic Retrograde Cholangiopancreatography)?

It goes further than just an 'endoscopy'.

"Your doctor has decided that you need a test called Endoscopic Retrograde Cholangiopancreatography, or ERCP for short. This test is designed to image and treat disorders of the liver, bile ducts, and pancreas. In many cases, a problem found during ERCP can be treated at the same time, thus avoiding major surgery. The procedure is usually performed by a Gastroenterologist, a doctor with special training in this field."

From
http://www.gihealth.com/html/education/ercp.html

Shortly after I 'collasped' with Lyme disease (I'm about 100% sure I was infected for several years earlier but pretty much asymptonmatic) an ultrasound of my abdomen showed a single large stone. I thought 'hooray'---- that's  it!

Well, it wasn't but the path. report on my gallbladder described it as (in the words of my doctor) one of the most diseased gallbladders he'd ever seen!

Many Lyme patients have to have their GB out but often that's after long term abx and esp. IV Rocephin is blamed.

Since I hadn't taken any abx at that time BUT because I was almost positively infected with Lyme and gawd knows what other TBI---- perhaps the infections had affected my GB. Hypothesis, yes. But a good one, I think.



Helpful - 0
1763947 tn?1334055319
Hi, I had my gallbladder out right after the birth of my eldest daughter, something else very common, the pain sounds like gallbladder and I do know many Lyme patients that needed their gallbladder out during treatment .
I am glad you are having the test next week to know for sure.
I remember trying to nurse my daughter and the pain being excruciating.
Good luck.
Helpful - 0
Avatar universal
Are you on antibiotics? Some of them can cause crises in the gallbladder so you need to check that first.

Assumingit's Lyme instead....

I've had this problem on and off and my son was hospitalised at one point with an infected bile duct. The inflammation caused by infection reduces the diameter untill it is effectively blocked.

I think it may not necessarily be just spirochetes in there, but since lyme impairs (overloads) your immune system, you get all the bacteria that live in your intestine multiplying completely out of control. They fill the small intestine (This is called SIBO, you can read a lot about it online) and can work their way backwards up your bile duct, especially if your level of bile secretion is low, which it very often is in chronic lyme patients.

Bile secretion is one of the main ways your body detoxes, so not secreting enough doesn't only mean you're missing out on various nutrients that your body fails to extract, but also that you're accumulating toxins. Many toxins can only get out via bile and cannot escape through urine or other routes.

If you have low cortisol levels (which most people with chronic lyme do) then this would be the main reason your bile secretion is reduced, as cortisol influences the rate of secretion.

They dealt with this crisis in my son in hospital, he was given IV rocefin and it worked in just a week.
I was given xifaxin once, which works in about ten days to cure SIBO and clear up the infected bile duct. I'd say that the best choice for this specific problem.
The other one which worked for me was clarithromycin.

I hope all this helps.
My son and I were both diagnosed by upper endoscopy but I don't know the details of what type it was.

BTW the pain is really appalling and I do find putting a very hot water bottle against my abdomen or sinking into a very hot bath gives me a bit of relief. Unfortunately there don't seem to be any painkillers that work.

Helpful - 0
Avatar universal
Wow, you got a lot of positives!

Ricobord might have some words of wisdom on the kind of pain you are describing ... I remember her commenting on something similar, I think.

Hope it gets better soon!
Helpful - 0
Have an Answer?

You are reading content posted in the Lyme Disease Community

Top Infectious Diseases Answerers
1415174 tn?1453243103
CA
Learn About Top Answerers
Didn't find the answer you were looking for?
Ask a question
Popular Resources
Fearing autism, many parents aren't vaccinating their kids. Can doctors reverse this dangerous trend?
Can HIV be transmitted through this sexual activity? Dr. Jose Gonzalez-Garcia answers this commonly-asked question.
A breakthrough study discovers how to reduce risk of HIV transmission by 95 percent.
Dr. Jose Gonzalez-Garcia provides insight to the most commonly asked question about the transfer of HIV between partners.
Before your drop a dime at the pharmacy, find out if these popular cold and flu home remedies are a wonder or a waste
Fend off colds and the flu with these disease-fighting foods