Green bile, sweating??

[Panda322]

Hello,
My sister has been vomitting a lot for about a year...she got her gallblader out, is allergic to peas, corn, and white potatoes..she's had an endoscopy, and shes recenty visited a gastroenterologist. No one can figure out what is wrong with her..

-vomitting/diaherra
-nausea
-maybe deyhydration?

The problem this morning is that she is throwing up GREEN BILE, and SWEATING profusely. Please help as we try to find the answer. Thank you.

PS- We are picking her up from college and taking her to the hospital so they can give her fluids through an IV if neccessary.

[CalGal]

Did she have her gallbladder out before this started? If she's vomiting bile, she's experiencing bile reflux. It could be due to a number of things including the presence of sludge or stone in the common bile duct that may have gotten lodged there during the GB surgery and are now causing problems. The diarrhea could also be due to the unregulated release of bile from the common bile duct which is unfortuantely seen in a number of people following GB surgery. Is she following a low fat diet? It's one thing she needs to consider.

Another is to find out whether or not stones/sludge are within the common bile duct/biliary system. She should talk to the doc about doing an MRCP which is a non-invasive test. It may give you some answers.

If she's having pain in the URQ such as is found in 'gallbladder attacks' (despite her not having a gallbladder), the possibility needs to be addressed that she could be experiencing SOD - sphincter of Oddi dysfunction. It's something that a lot of docs don't seem to realize exists - or they deny its existence. If the pain is there, along with the rest of the symptoms, please seen out a biliary specialist who knows something about SOD.

[Twilight_Princess]

I seen on the Discovery Health channel one night about a young girl that had the same symptoms your sister is experiencing and CalGal mentioned SOD and that is exactly what the girl had!

I really hope a doctor can figure this out for her! Best of luck!

[utahmomma]

I am having the exact same symptoms as your sister - plus watery, yellow diarrhea and terrible pain.  My ALP is also elevated.  I'm going in for an ERCP next week - they think there is scarring and perhaps "sludge" in the bile ducts.

My gallbladder was removed about 5 years ago but I had heavy doses of radiation (oral) for cancer and most of that radiation settled in my liver.  Since then (last year), massive problems.

So like CalGal said, it does sound like your sister may be suffering from problems with the bile ducts.

My best to her

[CalGal]

Utahmoma, please make sure they do a manometry when they do the ERCP. And if the facility isn't equiped to do manomentry, please find a place that can. If the pressures are elevated then (and probably only then) should a sphincterotomy be done. If the pressures aren't high you should extract a promise from your doc that a sphincterotomy will NOT be done unless there's no other way of getting into the opening. It's very improtant. If it is cut without raised pressures the long term problems seem to be much higher than if it's cut BECAUSE of the pressures. No one knows why yet, but there's too many cases to discount the results.

In addition, talk about stenting. I know it's not a pleasant idea but it does decrease the chance of pancreatitis.

[utahmomma]

Wow - lots of stuff the GI didn't even talk to me about.  I'm going to call his office first thing Monday morning.  Thanks!

[Twilight_Princess]

I see "sludge" mentioned a lot. I was hospitalized back in March for elevated liver enzymes and my GP kept saying it was probably sludge that caused the "liver" pain and the elevated enzymes, but yet my Gastro doctor said there is no such thing as sludge. How true is this? I mean can sludge really cause problems?

utahmomma - I hope you are feeling better and I really hope they get to the bottom of your problem.