Gallbladder?

[SheilaT1030]

My 23 year old daughter has had abdominal fullness/discomfort since January 2012.  She has had upper endoscopy, stomach emptying studies, barium xray with small bowel follow through, pelvic and abdominal ultrasounds, all negative.  All blood work is fine. She just had a hida scan and the gall bladder did not visualize after four hours, there was no morphine and they could not administer the CCK.  The gastro suggested that she visit a surgeon and the surgeon feels that her physical symptoms are not suggestive of gall bladder issues, he said that she would be in more pain.  As a bit of background, she has always been thin but from Sept-Dec. 2011 she lost about 20 pounds due to stress from finishing her college degree.  She did have two episodes of extreme pain/nausea after eating fatty meals in Dec 2011 and March 2011.  Also at certain times it feels as though there is a rock/hardness feeling in her upper epigastric region.  The gastro also feels that she may have IBS although she has absolutely no diarrhea or constipation.  She also suffers from post meal fullness that persists and increases throughout the day.  Any thoughts on this and is their any danger in so easily dismissing what appears to be a non functioning gallbladder.  Thank you for your help.

[Christopher R Watters, MD]

I don't know what they are thinking. She has pretty typical gallbladder symptoms and has a grossly abnormal study. If they aren't going to act on the abnormal findings why did they get the study in the first place?

[alvarado2011]

From what I understand, no visual in a hida scan presents inflammation. I am sure there are other surgeons you can visit for another opinion.