The Gall of my Gallbladder?

i had my first gallbladder on my 18th birthday and found it was triggered by onions, so avoided those for a year and then the attacks came back in full force when i was pregnant at age 19... it can be triggered by hormone changes... had my gallbladder out at 19 after my c-section... they quit counting stones at 60, they were also in my bile duct... i also continued to have attacks for a few years after it was taken out... it is the worst pain i've ever experienced...

Hi Marlee,

Wow, over 60 gallstones? That's crazy!! I've read that the attacks can continue even after having the gallbladder removed. Yuck! How are you feeling now? Yes, the pain is definitely weird. Lately, I feel like I'm on the verge of an attack a lot throughout the day, but so far they seem to pass if I take it easy.

What I'm wondering right now is what's going to happen in my situation. I've had overwhelming nausea 24/7 for a year and a half now and if the gallbladder is to blame, would they take it out even if they didn't find evidence of stones? If it's inflamed, do they take it out? Will I have to go through tons of tests after the ultrasound?

I know it's impossible to answer all of these questions because we don't know what's going to happen or what the ultrasound will show. I guess I should take solace in the fact that the cogs are in motion....will just have to be a patient patient....sounds familiar!!

Hello girls. I'm wondering if any of you took birth control pills prior to gall troubles? I had a SLH July 2008 (coming up on 2 years). Before that i was on birth control for just over a year to try to control my out-of-control periods. I was mis-diagnosed as my GYN told me i had no masses, when in fact i had giant fibroids. i see the ads on TV for birth control that mention Gallbladder disease as a side effect. i had emergency surgery last October (2009) to remove my gallbladder. i had one huge acute crazy attack. i had stones and an infection. i went 45 years with no surgeries and then 2 in 15 months! hope you feel better and don't forget to get that 2nd oppinion!

My DD is experiencing gallbladder problems as of this post. A week ago today she was in extreme pain and went to see her primary care who immediately ordered a CT scan of her abdomen and pelvis because of her right sided pain (just as you described B+). The doctor gave her Vicodin, and told her if she wasn't better by Friday to call back to the office. Well last Wednesday we ended up in the ER because she was in so much pain. They did an ultrasound, but because there was no inflammation and no blockage of her bile duct the on-call surgeon said he wouldn't do anything and told her to come see him on 07/07. She received a call from the hospital on Friday and they told her she has 9 stones and if she starts vomiting or turns yellow to get to the ER immediately! She is in so much pain that she went back to her primary care yesterday who tried everything to get her into the surgeon earlier, but he said he's already overbooked and it's not urgent so she gave DD a prescription for 100 Vicodin to try and get her by until 07/07. The problem is, even then it's not like she'll have surgery on the 7th. Someone asked if she could make herself vomit so she could go to the ER and tell them she was vomiting. She is extremely nauseated, but not vomiting. They are going out of state this weekend, and I'm so afraid she'll get really sick when she gets to where they're going.

I am sorry for those who have continued to have problems post surgery, and certainly will not tell her that. My poor DD has had 26 surgeries and this will make #27 (she turns 27 in July). I told her to ask if they can take her appendix out while she's in there since it seems like she's had everything else done.

I don't know if this helps you, B+, but I thought I'd let you know that your symptoms sound just like my DD's and I'm sorry you are suffering especially after just having major surgery.

B+,

I didn't have gallstones, but my gallbladder didn't squeeze as effectively as it should, so they took it out. Things are much better without it!

When I first had attacks, they did an ultrasound, and there were no stones. but there was still pain, so they did a HIDA scan and it showed a low ejection fraction. I nursed it along for months, but when my endo cancer showed up, I had it taken out when they did my hysterectomy so I wouldn't have to deal with that as the same time as cancer treatments.

My advice is to follow through and get your diagnosis. If it is a gallbladder problem, seriously consider having it taken out. I nursed mine along too long! There was no reason for me to feel that bad for that long.

Thanks Ladies! Whew, it's so amazing to feel less alone with this ongoing issue.

Sandav - Thank you for the insight. I've been on and off of BCPs since I was a teen and I've always hated them. Last summer when my nausea was happening all day, every day I broke down and went on the pill because I was told that the nausea was related to my cycle. The first pill I tried made the nausea worse....which is really saying something....then I switched and started taking the new one constantly with no breaks, which seemed to decrease the nausea somewhat. I'm sure that my wacky hormones have something to do with this gallbladder stuff.

J4S - I'm so sorry to hear about your daughter! That sounds just awful. I hope that she gets the help she needs soon. My doc crossed her fingers and said that she hoped I wouldn't have to undergo another surgery so soon after my TAH. Even while taking loads of pills every day, my nausea gets out of control every afternoon. It's very frustrating, so my heart definitely goes out to your DD!! My ultrasound is on the seventh, the same day she goes to see her doc.

Rosieoutlook - Thanks for the encouragement. It sounds like you've been through a lot! I'm sort of hoping that my ultrasound shows signs of stones or inflammation....I don't want to have to wait another month or longer to have a HIDA scan, though I guess that's out of my control. How are you doing now without your gallbladder? I hope that you are well!!

Sending you ladies all the best!

Okay, so my ultrasound is on Wednesday and I booked an appointment with my doc for next Tuesday to go over the results. The problem is that the attacks are happening more frequently and more intense. I'm wondering how I'm going to make it until next Tuesday??

B+,

If you can, I'd make that appt with my doc a.s.a.p -- how fast can he get it back and read? If they're telling you to get your tush to the ER if you have another attack, that's definitely what you need to do. When DH and I adopted our son, I had been having problems, but I wasn't sure what they were, and my GP at the time was an ithering blidiot! (DH says, euphemistically, that he was "challenged.") He kept telling me I'd gotten flu from the elementary kids, flu from the middle school kids, a virus from the HS kids, and (my personal favorite) something foreign that the baby brought home from Korea. Right. The night before my father and his wife were due to arrive, I looked in my mirror, and the whites of my eyes were yellow. I called the other clinic in the little town and made a new patient appointment on a Saturday morning. He took one look at me, after listening to me tell about the "flu" I'd kept getting (and losing 60 pounds in 4 months), and he booked an emergency cholecystectomy for Tuesday. If he could have done it sooner, he would have. I had NO gall stones -- I had sand, and my gallbladder was just about to burst. No appy for me, because they couldn't do the choley laproscopically -- they had to do the big incision because it was so infected. I was pushig jaundice, all because I had the "flu" and it was gall bladder attacks all along. Please, B+, don't mess with it.

As far as being on the pill, I had never taken the pill for more than a single month until I was 47. However, my mother, father, grandmother, and all of my aunts had MAJOR gallbladder troubles!

	Quote:
Originally Posted by B + Okay, so my ultrasound is on Wednesday and I booked an appointment with my doc for next Tuesday to go over the results. The problem is that the attacks are happening more frequently and more intense. I'm wondering how I'm going to make it until next Tuesday??

You should call your doctor sooner rather than later than. If you don't feel you can make it call your doctor immediately or head to the ER.

Wow! I had gallbladder surgery when my daughter was about 5 months old. That was 18 years ago. Talk about pain! I had never felt pain like that in my life.

Be careful, these generally only get worse, and if you end up in the ER you can end up with emergency surgery, instead of a planned procedure.

Hope you get relief soon. Those attacks are awful!