Gall Stones Question

[crisper]

Hiya.. Sorry.. this is a bit long winded..!! 10 years ago I was diagnosed with Gall stones.. went to hospital, had the scan, which confirmed an inflamed gallbladder and mutliple stones... since then I've had no trouble, no pain..no symptoms, until 3 weeks ago, I had what i thought was a 'flare up'.. saw my GP, and he sent me for a scan, which I had today, and I was told my gallbladder was very small and the Radiographer said she couldn't see any stones, nor could a consultant she called! Normally, in my experience, gall bladder pain last for about 12 hours, then goes, but this last bout went on for about 5 days, and I've had no pian since, what i was wondering was, could what I had have been severe colic? and caused similar pain to Gall stone pain?
Ta everso Mrs C x

[Sqad]

I am going to assume that the pain you describe was due to problems with your gall bladder.

How can this be explained if the scan showed no gall stones?

Well one stone could have blocked the duct causing the pain and then passed on into the intestine to have disappeared completely by the time you had your scan.

Secondly, for reasons not fully understood, you could have had an attack of cholecystits (inflammation of the gall bladder) in the absence of gall stones.

OR...the pain that you experienced had nothing to do with your gall bladder.

Monitor the situation.

[cazzz1975]

I am going through the same thing as you mrs c!, except my scan is in a couple of weeks time, I was told by my doctor that my pain could also be caused by an ulcer and that further investigation could be needed after the scan.

[crisper]

Thanks for your answer Sqad.... strange isn't it.... but there was deffinately no sign of gall stones!..lol... I've always been a bit odd!.. Hope your fighting fit again by the way!
Mrs Crisper xx

[crisper]

Good luck to you too Cazzz!... When the radiographer said she couldn't see anything.. I though I didn't have 'insides' !!... made her laugh!! lol
Mrs C x

[Sqad]

cazz's doctor makes a good point..........an ulcer may have to be excluded.

I am fine thanks.

[Eve]

I remember someone saying on one of my gallbladder related threads (there are quite a few!) about sludge causing problems for them when gallstones could not be found. Jack I think.

I had mine out just over 3 weeks ago (yay!). I've had prolonged pain with mine, especially when I got acute cholecystitis (you can get chronic too) and generally as by the time they took it out it was very inflamed, on the way to septic and had split and some stones had escaped.

I had a really bad bout of pain about 6/7 years ago which my GP at the time said was an ulcer. Went on about 2 weeks (and feeling very sick too). I can't help but wonder now if that may also have been gallbladder related.

Before I suggested gallstones to my GP I thought it was recurring ulcer symptoms. When I suggested gallstones my GP said that they can both have very similar symptoms so sent me for tests for both (hpylori and ultrasound).

On a more random note, after not long waking up back on the ward still hazy after the op and a big dose of morphine in recovery my surgeon popped over and was saying about it having split etc... and he had collected the escaped stones. I asked one of the nurses later on (when more with it) if it said how many I'd had. She went to look at the surgery note and came back and said it said "no gallstones". Bit of a twilight zone moment after months of hell with it until she realised she had only read the end of the note, ie no gallstones anymore :)