poetgirl
02-11-2005, 07:01 PM
This has happened to me at least twice in the last two weeks, but the other day was the worst...
8 years ago I had my gallbladder removed after experiencing two severe attacks within a week or so of each other. The second attack was so bad I had to be taken to the hopsital and it turned out the gallbladder was in bad shape and had to come out immediately. Since then, I've been fine (other than it further aggravating IBS and then my eventual IC/VV diagnoses....) until recently. Maybe two months or so ago, I experienced that weird pressure/cramping pain in the upper-middle quadrant of my abdomen, right where my gallbladder scar is. I had eaten some fast food earlier, I think. It was annoying but didn't last too long. Last week, I had a more intense version of the same, and it lasted for about a day. I had that feeling later on after the pain subsided, like I'd been bruised or something. I know my diet has been really poor as of late -- too busy to eat low-fat, nutritious meals. (And I know better than to do that because I have borderline high cholesterol to begin with, but life has been crazy lately.) I have been avoiding McDonald's though -- thanks Jill! :) The other night, I was at a business dinner and just kind of helped myself to whatever was there at the buffet. About an hour after I got home, I experienced increasingly intense pains in my upper-middle abdomen, right around where the scar is. The whole area was tender and swollen and I felt kind of nauseous from the pain. My stomach felt very full (not surprising, I guess) but that didn't seem to be where the greatest source of discomfort was coming from. It felt like an exact repeat of the gallbladder attacks I had years ago. By the middle of the night, I was in near-agony and the pain had wrapped around to my back and I had a splitting headache that seemed to throb in tandem with my abdomen. It began to subside by morning, but it still took most of the day before I felt more normal again. :bonk:
I don't really know what it could be. Obviously, my diet seems to be triggering these attacks, but they don't feel like typical stomach upset -- they feel exactly like those old gallbladder attacks. Pretty scary stuff. I'm familiar with the gamut of stomach discomfort, having had gastrointestinal problems since I was a child.
Has anyone experienced anything like this? Has anyone had their gallbladder removed and still had attacks like this later on? I know I need to get my diet back on track again, which may reduce future occurrences, but I wonder if I should contact my doctor about it. I've heard that sometimes people will still have gallstones in their common bile duct that can act up from time to time, but I don't know how high an occurrence that is. I just don't want to go to the doctor, spend all that money to have them run a bunch of tests only to tell me I'm fine. (I had that happen last year after I experienced constant heart palpitations and after many heart monitoring tests, they said it was just a result of stress.) Anyway, any insight will be appreciated.
Thanks!
8 years ago I had my gallbladder removed after experiencing two severe attacks within a week or so of each other. The second attack was so bad I had to be taken to the hopsital and it turned out the gallbladder was in bad shape and had to come out immediately. Since then, I've been fine (other than it further aggravating IBS and then my eventual IC/VV diagnoses....) until recently. Maybe two months or so ago, I experienced that weird pressure/cramping pain in the upper-middle quadrant of my abdomen, right where my gallbladder scar is. I had eaten some fast food earlier, I think. It was annoying but didn't last too long. Last week, I had a more intense version of the same, and it lasted for about a day. I had that feeling later on after the pain subsided, like I'd been bruised or something. I know my diet has been really poor as of late -- too busy to eat low-fat, nutritious meals. (And I know better than to do that because I have borderline high cholesterol to begin with, but life has been crazy lately.) I have been avoiding McDonald's though -- thanks Jill! :) The other night, I was at a business dinner and just kind of helped myself to whatever was there at the buffet. About an hour after I got home, I experienced increasingly intense pains in my upper-middle abdomen, right around where the scar is. The whole area was tender and swollen and I felt kind of nauseous from the pain. My stomach felt very full (not surprising, I guess) but that didn't seem to be where the greatest source of discomfort was coming from. It felt like an exact repeat of the gallbladder attacks I had years ago. By the middle of the night, I was in near-agony and the pain had wrapped around to my back and I had a splitting headache that seemed to throb in tandem with my abdomen. It began to subside by morning, but it still took most of the day before I felt more normal again. :bonk:
I don't really know what it could be. Obviously, my diet seems to be triggering these attacks, but they don't feel like typical stomach upset -- they feel exactly like those old gallbladder attacks. Pretty scary stuff. I'm familiar with the gamut of stomach discomfort, having had gastrointestinal problems since I was a child.
Has anyone experienced anything like this? Has anyone had their gallbladder removed and still had attacks like this later on? I know I need to get my diet back on track again, which may reduce future occurrences, but I wonder if I should contact my doctor about it. I've heard that sometimes people will still have gallstones in their common bile duct that can act up from time to time, but I don't know how high an occurrence that is. I just don't want to go to the doctor, spend all that money to have them run a bunch of tests only to tell me I'm fine. (I had that happen last year after I experienced constant heart palpitations and after many heart monitoring tests, they said it was just a result of stress.) Anyway, any insight will be appreciated.
Thanks!