Crohn's Disease and Gall Bladder

Out of curiosity what meds are you on?

Just a thought but have they checked for kidney stones?  I had similar symptoms after resection surgery and it turned out to be a stone partially then fully blocking the ureter just below the right kidney. 

It was missed on the scans because a) they were focusing on the digestive tract and b) the contrast they used to check bowel etc was the same colour as the stone and masked it. 

I ended up hospitalised with sepsis before some bright spark checked the urinary tract and found the stone.

All fixed now so happy ending - just hope they find your cause soon cos it sounds just hideous :)

good luck fire cracker - I think sometimes 'they' forget we crohnnies have other body part that could be playing up ;P I had my gall bladder out and was very glad to see the back of it!

My organs swell.

When I get really bad, my gallbladder, liver, lungs etc. all swell up. I get brochial caugh, asthma and horrible pains. Then, they go away, then come back etc. They thought I had gallstones, but nope. It's a pain. It didn't show inflammation, but the guy said inflammation was hard to see in an ultrasound.

Thank you everyone for the replies. It is nice to know that I can come here and vent. My family and friend don't get it. That is o.k. because they cannot understand unless they go through something like this. I would not wish Crohn's on anyone.

dunny2- We are all strong. To get up and deal with what we deal with everyday, we're stronger than what we think. It puts things in perspective for me when I see someone dealing with more than I am dealing with.

JRG478- I know what you mean. Everything is coming back normal. Although, when they noted in the HIDA scan they could not see gallbladder because of bowel overlap I wonder how they determined my gallbladder is functioning normally. I still have pain, nausea, vomiting. Nothing showing on regarding Crohn's either. When I googled bowel overlap I did find somethings stating the bowel overlapping the GB can cause bile reflux, which is nearly identical in symptoms to a bad GB, but nothing will show up on tests. Will ask my GI about that.

Post Edited (firecracker1) : 9/18/2010 8:24:15 AM (GMT-6)

Thank YOU, CP_Mom. It seems every few days my diet gets even more limited. Last week I was able to eat pretzels and boiled potatoes, now I can't. Basically living off of banannas, ensure, and lactaid cottage cheese with canned peaches. The pain is excruciating if I eat anything more solid than that. I will keep looking for a new GI doc. Just have to be patient I guess. I just panick because I perforated before and nothing showed up then either.

Julia- They thought I had internal scar tissue as well, but the balloon dilation showed nothing as far as scar tissue inside my intestines. They're thinking maybe adhesions wrapping around the outside of my intestines and kinking off the intestine. However, fired my GI doc because he said he thinks it is bacterial overgrowth and is unwilling to investigate adhesion issue.

firecracker,

I hope you are feeling better and on your way to a competent GI doc. A lot of folks on this forum have weighed in with some very wise advice. You are probably a somewhat complicated patient, and will benefit from the experiences of these others. With your history, I assume they have ruled out ileus. ? In the spirit of helping you troubleshoot, please allow me to describe some chronic pancreatitis and biliary symptoms for you. If this 'resonates' at all with you, it would be something to discuss with the new doc.

With chronic pancreatitis, it may become more and more difficult to tolerate foods. (The list of what a person can tolerate, will get shorter and shorter) In some cases, water will no longer be tolerated either. The symptoms won't be so much intestinal, like your Crohn's. Upper abdominal and back pain can increase. Nausea and vomitting can worsen, as well. Some people experience headache with the nausea. Green diarrhea may also be a symptom. Bloody diarrhea is not. Some also experience unexplained fatigue. The symptoms can easily be severe enough to make it difficult to get to sleep at night and to wake a person from sleep in the middle of the night. Symptoms may be less in the morning and progressively become worse throughout the day. Food or water by mouth will definitely worsen the symptoms. Chronic pancrea*** can cause the gall bladder to malfunction. Conversely, gall bladder problems can cause pancreatitis. Weight loss due to lack of calories or malabsorption may develop. Fear of food may develop. Symptoms may inexplicably subside for any period of time and may return again, as well.

MANY GI docs do not know much about the disease. They will tell you that pancreatic enzymes in a blood test and/or CT scan is diagnostic. However, those tests only mean something in the case of ACUTE pancreatitis, which is a whole different animal. When those tests come back negative for people with this disease, those docs will incorrectly rule out the disease. If you suspect this disease, the best test is the Endoscopic Ultrasound (EUS), and the distant 2nd choice would be ERCP. And if you test for everything else I have seen suggested in this forum, and the test results are negative, the suspicion for this disease becomes even higher.

I've said my peace. I don't mean to bug you or worry you. My heart goes out to you and I hope you get this resolved quickly.

sincerely,

s

Post Edited (CP_Mom) : 9/26/2010 10:47:07 AM (GMT-6)

Are there any other symptoms? Do you have a change in urine colour (like dark rust)...itching? is the liver enlarged? Whitish feces?
People with autoimmune issues can have issues with other organs, and not necessarily just stones (which I had similar symptoms) but I have PSC, but there can be PBC and then the issues with kindneys and the pancreas...
I am glad that my doc listens to me, and we caught my issues quite early...early on it was symptomatic for gall stones, but ultrasounds, and other tests showed NOTHING...so he started looking for the zebras, and yup, it was a zebra, not a horse...
good luck!

Primary Sclerosing Colangitis (PSC) and Primary Billary Cirrosis (PBC)
Yes and ERCP is done for all of these (liver issues and pancreas issues)...they can do them at once...I had the ERCP and and Endoscopic Ultrasound done at the same time, and hence how I was Dx'd...my GI doc didn't do it...he sent me to a specialist in just THIS procedure (cuz I think he suspected PSC) and with that, they were able to to dilation of my bile ducts and put in a stent all during the same anesthesia dose/procedure time...