My new GI doctor order a HIDA scan for me. At the end of the test an enzyme is given that makes your gallbladder eject its stored bile. A healthy gallbladder should eject at least 60% of its bile. My gallbladder only ejected 28% of its bile, at 35% surgery can be an option. This is known as a lazy gallbladder.
Had my gallbladder removed this last wednesday, surgeon thought there was about a 40 to 50% chance that it would help with my nausea and vomiting. And a smaller chance it would help with my alternating constipation/diarrhea and abdominal pain.
However, when he removed my gallbladder he found that it was moderately inflamed. (no explanation for the cause though) He thought that with this new revalation that there was a very very good chance that my nausea and vomiting would improve and a decent chance my other symptoms would improve.
If a gallbladder is that inflamed their is a good chance that your pancreas and other surrounding organs can become inflamed from time to time and cause more pain or nausea. There is also a nerve near your gallbladder that can become inflamed and that can result in right shoulder tightness or pain. (which I also had) Most gallbladder tests look for blockages from gallstones and a HIDA scan is the only test I know of that can detect a lazy gallbladder. Symptoms of an inflamed gallbladder (cholecystitis) can have no symptoms or you can have all or some of the following: nausea, vomiting, pain (usually on the right side under the rib cage and usually after you eat), you can also have reffered pain somewhere else in your abdomen (which I had on my lower left side, this is why it took 6 GI doctors and 3.5 years to correctly diagnose me) high fat foods and caffiene are usual trigger foods, diarrhea, a low grade fever because your stored bile gets stored too long and basically becomes a toxin, granulocytosis (involves your white blood count), a tender or distended gallbladder, and a positve murphy's sign (the right shoulder inflamed nerve that i mentioned above.) Also if your gallbladder becomes extremely inflamed you can have a gallbladder attack that mimics food poisening. These usually begin at night, but they don't have too. In the last 3.5 years I am pretty sure I have had 3 of these such attacks. 2 were at night, the other started late in the morning.
Since the surgery I have not experienced any nausea. (its only been one day, but it has been months since I have gone a day without at least an hour of nausea) FYI, I also was perscribed the gauntlet of anti-nausea medications and nothing would work at all. I know this is a lot of information and it may not pertain to you, but maybe it does for someone that reads this thread. Good luck, and just so people know the first 24 hours after gallbladder removal REALLY hurts, but I have started to feel a lot better in the last 5 hours.
I am not a Doctor or anything and I don't want to give a lot of false hope to people becuase excepting IBS as a diagnoses can be difficult. But I think people that have been diagnosed with IBS and also are experiencing nausea might want to ask their doctor for a HIDA scan. I got a lot of the information from wikipedia if you want to check it out, I can't remember the other websites I got some information from and last was information from my GI doctor and surgeon. So I don't know for sure if everything is 100% accurate, but the majority of it is.
Post Edited (IBS_sucks) : 5/12/2011 10:41:38 PM (GMT-6)