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Keriamon

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Irritable Bowel Syndrome
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Posted 1/16/2008 7:20 PM (GMT 0)
Hi Keriamon,

Seeing as how you are the resident "expert" on gallbladders here, I thought I'd pop in and ask you a quick question. I've been diagnosed as IBS-D since 2002. Around that time I had a few different scans (don't remember what they're all called) and a barium swallow. Lately I've been having a strange new "symptom" -- I get a feeling of pressure just under the bottom of my right rib cage. I can't really call it pain because it doesn't quite hurt...it just feels like there is something under there...pressure is really the best word. This can happen at any time, but is most often after I eat. Occasionally the pressure feeling wraps around toward my back and in my shoulder. I also get spells of very bad diarrhea, often in the middle of the night. I will wake up in terrible pain, feel nauseas, shaking, and then have "explosive" movements...they can start out normal and then become watery and burn. After a couple of bathroom trips I eventually calm down but feel completely wiped out. This happens maybe a few times a month. I was explaining this to my Mom when trying to decide whether I should go back to the gastro about my IBS and she (who was with me when I had all the testing done) told me that I had a scan done after which the doctor said I had some gallbladder "sludge" but it was nothing to worry about.

After reading your post on gallbladder issues, I'm beginning to wonder about that. Can gallbladder "sludge" be innocuous? I don't want to go to my doctor and flat out tell him I think there's something wrong with my gallbladder...he's the type of guy who gets upset if he thinks your self-diagnosing. But do you think this is something I should look in to?
Posted 1/16/2008 10:05 PM (GMT 0)
Yep, sounds like you're having the exact same problems I had.  Aren't those attacks in the middle of the night fun?

No, sludge is not innoccuous.  My stepmother had her GB taken out because of sludge and her doctor said he thought it was worse on the body than gall stones, because you can sometimes have gall stones for a long time without them ever really getting in the way (but boy, you know it when they finally do!), but he said that the semi-solid sludge (pre-stones) dripped out of the gall bladder and was bad on the intestines. 

The word as I know it is sludgy gall bladders have got to go. 

Posted 1/17/2008 12:33 AM (GMT 0)
Thanks Keriamon! That's pretty much what I thought, but I just wanted to make sure. I was 18 at the time I had the gallbladder scan done, and I didn't think to question the doctors. To be honest, I just thought gallbladder "sludge" didn't sound like a very medical term!

Those attacks really are no fun. I made the mistake of having ONE small glass of wine a few weeks ago...that one was THE worst. Sweaty, nauseas, shaky, horrible stomach cramps, terrible D, and then chills. Does alcohol make gallbladder symptoms worse?
Posted 1/17/2008 3:22 PM (GMT 0)
Everyone has different triggers. My mother said her worst trigger was pizza. Mine was caffeine. Fatty/greasy foods are usually pretty hard on people with GB problems (although I could, weirdly, tolerate clam chowder and fried foods from certain places, but from other places it killed me). Alcohol is usually not good for people with IBS, so it doesn't seem unusual at all that it bothered you. At the very least, wine is very acidic and with a gall bladder on the fritz, you have usually enough bile-acid without adding more. I would not only avoid the wine, but fruit juices and tomato sauces as well.
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