Did you just have a fried meal and have abdominal pain?
Do you think you might have gallbladder stones? Let’s find out coming next!
I’m Dr.John from Think Your Health. This video we will look at eight gallbladder stone
symptoms. If you interested in a more detailed video looking at causes, diagnosis and treatment
click on this link above.
1) Abdominal pain:
Typically, you will experience pain in the right upper side of your abdomen, sometimes
in your stomach area. In some occasions you might experience pain behind your sternum
and this pain can radiate to your back, quite often to your right shoulder. The pain you
experience is quite sudden and intense and can be constant. It can also increase in intensity.
The pain can last minutes to several hours. This pain can also happen anytime during the
day and can wake you up in the middle of the night.
2) Timing of your meal:
If you just had a fatty meal followed by the pain described earlier in this video, you
might have gallstones. This is because fatty food or rich food can cause the gallbladder
to contract induced by the action of a peptide hormone (cholecystokinin). As a result of
these contractions the chances of a stone getting stuck in your bile duct increases.
This results in increased pressure in your gallbladder causing your pain.
3) Other associated GI symptoms:
If you are having nausea and vomiting typically with your abdominal pain this is another clue.
Your brain sends signals to your digestive system when it senses that you are eating
an illness inducing food.
4) Other atypical GI symptoms:
Feeling bloated, indigestion, abdominal distention, loss of appetite are all atypical symptoms.
These symptoms by themselves are non-specific and like the name implies ATYPICAL. But what
I have seen in clinical practice is that these atypical symptoms come and go, come and go over several
weeks until there is a gallbladder stone attack. If they are seen in context with gallbladder
stones, these symptoms should not be IGNORED!.
5) Fever and chills:
A clue that gallstones are causing an infection is if you have a fever and right sided abdominal
pain. Some individuals develop chills. If your health care provider does draw blood
your white cell count will be elevated. When your gallbladder is infected this is called
cholecystitis. This need to be treated in the Hospital setting.
6) Jaundice: (If your skin becomes yellow or the white of your eyes):
If a gallbladder stone passes out of the gallbladder it can get stuck in your bile duct. This interrupts
the flow of bile and causes jaundice. If your bile ducts get infected this can become life
threatening. This situation is called acute cholangitis and the typical symptoms are fever
and chills, right abdominal pain, jaundice and confusion.
7) Urine turning dark brown or yellowish brown/ Stool turning paler in color
As explained earlier (point 6) this is another clue that a gallbladder stone has moved and
is blocking your bile ducts. Remember pale stool, dark urine associated with abdominal
pain THINK gallbladder.
8) Acute pancreatitis:
If your gallbladder stone moves from your gallbladder and blocks the duct of your pancreas
it can cause an inflammation of your pancreas. Here your pain steadily gets worse with radiation
to your back with episodes of nausea and vomiting as well as loss of appetite. Some individuals
develop a high fever.
Summary: Call your health care provider or go to the
Hospital if YOUR:
1) Abdominal pain is not getting better 2) If your abdominal pain is increasing in
intensity 3) If you are having fevers and chills with
abdominal pain 4) If you are jaundiced with abdominal pain
Think your Health and have a Good day.