I will be brief..I have this gnawing burning pain under both of my ribs that seems to be like a band of pain. It is increasing in frequency and wakes me up at night. Occurs about 1-2 times per month. Sometimes it goes away with in a hour or sometimes it can last for 7-10 hours. I bend over and that seems to help a little. It has made me sick on a couple of occasions.

I went to the doctor and he gave me nexium. It seems to help, but maybe the symptoms were just subsiding on their own..not sure. I then went for an ultrasound and they said I had gallstones. Ok great now I know what it is right? Well I am not sure...today...I have had two separate episodes that went away immediately after eating food. If that was a gallbladder issue it should not of went away with food? Food helps about 50% of the time for me.

My issue is that my doctor is pushing for surgery but I think it may be an ulcer or gastritis. Please give me your advice.

I should add however that about 2 times in the last year I have had tan colored stool, thus indicating something with the bilary system

I am so confused...I just dont want to go under the knife unecessarily

Thanking you in advance

Why don't you push for an upper endoscopy? It would let them see if you've got inflammation (gastritis) and they could take tissue samples to test for an ulcer. You'd think they'd be happy to do additional expensive testing. :D If that comes back negative, then you can move onto gallbladder surgery.

I had my first gallbladder attack in December 2007. I had an ultrasound that showed that I had gall stones. After a consultation with a surgeon, I decided to go for laparoscopic surgery because if I continued to put off surgery there would be a higher chance of open surgery. And having gall stones also pose the risk of gangrene. I went ahead with the surgery 2 Fridays ago. After surgery, the surgeon said my gallbladder was in such bad shape that it should have been taken out years ago. The point here is that you can't really gage whether or not you should have gallbladder surgery based on pain alone. And since your ultrasound showed gall stones, you should go for the surgery.