sister update- guess its gallbladder??? - Gallbladder Message Board

janart · 01-14-2009, 08:30 AM

Hey everyone I'm sure some of you will remember me coming here for my sister who I have guardianship over. Well as most of you know she had scans and oscopy and all normal so she had hida scan Friday and it shows 15.5% ejection rate no stones. Doc is referring us to surgeon and go from there. She is currently taking prevacid because she is having heartburn. She is not good at explaining to me exactly how things are feeling so we are assuming heartburn. Now the decision will be take it out or not. I went through this horrible thing with my Mom and as I have told yall her gallbladder was gaingreene when they took it out. This is just so horrible trying to figure out the right thing to do for her. Thanks guys for reading!

aqua774 · 01-14-2009, 09:15 AM

It's really hard to say on whether to take it out or not. If she could only relay how bad the symptoms are to get a bearing on the pain. My rate was a 24% and my doc said for me to keep it and control the heartburn with other med and change of diet.

janart · 01-14-2009, 09:21 AM

I just read that if you are taking an antacid med it can slow the motility rate of the gallbladder but 15% is pretty low. Her pain has been off and on. Sometimes worse than others. Her main complaint is going to the bathroom everytime she eats. She can't be absorbing nutrients that way and bowel test have been fine. She may have some pain in her rib area one day and then some pain in her stomach on the right side the next. I guess we will see the surgeon and get some of my questions answered and go from there. The only test she has not had is upper GI. Oh and she really doesn't eat ALOT of fatty food but I guess a little.

Titchou · 01-14-2009, 01:24 PM

One of the issues with not having it out is that no test shows you why it isn't functioning properly. So it is difficult to know when it's gotten to the infected stage...if it does get there. And the it could rupture and that would be really bad. 15% is awfully low so it might be best, esp with her not having good communication skills, to consider having it out.

Collector167 · 01-14-2009, 06:56 PM

While there is at least one study that shows that some medicines can slow the motility of the gallbladder, the prevacid/prilosec, etc, can bring relief from the heartburn symptoms caused by gallbladder disease.

I took Prilosec and it definitely helped calm things down. I doubt that cutting out this medicine would have allowed the motility to bounce enough to make much of a difference.

In this situation, sometimes it is better to have control by scheduling the surgery instead of having an emergency situation, which might be compounded by communication issues.

In the meantime, make sure she eats low fat, and low spice to keep the symptoms down.