is this gallbladder?

Digestive health
1

Hi everyone,

i wonder can anyone shed some light on my symptoms and if they sound like gallbladder or something else.

last August i was going through an extremely stressful time, i was up the walls with the stress, i’d also come off the combined pill Yasmin about a month and a half previously and was probably eating more and sitting around more than usual, if any of that makes any difference.

i woke up one day with a slight niggle in my right side upper abdomen, kind of where if you grabbed your waist with your thumb at the back, the niggle was in the spot where my middle finger stretched too. this comes and goes but can be there most of the time. I also would wake up sometimes with a bit of a dull ache in right kidney but it would disappear after a while in the mornings.

Now of late, i notice i’ve a lot of acid and wind and when i’m wearing a bra, there is a spot of bother in the lower right part of upper abdomen between ribs, about where the gallbladder is meant to be, and the bra band and underwire seems to irritate this area and cause pain around the general lower right rib area and right shoulder ache. when i don’t have a bra on, it’s not as bad. Did anyone else ever have this issue?

My question is, does this sound like gallbladder or something else? it gets a little worse if i eat a lot or consume alcohol if that makes any difference, but it’s not this major pain that has me doubled over ever as you generally hear with gallbladder,  just a general discomfort that bothers me. I’ve also been on some other medication for another health issue. I’m 36, and a bit overweight i suppose.

thanks in advance.

2

Does your pain move about and do you get any change of bowel habit? It may be IBS if you have the symptoms I have mentioned and especially since you have had stress.  IBS pain can be mild, moderate or severe and you may have food intolerance with it.

However, you will need your doctor to rule out other conditions such as gallbladder problems.  This can be done with an ultrasound or HIDA scan. 

3

Hi thanks for the reply, the pain doesn’t really move around that much, but my stool is generally quite loose, but this is always the case really. My doctor said she thinks it’s IBS, but the most recent pain in the centre of ribs over to the right seems to be right where the gallbladder is, but i think some of the stomach could be there too?

4

The intestines, both the stomach and bowel are on the left.  The gallbladder is on the right. IBS pain can move all over the abdomen from the left, to the middle or right.  You can get different types of pain too such as dull, stabbing, deep grinding and sore to touch. The abdomen is the area where all these organs are located.  IBS can cause constipation, diarrhoea or loose stools or a mixture of both.  It can be triggered by stress.

Has your doctor done any tests such as an ultrasound, celiac test, stool test for h pylori or an endoscopy?  If these tests have not been done, I would ask for them.