Friday, January 9, 2009

Gall Bladder?

For years I have thought I had a problem with my gall bladder. When I was 8 years old I had severe pain which took me to the hospital where the doctors gave me an ultrasound and told my parents, the cause of the pain was my gall bladder. I was then put on a strict diet where I was not supposed to eat fatty foods and dairy. After quite sometime on this kind of diet I slowly began drinking milk again and have tried to be careful about eating fatty and greasy foods. Sometimes I don't have any reactions from eating these foods and sometimes I do. Anyway, after having one of my episodes after eating something greasy, I decided to visit a Dr. to see if I needed to have my gall bladder removed or to check for gall stones. To my great surprise, after hearing me describe my symptoms, the Dr. told me that he would bet I did not have a gall bladder problem at all! He said he wanted to figure out what was going on inside, so he ordered blood work, (to rule out thyroid etc.) an ultrasound, (to rule out the gall bladder and check on my liver, kidneys, and pancreas) and a Colonoscopy (to rule out Crohn's Disease and Colon problems). Basically, he told me he wanted to waste my money and find out that everything was normal. He wanted to be thorough and make sure we got the right answer. I appreciated that. So, the blood work came back normal and the ultrasound came back all normal and the Colonoscopy came back normal! So, now I am going to meet with the Dr. again to see what the next step is. The Dr. that did the Colonoscopy said about 75% of people are lactose intolerant and have trouble in their GI tract from eating greasy and fatty foods. So what I have may be very common and typical after all. It looks like the Dr. did waste my money!! :)

3 comments:

megandjon said...

oh man! does this all sound familiar!! doctor's take tests, and i swear they never find anything! and now you're just back doing what you were doing before! although i guess it is nice to know that those things are all fine...

i too have found that pretty much the only thing i can do is avoid dairy and sugar. i haven't noticed much from fatty foods, but i dont' eat them that much anyway. but refined sugar and HFCS and milk and cheese all do a number on my stomach and intestines.

so i feel for you! it's no fun!

also, i'm glad i found your blog!

Chefwife said...

Oh no! I hope everything turns out alright. Dr. are always trying to pay their own bill by over-charging us! Good luck!

Mrs Nancy said...

I am glad that nothing is wrong with your gall bladder, what a relief!