Gallstones

Did they give you any indication how many or what size? Gallstones themselves aren't a concern and imaging studies that we do are pretty definitive for them. Concerns with gallstones is if they pass into the biliary duct they can get stuck causing inflammation, infection, jaundice, etc. So, if there are a couple of larger stones they won't pass into the duct so they usually just roll around in the gallbladder. If the stones are smaller, those are the stones to be worried about. They can pass into the duct through the normal physiologic contraction of your gallbladder and get stuck, causing the above. In either case, if there is no cholecystitis which is an inflamed and infected gallbladder wall, it's nothing urgent. You have likely had these for years as they don't form quickly. They can be missed on CT if they are smaller than the slice thickness of the CT image. So, to recap, unlike most things the larger the better, likely been there for years even if not picked up prior, without wall inflammation they aren't urgent or too worrisome.

Is that my mom had gallstones when I was young and she had her gallbladder removed.  No problem since--probably 35 years ago.  Hope this works out for you iceman--hate to hear you are in pain.

Blessings--Stub

I don't know much about connection between RCC and gallbladder problems. But my husband does have gallbladder polyps (causing no problems, simply monitored). 

A friend of mine had gallstones. Very-very rarely she was in terrible pain due to them (like, twice a year). Finally she had gallbladder removed. I hope yours won't cause you pain. But even if they start troubling you, you can always remove gallbladder. As I understood, makes no huge difference to your body functioning.

Hey Iceman...do you take PROBIOTICS? I do, but before I did, I had a horrible time with reflux.

Now since taking probiotics (ahead of eating) the reflux is rather infrequent

Jan

Gallstones is how my RCC was found. I am just hoping my gallbladder holds out for a while until I get my partial nephrectomy and heal from that. I am guessing I'll have to have it removed one of these days. 

icemantoo said:

No pain yet

So  far the gallstones are not a pain issue, just a finding.

 

 

Icemantoo

That's good to hear, Icemantoo. Recently had a conversation with a doctor who commented on how it used to be that we pretty much didn't find out about a lot of stuff that we had going on inside of ourselves because we didn't really have any way to look.  In the bad old days, used to be that your gallstones had to get big enough to cause you so much pain one day that you'd junh collapse on the floor, writhing in pain. On the positive side, you'd be able to have a cane (like Fox's) with a really spiffy handle.  What a conversation piece (Also good for clearing out o room by grossing people out)!

Jerzy