& ka - YOUR GB - good or bad?

[Guest guest]

Dear ka and ;

One thing that both of you might consider is asking your GI to run a

" Pipida Scan " - Pretty sure memory is right in telling me that is what it is

called.

Basically, you drink their little barium lemonade, lie on a table and get

an ultrasound.

This ultrasound is supposed to track the barium liquid down the esophagus

into the stomach, into the gall bladder, duodenum, pancreas, eardrum, toes...

whatever... Forgive my " ordering of things " , it's just a list of organs and

not the sequence in which they are connected!

If there is blockage, she can see it on the US as the tech follows it

along.

Anyway, the tech stopped mine at the gall bladder, there was no point in

going any further. I said " What?! Damn! This was the day I was going to

prove to my Dr. that I had problems with my PANCREAS, and the damn liquid

isn't even going to have a chance to MAKE it that far! DAMN! " (Okay, I

didn't say that all out loud... mostly in my head.)

The point to all that is that the barium never got past the GB.

Do you know why? I had Chronic Cystitis of the Gall Bladder.

No stones present, never had any stones at all; generally we think that

means our GB is fine; IT DOES NOT NECESSARILY MEAN THAT. This happens 1 in

every 1000 times a GB goes bad (NO stones)... Both or one of you may be

having the same or similar problem, and it's EASY to test for, painless,

doesn't take long, and the barium should get " blocked " where the problem

is... Why the hell more Dr's don't order this test baffles the shit out of me.

Anyway, my GB is gone, and I'm not having pain in THAT area any longer;

that's one problem out of the way. The 3 or 4 other surgeries I've had have

all served their purposes also. I figure that's the only way I'm going to

get better, is to just go down the damn abdominal daisy chain, fix or treat

one problem at a time, and then move to the next. In a couple years, I'll

probably just have a shell of a torso, and when you see an x-ray youi'll see

a bucket, two wires, a clock, some gum, crayons and an old tin can. Maybe a

gear or two, though they probably won't be turning anymore, but it won't

matter, because they were probably never connected to anything anyway. (Oh

yeah... there'll also be a couple miniature guys standing in one corner,

having a cigarette break.)

But don't expect me to give up!

PIPIDA SCAN. Ask your surgeon or GI or PCP about it. Easy, painless,

and it should tell you, at the very least, if your GB is in good working

order or not (and more).

Keep me posted.

Peace and Love,

Terry in KC

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Hi ,Just wanted to tell ya I've been told by the best spec at UCSF that the

pancreas is an organ that does not " HEAL ITSELF.. " I know this because also

I have had my gallbladder removed...For nothing....I had no stones or

sludge.They took it out anyway because they said I had extensive scarring on

the gallbladder.Well-I wish I still had it.I cannot eat food anymore.You

could have spikes of inflamation and the painless times are when the

inflammation has reduced,or calmed down as I say...When your not having an

" acute attack " its hard to diagnose.Did the surgeon say if your gallbladder

looked scarred...?Have you had your amylase and lipase levels checked when

you feel pain?Mine used to be in the 2000 range(norm-58-128)!!!all the

time.Then after all the tests and hospitalizations-they started noticing i

would " spike " meaning the levels would go from normal to off the charts in a

matter of hours.One doc made lab repeat test so many times,lab manager got

mad at the doctor,,,e said he had never seen anything like it before(the

spikes).Well God Bless you...W?B tell me more about you...ka Happy

Holidays!!!

maryg7878 wrote: Hi everyone -

it's been a while since I posted, so figured I'd give an update. The

bottom line is I met with my GI doc yesterday to go over everything,

and he says they can't find anything wrong with me.

They have done two ultrasounds, both times they saw what appeared to

maybe be a cyst on my pancreas (which is why the whole pancreatitis

thing came up). Two catscans showed absolutely nothing on my

pancreas. The GI doc had a few radiologists look at the ultrasound

films, and they are all in agreement that the shadow thing is most

likely my duodenum, that the ultrasound scope thing was just held at

an angle where the duodenum was over the pancreas. He says the

catscan is the ultimate authority, and since both showed nothing on

the panc, he is convinced there is nothing there.

Last week they did a flexible sigmoidoscopy and an air contrast enema,

and both tests showed absolutely nothing. That was a pretty horrible

day for me, not fun at all! But I'm glad I did it, because I found

out just recently my grandmother had had colon cancer, so it's good I

had it checked. He didn't find anything that would explain my chronic

diarrhea.. he thinks that I just have irritable bowel.

This past Wed, he did an endoscopy and didn't find anything wrong with

my esophagus, stomach, or duodenum.. he did a biopsy of the small

intestine but I won't know results for a week or two. The endoscopy

was actually not bad.. I don't remember having to swallow the tube at

all (which I was really freaked out about).. the only thing I

remember is gagging when they pulled it out, then telling them they

forgot to give me a " drool pad " , then I was out again and didn't wake

up till the recovery room.

My bloodwork is still showing slightly elevated liver levels, and

slightly elevated white blood cell counts, but they don't know why,

and think that maybe that's the norm for me, or maybe I just have a

mild inffection somewhere. He is not worried about the bloodwork,

thinks I should have it redone in a couple months just to see if they

have changed.

sooo.. I just don't know. He thinks I have irritable bowel, and that

the pain I had had could have been caused by that. I think maybe my

middle stomach pain could have been, but I do not think my right side

pain that I had in July was caused by irritable bowel - I was so sick,

in pain for over a week, running a fever for a week, nauseaus,

dehydrated, lost 10 pounds in one week.. I just can't chalk that up

to irritable bowel. I really think that was a gallbladder pain, since

I experienced that same exact pain during the hida scan.. I KNOW it

was the exact same pain. He said in a hida scan, sometimes they give

you medicine to make the gallbladder spasm, and that could have caused

the pain during the procedure.. then it seems to me that my

gallbladder must have been spasming during that awful attack. But he

can't find any stones, so doesn't want me to have it out.

I've actually been feeling pretty good. Haven't had any pain that

couldn't be dealt with using Tylenol since early September, which I

think is a good sign. And the pain I get is just little twinges here

and there, nothing major or ongoing at all. I was sick last week,

very nauseous and feverish, but I think it was just a bug - went away

after a couple days. And lots of people at work have had stomach

bugs, so I'm not worried about it.

So it seems to me that A) there is nothing really wrong with me, and

maybe what happened in July was just a bad bug or virus or there IS

something wrong with either my gallbladder or pancreas, but it's in a

good resting state right now. He did say it was hard to diagnose this

after the fact, which I understand. I know that a lot of people here

had problems for a little while, then they were fine for a few years

then their problems started up again. Maybe it really *was* a

pancreatitis attack, but it happened for some flukey reason, and now

the panc has healed itself and is fine. Who knows.....

So I haven't really been posting here because I sort of feel like a

fraud.. if I don't have pancreatitis, what am I doing posting on a

pancreatitis board?

But I will say this tho. Regardless of whether or not I actually have

the horrible disease called pancreatitis, I have learned a LOT about

this disease from all of you, and my heart has certainly been opened

to the injustices suffereed by those people who do have this disease,

and to the ignorance of the medical community, as well as the world at

large. And it makes me angry. I have told everyone I know about this

disease, and I will continue to do so, because I think it's important

that more people actually understand what this disease really is.

In any event, that's my story thus far. Maybe I'll get sick again,

maybe I won't. I plan on staying subscribed to this group, since

there are many people here that I care about and pray for and would

like to hear updates on, but I probably won't be posting much as I

don't want to waste the bandwidth. Ya'll have enough e-mails in your

mailboxes I think

If you have made it this far in my novel, thanks for reading

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