What do gallstones feel like

So bad that patients are given Opiates if in hospital.

The pain is like nothing else on earth. I'd rather give birth thann have to go through that again.

In my case the first I knew about having gallstones was after eating a cheese pizza when one of the bastards got completely stuck and I ended up critically ill with sepsis and pancreatitis. The scariest thing was that I was too unwell to recognise how unwell I was although that might have had a lot to do with the morphine. Bagged myself emergency surgery and now have what I call my 'shark attack' scar under my right boob.

The ultrasound is relatively quick and as long as you're not in the middle of an attack it's also relatively painless. Surgery is the only thing that'll really get rid of it forever. It's usually done by keyhole as well.

Yes sounds like gallstones to me too. Mine was similar. The pain was horrendous. I would be pacing the floors for hours in agony. A really hot bath helped sometimes. I was never so glad to get my gallbladder removed. The pain from a gallbladder attack is worse than labour.

Exactly. It seems to me like the doctors were concentrating on the location of the pain (in the middle), as opposed to all the other things around the presentation. It probably didn't help that it was hard to see the same doctor more than once, and it also seemed like previous suspicions of previous doctors (the supposed "ulcer") were taken as gospel, even though they were never confirmed.

I am 40’s and I used to be overweight a few years ago but I am a healthy weight now and fit and eat ok

Weight loss, especially if it's rapid, can cause gallstones to form - that's what I was told likely caused mine.

I visualised the pain as someone slowly and steadily forcing a red hot poker through me, from where the centre of my bra sits, right through to my back.

Sometimes it was a bit sore and lasted for an hour or so, sometimes it left me literally writhing in pain for hours and involuntarily mooing like a cow. I think it is comparable to childbirth - and DD was back to back! - but the difference is contractions come and go and this is a steadily increasing pain that at the time feels like it will never ever end.

Had my gall bladder out now, and knowing I'll never feel that again is amazing.

Yea, it's the fat that triggers the pain as the gallbladder contracts to push out bile to emulsify the fat to smaller droplets to help gut absorption. If you have gallstones then GB contracts on these stones causing pain. Avoiding acidic foods can help in gastritis.

For me it was dead in the middle, fit not fat, yes female, twenties, definitely no foetus, when it first showed up. The problem with "usually" is that "...but sometimes" gets missed on occasion. The attack that finally led to diagnosis was the very first one that actually moved to the right of the centre. All that time, doctors told me to avoid acidic foods, whereas I kept insisting that tomatoes, wine, etc. didn't do anything, but oily food set it off.

How come u got addicted ? I'm so sorry.

Just in terms of triggers - I found out that as well as WHAT I ate, WHEN I ate was also a factor - if I had any food in the 3 hour run up to bedtime, I was more likely to have a gallbladder attack during the night.

I second the recommendation for Buscopan, and the other thing I found particularly effective for pain relief was a very hot bath.

Abdominal pain, right upper quadrant, worse after eating, especially fatty foods. Gastritis can mimic this though. Ask your GP for a direct access ultrasound. While you wait, cut out all fat in your diet and if this improves symptoms could well be gallstones. Gallstones more common in the 4 Fs Fat, Female, Forties or with Foetus (pregnant).

Gosh I can’t believe how many of you had to wait so long for surgery. I was rushed to A &E and found that I had jammed packed gall bladder …. Surgery 3 weeks later. What they dont you is that you can’t ingest any fats after

The most horrific pain.

Can be eased by vomiting.

Stop eating any fat (not even an egg) and it will keep it under control.

I paid thousands to have mine removed privately.

My experience was indigestion-like but extreme pain, that was initially (without scans etc.) treated as an ulcer, and then later investigated with a 24h-acid scope and an endoscopy, to no clear result, brushed off as "irritation in the esophagus" and treated with Lanzoprasole, that I was told I would probably never be able to come off. After FIFTEEN (15) years of this, I moved countries, and within weeks, had an attack that was checked out with an ultrasound and then a CT and MRI, was diagnosed as acute cholecystitis (gallbladder infection), and had an operation scheduled for within 8 weeks (they needed it to settle down). The result of the operation was that my gallbladder was apparently already holier than a whole college of saints, and was clinging in desparation to the surrounding organs, turning what should have been a simple keyhole surgery into a long open operation and a long recovery (I'm now the proud owner of a jar of 26 elegantly striped large gallstones). Now, I'm medication-free and eating pretty normally, although I am a bit careful as to just how many cheesy sausages I eat in one sitting. I'm a bit annoyed, still, at how long I was left with the wrong diagnosis: it seems someone ought to have had the idea of doing an ultrasound a bit earlier (i.e. 15 years), given that my presentation of pain in the stomach area, rather than on the right side, is a bit unusual, but seemingly not all that unusual.

Your symptoms sound very familiar to me. Although of course they could just as well be something else entirely, it might be a good idea to rule out the gallbladder, and an ultrasound might be a sensible non-invasive first step. It would, in my case and in retrospect, have been a much more sensible first step than the acid test and endoscopy.

Good luck. I hope you get treatment quickly. It’s rubbish never knowing when the next attack will come.

Definitely exaggerate the pain! I was on the list for a whole year for the op and this was 7 years ago when the NHS was slightly less on its knees.

Annoyingly I've started getting slight pain recently from where I had it removed, but it's nothing compared to the pain of gallstones.

You have my sympathy it's horrible!

Mine was similar. I had a scan during pregnancy for something unrelated where the sonographer noted 'sludge' in my gall bladder, but at that point it hadn't given me any bother. My trouble really started when DS was eight weeks old, with the awful trapped-wind feeling. It got worse and worse over 3 days and I eventually got admitted to hospital because I was being sick and nearly passing out. Then once I was in A&E they established it was actually pancreatitis, and I ended up staying in for about 4 nights so they could stabilise me. I had my gallbladder out by keyhole surgery about a fortnight after that.

This. 100%. Even when I had a stone stuck in my bile duct, I still couldn't get them to give me a quicker date for my op. Instead of going into A&E when that happened, I went to the out of hours service & they gave me indigestion tablets. Which did nothing.

It sounds very similar to how my gallstones/pancreatitis started. Basically like very bad trapped wind in my ribcage that I just couldn't get rid of.

I had this for years & didn't realise it was my gallbladder. The gallbladder produces bile which is designed to break down fatty foods, so those tend to be the things that set it off. The sudden pain is usually the gallstones moving down the bile duct, triggered by the food eaten. The one thing i remember triggering attacks (including vomiting & that horrendous pain worse than childbirth) was the icing on Costco cakes - I only ever had that occasionally but the time between was long enough for me to forget the last attack & stupidly have another bite of a cake someone had for a birthday or whatever. But it was lots of things that the gallbladder was designed to help break down to aid digestion.

It took 18 mths from confirmed diagnosis to getting mine removed but towards the end of the wait, I had the worst attack, and had to wait another 2/3 weeks til I got my op. Turned out a gallstone had got stuck in my bile duct & the surgeon couldn't figure out how I'd lasted that last 2/3 weeks.

Go & get checked out so you can catch it before it caused other problems.