Your gallbladder is a small sac located near your liver. It stores and processes bile. Bile is a substance that helps your body digest fat in your small intestine after you have eaten. Gallbladder pain can be the result of a problem within the sac or the tubes that lead to the small intestine. Sometimes you can develop pain from gallstones that can eventually be passed or removed surgically. However, there are also cases where there is an ongoing problem that causes chronic pain.
Causes
Chronic gallbladder pain may initially be caused by gallstones. While the stones can be removed surgically, in some cases after the surgery, there can be complications that cause chronic pain. One such complication is damage to the bile tubes after gallbladder surgery. This damage can lead to infection. You may also be left with scar tissue or chronic inflammation. Additionally, having certain chronic disease such as diabetes also places you at a higher risk of developing gallbladder disease.
Considerations
Chronic gallbladder pain symptoms can be caused by pus in the sac, tissue death or an inflammation of the walls of the sac. If you notice signs or symptoms suggestive of gallbladder disease, seek medical attention. If left untreated, your condition could progress to gangrene or perforation of the gallbladder. According to the Merck Online Medical Library, "in chronic cholecystitis, the gallbladder is damaged by repeated attacks of acute inflammation, usually due to gallstones, and may become thick-walled, scarred, and small."
Symptoms
Signs that you may have a chronic gallbladder problem include abdominal pain that comes and goes, especially on the upper-right side of the abdomen, pain that gets worse after a meal, feeling full, clay-colored stools, chronic diarrhea, gas, regurgitation after meals, fever, chills, nausea, vomiting and jaundice. Your pain may also get worse when taking a deep breath, and it can radiate to your back, under the shoulder blades or behind the breastbone.
Diagnosis
If your doctor suspects there is a problem within your gallbladder, she can do tests to diagnose your condition. This includes a physical exam, blood tests, liver tests, various abdominal and intestinal scans and palpitation of your abdominal area to check for tenderness. These tests can show a blockage or abnormality in the structure and function of your gallbladder or bile tubes.
Treatment
You may need to take pain medications, anti-inflammatory medication and/or antibiotics to manage your symptoms. Eating a low-fat diet will also help to reduce your symptoms. If your condition is severe, you may need to be hospitalized. Since you can live without your gallbladder, in severe cases it can be removed. However, in some rare cases, chronic pain can still persist even after the gallbladder stones or sac is removed; these may be due to intestinal muscular spasms. Additional surgery can relieve the pressure in the intestines.
