Gallbladder Attack: Understanding the Symptoms and Causes
The gallbladder is a small, pear-shaped, pouch-like organ located right under your liver for bile, a liquid that aids digestion.
What Are Gallbladder Attacks?
A gallbladder attack can result in abrupt and excruciating pain. The signs and symptoms that make up an attack are brought on when bile cannot enter or exit your gallbladder. An excessive amount of bile results in an inflamed and painful gallbladder. An attack of the gallbladder can cause pain in your right shoulder, upper right or middle of your abdomen, back between your shoulder blades, or right shoulder. Another possibility is nausea or vomiting. The pain often lasts between 20 and 60 minutes.
The other symptoms include jaundice. The skin and the whites of your eyes turn yellow. Moreover, the patient may experience chills, a fever, tea-colored urine, or light-colored poop.
What causes Gallbladder Attacks?
Gallstones are one of the most common causes of gallbladder attacks. Gallstones are usually formed due to the overaccumulation of cholesterol in the bile. Too much cholesterol in the bile crystallizes to form stones. These could be as small as a grain of sand or as big as a golf ball. However, these stones do not present any health risks unless they get lodged in your bile ducts and prevent bile from exiting.
The other factors are cholecystitis (gallbladder inflammation and redness), tumors, abscesses, sclerosing cholangitis (bile duct or gallbladder scarring), abnormal tissue growth, or severe acalculous gallbladder disease, which restricts your gallbladder from moving the way it should clear.
Obesity and high intakes of refined carbohydrates and calories also put you at risk of a gallbladder attack. Men and women, ages 60 and older, are at equal risk of an attack, but women between the ages of 20 and 60 pose a higher risk due to the extra estrogen in their bodies from pregnancy, hormone replacement therapy, or birth control pills.
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