Gallstones
What is it?
Intense pain in your upper-right abdomen often after you eat— that may radiate to your right shoulder, back, or chest. Pain may last from a half hour to several hours.
Nausea and vomiting
Belching, passing gas, bloating, and indigestion
Jaundice—yellowing of your skin and the whites of your eyes
Gallstones form in the gallbladder, a pear-shaped organ located behind the liver. The gallbladder is a storage tank for bile, a substance made in the liver and released to help digest fat. Bile contains water, salts, cholesterol, and the pigment bilirubin, which gives stools their brown color.
After you eat, your gallbladder contracts and releases bile through a narrow tube-like duct to your small intestine.
Gallstones are made up of a hard material that forms when the bile contains too much of one component. Three-quarters of all gallstones develop because the bile contains too much cholesterol. The stones can also form when the gallbladder doesn’t empty completely.
Other gallstones are pigment stones composed mostly of bilirubin. Although scientists aren’t certain, they think this type develops in people who have cirrhosis of the liver, a gallbladder infection, or hereditary blood disorders.
About 80 percent of people who have gallstones don’t have symptoms and don’t need treatment. Pain starts when gallstones inflame the gall bladder or become lodged in one of the nearby ducts. Gallstone attacks often follow a high-fat meal and frequently occur at night.
If your doctor suspects gallstones, he may order one of these tests to confirm the diagnosis:
• Ultrasound sends into your abdomen painless sound waves that bounce off your gallbladder and create a picture showing any stones.
• Cholecystogram involves taking several pills containing dye the night before the test so that your gallbladder—and any obstructions—can be seen on X rays the next day.
What Is Your Risk for Gallstones?
You are at greater risk for gallstones if you:
When you lose weight quickly, your liver responds by releasing extra cholesterol into the bile. In both situations, excess cholesterol creates ideal conditions for the formation of gallstones.
Endoscopic retrograde cholangiopancreatography (ERCP) uses a flexible tube guided down the throat to the small intestine. Your doctor locates the bile duct, injects dye, and looks for blockages on an X ray. Blood tests screen for infection and elevated bilirubin.
Removing the gallbladder is the most common treatment. “Keyhole” surgery makes this procedure much less risky than it once was. The surgeon makes several small incisions in your abdomen and inserts, through one incision, a lighted flexible tube with a tiny camera so he can view the operation. Instruments are inserted through the other incisions to cut around the gallbladder and remove it.
How
is it treated?
Take a capsule of peppermint oil with meals to help dissolve gallstones. Be sure to take coated pills, which don’t dissolve until they reach your intestines, where they do their best work.
EXTRA CORPOREAL SHOCK-WAVE LITHOTRIPSY (ESWU)
Shock waves are used to smash gallstones into tiny pieces so they can flow out through the bile ducts. ESWI isn’t nearly as successful as a similar treatment used to break up kidney stones.
Medications may dissolve small stones over 18 months to 2 years. But they work in only Tin 10 people, and stones return in up to half of them.
Eat right. A low-fat, high-fiber diet offers
several benefits that may lower your risk of gallstones. First, it helps
keep your weight in check. It also helps you avoid constipation. (Aim to get at
least 25 to 30 grams of fiber a day, and increase your intake slowly, not all
at once.) And cutting down on animal fats lowers your cholesterol levels
and decreases the risk of a gallstone attack.
• Fill your tank. Drink at least eight 8-ounce glasses of water daily. If you’re boosting your fiber intake, drinking extra water is essential to prevent constipation.
• Favor fish. Researchers have found that people who eat plenty of fish and monounsaturated fats found in olive and canola oils seem to have a lower risk of gallstones.
• Don’t crash and burn. Crash diets and rapid weight loss increase your risk.
• Get moving. Regular exercise helps control your weight and lowers cholesterol, reducing two gallstone risk factors. It may also help correct abnormal blood-sugar levels, another risk factor.
Add psyllium. This supplement helps prevent constipation and attaches to the cholesterol in bile, helping prevent gallstones from forming.
• Get more C. New research shows that women with high blood levels of vitamin C may be less likely to experience gallstones. Vitamin C seems to lower bile cholesterol levels.
Natural Health
Go Herbal.
Try milk thistle and dandelion. These herbs, taken as pills, are thought to change the composition of bile and reduce its cholesterol content.
OUR COMMENTS:
85% of gallstones are cholesterol and they can be
purged through natural processes, using special cleansing systems that include
colon therapy and other procedures instead of drugs and surgery!
The best system for dealing with and preventing the
problem is through all Natural Methods, starting with diet to prevent or diet
and cleansing to correct the problem!
We do not suggest using the medical solution of sound shock therapy (is likely do damage your tissues), drugs or surgery, but check our section on Gallbladder and Liver Cleansing programs, and other information! If diet creates the condition than it is diet that will bring about the necessary changes, why ever use drugs, if you do you only fill the coffers of the Pharmaceutical Companies and Doctors.
The use of herb to use foods to create a different chemistry that will then change what is going on in the body! The answers are simple, as they say, when you know what to do!