Gallbladder I

Apologies to my dear reader (I think I have one) for my absence, but I have been on a rather long and nasty medical journey over the last few weeks, really starting with a vengeance on Sept 1st, but with hindsight, going back for a good few months before.


I am going to lay it out over the next few posts, so anyone suffering from nervous hysteria, or who has an aversion to unpleasant medical stories, or just can't stand the thought of the equivalent of being stuck in a lift with a wheelchair bound crabby old baldheaded liverspotted geezer banging on and on about his medical war stories, look away now.
I am hoping that it will be of general interest, but also specific interest to anyone who may be, or may suspect they are suffering with their gallbladder, or may wonder what the hell's going on, and recognise the symptoms as I describe what happened to me


OK, first a lesson about gallbladders. I thought a gallbladder was some organ we all had vaguely in the vicinity of the digestive system, which produced some digestive substance. Not a bit of it. If you think about it, the clue is in the name. Bladder. Does your bladder produce anything? No. It stores urine. The gallbladder is just a storage facility for bile, and you need bile to digest fat. Now bile itself is produced by the liver via the bile duct, so you don't actually need the gallbladder to function; it's just a useful extra tool.


This is what happens


Scene: The stomach. You have just consumed a Burger King triple bacon cheeseburger with fries and a pint of warm lard


Stomach: Holy shit: YO BRAIN!!
Brain:      Wassup?
Stomach: There's a shitstorm of fat coming my way
Brain:      So?
Stomach   SO? Waddya mean so? So I'm gonna need bile, baby.
Brain        Roger that. I'll tell the liver
Stomach   The liver can't cope with this one on it's own. Send in the big guns - NOW!!
Brain        Jeez, er...OK... hold on...I've got his number somewhere. Let me see...Cranium...Duodenum...Ears..Feet..here we are Gallbladder. YO GALLBLADDER!!
Gallbladder:  Gallbladder here, how may I be of assistance?
Brain:       RELEASE THE HOUNDS!!!



























So the gallbladder then dumps it's reservoir of extra bile into the intestine, the extra fat gets digested, and we all go home happy.


Trouble is, the gallbladder has an annoying habit in a large section of the population, of producing little mineral lumps called gallstones. Most of us live with these all through our lives without any ill effects, but sometimes they can get stuck in the ducts leading from the gallbladder, and if they do, then when the gallbladder is called upon to release the hounds, then it can cause a blockage, and the gallbladder tries to squeeze them out, which causes a hideous, classic pain on the right side of the body just below the ribcage, and also sometimes up the back behind the right shoulder blade, maybe in the stomach, and basically, you feel awful and want to rip your innards out.


That Big Mac was a mistake


So anyway. There's the background. Next post coming shortly