The symptoms result from the stones obstructing the bile duct. You may have the following symptoms:

• ● Intense pain in the right upper abdomen, especially for a few hours after eating food.
• ● Nausea and sometimes vomiting
• ● Dark-coloured urine
• ● Frequent complaints of indigestion
• ● Yellowing of the skin (jaundice)

In most cases, you may not experience any pain or other symptoms if the stones are not obstructing the bile duct.

The exact cause of gallbladder stones remains unknown. But experts believe these factors may be responsible:

• ● Excess cholesterol – If your cholesterol is more than your bile can digest, you may develop gallstones.
• ● Excess bilirubin – Liver damage or certain blood disorders can produce bilirubin. It forms pigmented, hard stones in the gallbladder.
• ● The concentration of bile in the gallbladder can also form stones.

Most people have cholesterol gallstones; only a few people have gallstones bilirubin or calcium stones. Irrespective of the type, they all produce similar symptoms.

Your doctor will perform a detailed physical exam to check for the signs of gallstones. Excess bilirubin results in jaundice, turning your eye-whites and skin yellow. You will need to undergo other tests to confirm the cause of your symptoms. An imaging study will detect the presence and location of the gallstones. Ultrasound imaging is the most preferred imaging technique.

• ● Abdominal ultrasound – It involves using a transducer head across your abdomen to detect the abnormalities in your gallbladder
• ● Endoscopic ultrasound – It identifies the tiny stones that are often unclear on an abdominal scan. The transducer head creates sound waves from inside the digestive tract to detect the gallstones.
• ● Blood Tests – Blood tests for liver function can help monitor the bilirubin levels. Also, it can detect other risk factors and complications associated with gallstones. They include inflammation of the gallbladder, infection, and jaundice.

Depending on your imaging study results, your doctor will advise a treatment plan. Most gallstones are asymptomatic. Such gallstones do not require any treatment. At times you may even pass the gallstones without realizing it. Only if you have symptoms, will you need additional treatment.

• ● Surgical treatment – For recurrent gallstones, doctors recommend cholecystectomy – surgery to remove the gallbladder. With the gallbladder removal, the bile (produced in the liver) reroutes directly into the intestine for fat digestion.
• ● Medications – Medications are not usually the treatment of choice for gallstones. However, if you have comorbid factors and cannot undergo surgery, your doctor will advise treatment by dissolving the gall stones using medicines. It requires a prolonged treatment duration – months or years. Also, the recurrence of gallstones is higher with medical treatment.
• ● Shock wave lithotripsy – It is an outpatient procedure. The procedure involves getting shock waves to break the stones into smaller pieces. The tiny pieces either pass through the gallbladder and bile duct or dissolved with medications.

If you do not have symptoms, you may not require any treatment interventions. With the surgery, the outlook is excellent as the stones will no longer occur. With other forms of treatment, you may develop gallstones again.

Risks of surgery for gallbladder stones include:

• ● Reactions to anesthesia
• ● Infection
• ● Uncontrolled internal bleeding
• ● Injury to the bile duct and parts of the small intestine
• ● Injury to the liver
• ● Bile releasing in the abdominal cavity
• ● Injury to the hepatic artery – blood vessels supplying blood to the liver

With the advances in the medical and surgical sciences, complications are rare, and the risk is low.

Symptoms of Gallstones occur when the bile ducts get obstructed. As a result, you may experience intense abdominal pain, nausea, vomiting, and maybe jaundice.

You can get the Gallstones removed during the endoscopic diagnostic procedure. However, the recurrence rate of Gallstones is high with endoscopy.

A Gallbladder removal surgery spares the bile ducts. These bile ducts carry the bile produced in the liver directly into the intestine. As the gallbladder is unavailable to store the bile, its concentration gets affected, causing loose stools. Restricting fats in your diet can help with this problem.

Water helps in flushing out the Gallbladder. It also protects the Gallbladder from an excess collection of bile.

If you have Gallstones, you should avoid food rich in fat like fried food, processed and dairy products, fatty red meats.