Gallbladder Removal – Overview

Transcript

The gallbladder is an organ that sits beneath the liver. And essentially what it does is it stores bile. The bile comes out of the liver very liquidy. And so when it’s in the gallbladder, it’s actually stored there and the water is absorbed. So then the bile becomes a little bit more thick. Sometimes, stones will form in the gallbladder. First you have sand, then you have stones. And the patients, or the people, rather, will develop pain in what we call the right upper quadrant of the abdomen, which is right underneath the right side of the ribcage. The pain can be very severe or the pain can be very mild. And sometimes people will come with one or two episodes and sometimes they will come to you after years of having symptoms. One of the first things that your doctor should be doing at that point is to schedule you for a sonogram, which is a test that is a wonderful opportunity for us to see if indeed the stones are present in the gallbladder. And if they are, and if a person has symptoms that are suggestive of the gallbladder disease, for example pains in the right upper quadrant, nausea, vomiting, after eating let’s say a fatty meal, then a surgeon may recommend to you the gallbladder removal.