We Have a Winner

 Thanks to the power of modern technology, I knew my results of the HIDA scan and what they meant before I saw the surgeon again.

Here in New Zealand, we have medical apps that allow us to link into our GP and see all medications we are taking, all test results, all letters of referral and all appointment notes. We can also message the surgery on the app and book appointments with our named doctor (although good luck with that one since covid, takes about 10 days for an appointment) and request repeat prescriptions without having to go to the surgery.

So of course, when I got the message that a new result had been uploaded then I took a quick look and bingo, found the issue:

I have an inactive gallbladder.

Your gallbladder is an organ that sits underneath your liver and assists the liver with the excretion of bile into the digestive system when you eat. The bile helps to break down fat. You can live without it; your liver and cystic duct just have to learn to divert the bile into the digestive system a slightly different route. Most people have a gallbladder that fills with bile when you eat and then excretes it out as required, usually with an ejection fraction of about 50%.

Mine is at 16%, so a little slow and useless really

Therefore, when I eat, bile is accumulating in the gallbladder as normal and then it is not emptying properly, this leads to a full gallbladder that can then go into spasm or cramp. Thus, the colicky pain I was getting as it was full of bile and not able to empty it all out.

The solution (according to Dr Google, true nurse here!) is a Cholecystectomy, which in simple terms = let's take that gallbladder out.

Guess my appointment with the surgeon in the next few weeks will be to confirm what I have already established, unless the expert has a different solution (I do trust his knowledge) and that will be some future surgery.