Diagnosing Gallstones when you land in the hospital!

[Guest guest]

There is really only one good test for the presence of gallstones, but it only

comes at great

cost (Exploratory Surgery) or, too late (Post Mortem Exam). In either case, you

are getting

DIRECT VISUAL EXAMINATION which is pretty dang accurate. Most doctors are quite

happy

to perform either of these procedures on you, sometimes the former leading to

the latter.

Of course, that does kill the cash cow which they do try to avoid.

They can also perform another invasive procedure, the ERCP, wherein an

endoscope is

crammed down your gullet and redirected (hopefully) up the bile duct into the

GB. This is

done under mild sedation (which has risks) or light anesthesia (riskier) and has

a fair risk

of perforation or rupture of the intestine, bile duct or GB (they told me I had

a 5-10%

chance of a perforation--I was lucky and I waived the procedure only to be

" fired " as a

patient by my gastroenterologist over it) . However, it is an amazing bit of

technology in

that in addition to the camera on board, it has optional " grabbers " that can

snatch a stone

out of a stuck place, or at least break it up. That is, if they don't punch a

hole in your

already weakened GI tract. Still beats the hell out of an exploratory

laparotomy!

Gastroenterologists LOVE this little money-maker and will try every trick in the

book to get

you to sign the release form.

Almost all other forms of " looking into the body " have glaring inadequacies...

1) ULTRASOUND- provides only blurry, shadowy images and there is the serious

problem

of overlapping tissues including intestines, ingesta and other organs.

Cholesterol stones

have virtually the exact composition of liquid bile so they don't stand out at

all. A good

reader of ultrasound can pick out a thickened gall bladder or ductal wall and it

may even

show distention of the duct if the stone is lodged inside. One good thing, it's

virtually

non-toxic since it consists mainly of sound waves, plus it's cheap and low tech.

2) CONVENTIONAL X-RAYS- Have most of the problems as mentioned above, not the

least

of which is shooting through 12-24' of body mass including the vertebral spine.

X-rays,

and all forms of ionizing radiation are very hazardous to the body (especially

breasts,

uterus, eggs and developing babies)! Virtually worthless when diagnosing

gallstone issues

and the technique itself is on the way to the museum of medical history. The

only way to

make it somewhat diagnostic is to inject radiopaque dye (CONTRAST MEDIA) into

the bile

duct and shoot pictures as it moves along. This can be done with FLOROSCOPY e.g.

a

continual beam of X-rays that transfer to a videotape of the dye study. Creates

much more

radiation plus it's invasive and dangerous to get the dye into the bile duct.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Sad Sidenote- The American Cancer Society and the Breast Cancer Society want

every

woman to get MAMMOGRAPHY (X-rays) of their breasts and meanwhile everyone else

(even them!) will tell you that radiation itself is one of the main causes of

breast

cancer!!!!!!!!!! Thermography is just as accurate and without the pain, without

the

radiation.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

3) COAXIAL TOMOGRAPHY- CT SCAN) Extremely detailed imagry because it uses a

" slicing' technology so one can view a virtual scanning of the lumen of the GB.

Hundreds of

" cross-sections " , slices actually, are stacked like a deck of cards and the

radiologist can

examine them like fanning the deck. Still, this amazing technological miracle

misses

much, especially stones made of cholesterol and bile salts. Contrast media can

also be

introduced into the bile duct. A CT scan doses your body to the equivalent of

150+ chest

X-rays as well! Therefore, avoid CT whenever possible! It's also colossally

expensive.

4) MAGNETIC RESONANCE IMAGERY (MRI) The most sophisticated way to examine

internal components without exploratory surgery. This is also a slicing imagery

but in

much greater detail and using super strong magnets and radio signals instead of

radiation. The main hazard is if you have any iron-type metal in your body it

turns it into a

bullet! Otherwise, it probably won't be long before it's proven safe for

pregnant women

and infants. Oh, it's super loud, super claustrophobic and super-dooper

expensive. So

precise you can see the actual turbulence and vortices of the swirling liquid

blood within

the arteries! But, since bile is somewhat of a bog, MRIs still cannot provide a

totally

reliable diagnosis for GB conditions.

All in all, modern medicine has come a long way, some of the new toys are very

valuable

and I'm glad they exist. But, I figure about 80% of ALL professionals are HACKS,

or

mediocre at best, and this includes Radiologists, Gastroenterologists and

Surgeons (I came

up with this figure because I know MY profession is at this level and we are all

humans).

The diagnostic tools are also vastly abused, WAY over-performed and still don't

tell you,

even in the best of hands, FOR SURE what you really need to know most of all!

Bottom

Line: You are still your own best doctor!

Will in Minneapolis