Acupuncture may help relieve some of the pain from gallstones by reducing spasms, easing bile flow, and restoring proper function. Acupuncture has been reported to treat gallstones, but more research is needed.
One small study was done to look at the effects of acupuncture on cholecystitis in 60 participants. Cholecystitis is inflammation of the gallbladder.
Acupuncture was found to relieve symptoms and reduce the volume of the gallbladder. More research is needed to specifically look at the benefits of acupuncture for the treatment of gallstones.
Acupuncture is relatively safe. When choosing an acupuncturist, look for a licensed acupuncturist and make sure that they are using new, single-use needles. In some cases, your insurance provider may cover part of the cost.
Many cities also have community acupuncture centers. Acupuncture is administered in a room with other people instead of in a private setting. The cost for community acupuncture is often a lot more affordable than private acupuncture. In an older study from , ursodeoxycholic acid helped prevent gallstone formation in obese people who were following very low-calorie diets. It may take up to two years for bile acids to treat gallstones.
Gallstones may re-form when you stop taking the medication. Surgery is often the recommended treatment for gallstones. Surgery, known as cholecystectomy, involves removing the gallbladder, so gallstones are not able to form again following this treatment.
A gallbladder is not needed for survival, and in most people, the body is able to compensate for the loss of the gallbladder with minimal side effects. Learn more about gallbladder removal surgery. A combination of genetics, diet, and lifestyle factors are likely the cause of gallstones formation.
A study reported that women who ate more fruits and vegetables had a lower risk for gallbladder removal surgery than women who ate the least fruits and vegetables.
A well-balanced diet that includes a variety of fruits and vegetables may help support a healthy gallbladder and reduce your risk for gallstones. It may also help with weight management.
Obesity increases your risk for developing gallstones. Losing weight can be an important part of preventing gallstones, but the way you lose weight matters. Following a very low-calorie diet for weight loss may actually increase your risk for gallstones. In a study , participants followed a one-year commercial weight loss program. The rapid shift from the gallbladder being very active and frequently digesting fats to not being used at all can aggravate your condition and produce more gallstones.
Crash-diet plans that cause a rapid loss of a great deal of weight can also produce or aggravate gallstones. If your doctor decides to remove your gallbladder, a cholecystectomy might be suggested. For this procedure, a surgical incision is made, and then the gallbladder is removed by laparoscopic surgery. Most patients experience a quick recovery with little pain and discomfort.
But if you have persistent pain, surgery is the best option. Patients who are immunosuppressed are also advised to get surgery, as gallstones can lead to a potentially fatal infection. Jaundice, where your skin itches and appears yellow, is one side effect. That may explain why the risk for women, relative to men, decreases with age. Before age 40, women are diagnosed with gallstones almost three times more often than men are pregnancy, for example, increases the risk , but by age 60, their risk is just slightly greater.
Estrogen therapy increases the risk, especially when taken as a pill rather than a patch. Oral contraceptive pills also increase the risk slightly, but only in the first decade of use. Obesity is another risk factor because bodies with more fat produce more estrogen. Paradoxically, rapid weight loss also increases the risk, because very low-calorie diets interfere with bile production and therefore cause more crystallization of cholesterol.
Gallstones are so common after weight-loss surgery that patients are often advised to have their gallbladders removed at the same time. Gallstones are also more likely to occur in people with diabetes or any condition that decreases gallbladder contractions or intestinal motility, such as a spinal cord injury.
Finally, there's some evidence for genetic vulnerability to gallstone formation. Most people who have gallstones don't know it. Their gallstones stay silent and may only be discovered incidentally, through an ultrasound or CT scan performed for other reasons. Symptoms arise mainly when stones pass through a bile duct or obstruct it, causing biliary colic — better known as a gallbladder attack.
These attacks occur when the gallbladder contracts usually in response to a fatty meal and presses the stones so as to block the gallbladder duct. The main symptom is pain, usually in the right upper or middle abdomen just below the rib cage , which builds to greatest intensity within an hour and can persist up to several hours. It can be either sharp and knifelike or a deep ache; sometimes it radiates to the back or the right shoulder.
There may also be nausea and vomiting. The pain subsides as the gallbladder relaxes. A stone lodged in a duct can also cause more serious problems, including acute cholecystitis inflammation of the gallbladder , pancreatitis inflammation of the pancreas , or cholangitis inflammation of the bile ducts in the liver.
Any of these conditions can cause severe pain and other symptoms, including jaundice, high fever, chills, and vomiting. Treatment usually requires hospitalization and often surgical removal of the stone. If you think you're having a gallbladder attack, your clinician will probably order several blood tests and an abdominal ultrasound after you fast for at least eight hours. Ultrasound is particularly helpful in diagnosing acute cholecystitis because it also picks up any thickening of the gallbladder wall and indicates the presence of fluid, which may suggest inflammation.
Other diagnostic techniques include cholescintigraphy, a radioactive injection used to view a possible blockage of the cystic duct; magnetic resonance imaging MRI of the bile ducts; endoscopic ultrasonography, which introduces an ultrasound device through the mouth, esophagus, and stomach to the duodenum the first section of the small intestine to get images of the area; and endoscopic retrograde cholangiopancreatography, which uses a scope inserted through the mouth to the duodenum to view the biliary ducts.
This content does not have an English version. This content does not have an Arabic version. Overview Gallstones Open pop-up dialog box Close. Gallstones Gallstones are hardened deposits of bile that can form in your gallbladder. Email address. First Name let us know your preferred name. Last Name. Thank you for subscribing Your in-depth digestive health guide will be in your inbox shortly.
Sorry something went wrong with your subscription Please, try again in a couple of minutes Retry. Request an Appointment at Mayo Clinic. Share on: Facebook Twitter. Show references Cholelithiasis. Merck Manual Professional Version.
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