While the degree of discomfort varies from person to person, the pain can sometimes be excruciating. If you feel steady, severe pain in your upper abdomen and have a fever or persistent vomiting, call your doctor or go to the hospital immediately. When it's not giving you grief, the gallbladder quietly goes about its business, which is to store and concentrate bile, a yellow-brown fluid containing cholesterol, fats, salts that break up fats and a pigment that gives bile and stools their color. The main function of bile is to help digest fats. Gallstones form when there is too much cholesterol or pigment in the bile.
Gallstones can be as small as a grain of sand or as large as a golf ball.
The gallbladder may develop a single large stone or as many as several thousand smaller, pebble-size stones. When gallstones do cause trouble, you may be more apt to think that you're having a heart attack rather than suffering from an overdose of bile, because the usual sign of an attack is pain in the right upper abdomen traveling to the shoulder or back, often accompanied by nausea and vomiting, says Colleen Schmitt, M.D., a gastroenterologist with the Galen Medical Group in Chattanooga, Tennessee. Once your gallbladder is causing symptoms, surgery is the best option, says Dr. Elta. And, because no one knows what causes gallstones, very little is known about how to prevent them. But women doctors offer some key advice that should lessen your risk.