Talk:Gallstone

message: "Prevention is by maintaining a healthy weight and eating a proper diet. " Please show me the consensus pick for what a "proper diet" is. Even if some particularly dietary choices may lessen the risks or continued presence of gallstones, it's likely to have other consequences. I have yet to see any statement of what a "proper diet" is for general purposes. I don't think it exists, so it doesn't belong in the article. 
"Diets that are high in fat and cholesterol and low in fiber appear to play a role." from http://www.webmd.com/digestive-disorders/features/gallbladder-diet-foods-for-gallbadder-problems#1
That seems less nebulous. 
Gripdamage (talk) 21:55, 9 February 2017 (UTC)
thread_title:  proper diet 

message: There are articles on the web (mainly medical research documents) that talk about using methyl tert-butyl ether (MTBE) or ethyl propionate to dissolve gallstones.  In those articles, the rate of dissolved stones ranges from ~60% to ~95%.  Does anyone knows about more recent studies that had results published?  Are there medical institutions that do such treatments for general public?
Kagawa Medical School MTBE - Study results published 1993/1994
IngentaConnect ethyl propionate -  Digestive Diseases and Sciences, Volume 42, Number 6, 1 June 1997   —Preceding unsigned comment added by 63.193.121.240 (talk) 01:46, 20 March 2009 (UTC)
thread_title:  Use of MTBE to dissolve gallstones 

message: How much does the Laparoscopic surgery cost in the North East of the US?  —Preceding unsigned comment added by 96.56.64.138 (talk) 18:17, 4 February 2009 (UTC)
thread_title:  Cost of Laparoscopic Procedure 

message: Gallstones are stones that form in the gallbladder and are usually one of two types: cholesterol stones or pigment stones. 
Cholesterol stones are made primarily of hardened cholesterol, yellow-green and account for about 80% of gallstones. Pigment stones are darker and made of bilirubin. 
Gallstones can vary in size from sand grain size to golf ball size. 
A common medical student memory aid for the most likely category of people to get gallstones are the four (five?) Fs: Fat, Female, Fertile, Forty, Flatulent. 
Gallstones can be asymptomatic or symptomatic. Gallstone 'attacks' often occur after a fatty meal - this is because the gallbladder responds to cholecystokinin (a hormone released by the stomach) and contracts to release bile into the duodenum to emulsify the fat in the food so it can be broken down by pancreatic lipase and absorbed. 
Gallstones can cause obstructive jaundice (if a small stone goes down and blocks the bile duct), porcelain gallbladder and gallstone ileus. 
The usual treatment for gallstones is surgical removal of the gallbladder - cholecystectomy. Laparoscopic cholecystectomy is a routine operation nowadays.
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Note:
Unsure if I can use any of this as possible information in the Gallstone entry but it is information I found lacking during my ordeal when i was searching for answers, that I now have a more complete understanding of. 
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I have had a recent ordeal with gallstones. the first few times, I woke up with pain in the middle of the night that went away only after eating a certain food or drinking milk, and lasted a few hours of intense pain. after the 3rd such attack, i had one that would not go away and went to the ER for where it was misdiagnosed as Gas, and I left in more pain than I arrived. eventually it went away, after eating a sandwich i made as soon as i got home. I had another attack and not as willingly this time went to the ER again, this time i got a decent prescription for pain pills, but still left in more pain and with no clear diagnosis. the third ER visit they performed xrays after having me drink liquids containing contrast, and ct scans, finally an ultrasound which diagnosed the gallstones. 
I later had another attack where it was also diagnosed, but the blood tests were apparently indicative of hepatitis so that was put on the release form beside gallstones. this time, i was released with instructions to go see a specialist but due to insurance problems, i never saw anyone and the pain actually lasted 2 weeks before it went away on its own. this was a couple years after the first time it occured. I thought that the stones had passed (mistakenly as they don't pass apparently), and didnt have another case for over a year. a year and a half later, on vacation, i had another case, this time hepatitis was believed because I waited 4 days before going to the hospital, apparently long enough for my bilirubin count to reach 4.9 (normal 0.0-1.0), SGPT/ALT to 668(nor 30-65), ALKP 285 (nor 50-136). even some references I found online show that far off of blood test results to be otherwise unreachable from gallstones alone. They gradually decreased over time, with the largest single decrease (and the simultaneous largest improvement in condition, lessening of pain, etc) coinciding with the ERCP which opened up my bile duct.  however the next time I had a gallstone attack, I went to the hospital immediately and the bloodtests showed normal liver function, thus pointing to the gall bladder having caused the high numbers in the previous attack. removal of the gall bladder via laparoscopic means was impossible due to the gall bladder being quite swollen, so a regular open surgery was performed.
:I'm not sure if you should be posting this on such a public forum. Your experience is quite consistent, and the abnormal lab values are simply due to cholestasis (high pressure on the bile duct causing liver dysfunction). I think the abnormal liver enzymes should have been linked to gallstones much earlier, but that's my professional opinion. Colic + abnormal LFTs = gallstones until proven otherwise. JFW | T@lk 09:03, 28 Jan 2005 (UTC)
thread_title: Gallstones

message: No mention is made of extracorporeal shock wave lithotripsy as an alternative treatment.
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Because this treatment is illogical for GALL stones.  No serious/sane physician would recommend this option.
Here's my explanation as to why lithotripsy is not recommended, but feel free to research this on your own.
As we know, ultrasonic bombardment in the context of lithotripsy seeks to fracture large stone masses into smaller ones, thereby allowing these to pass out of the body.  While this is a nice idea for kidney stones, it is a bit more interesting with gall stones since their way out of the body is a bit more involved.  See, debris from disintegrated and partially-disintegrated gallstones would likely collect in the gall bladder first and then eventually flush down the biliary tree in probably fairly decent amounts, depending on initial mass of source material, of course.  This would significantly increase the patient's risk of gall stone obstruction in the tree/ducts.  There would be no guarantee that the ultrasonic bombardment could create a debris-field fine enough to completely void the tree/ducts, and even if you could guarantee a fine grit, the resulting bile-effluence would probably become rather viscous (re : sludgy) and could effectively curtail movement of bile in similar fashion as an outright stone blockage.
In short, you're running a risk here which might be unacceptable, even though it is possible that some patients would do well with lithotripsy.  There is also some issue as to whether gall stones (cholesterol-precipitate usually) would respond in the same fashion as kidney stones in vivo.  I'm not sure if this has been tested on live patients.
More promising alternatives than hypothetical lithotripsy include in-situ dissolving of the gallstones via injection of solvent directly into the gall bladder.  Regarding this, there is (or was) at least one serious case-study in Massachusetts (since 2002) which is (or was) still ongoing.  If it pans out (and all known results look great so far), it would likely signal the end of most surgical interventions for gall bladder disease.  These interventions are big money makers for small-to-medium-sized hospitals (at least in USA).  If we were to assume a cynical bent, this study might be ongoing forever (never to be seen), simply due to politico-economic issues.  —Preceding unsigned comment added by 67.34.98.154 (talk) 06:45, 2 March 2008 (UTC)
thread_title:  extracorporeal shock wave lithotripsy 

message: It might be helpful it someone added some signs that a person may have gallstones or symptoms that would occur.
: The symptoms part contains a lot of unreferenced material. This article is related to medicine/surgery. I think it might be better to have just very less information on these matter but all of the information must be cited and refereced properly. Thanks.--Eukesh 22:20, 22 July 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  Signs/symptoms? 

message: I had my gall bladder surgically removed two years ago, and have had a lot of problems after that. My doctor says cholecystectomy has 90% chance of eliminating the recurrence of cholelithiasis, not 99% as said here. Cyborg 10:40, 30 March 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: I also had my gall bladder removed. No issues afterwards. Interestingly; my doctor did mention that gall stones can continue to be produced in a small percentage of people even without a gall bladder. In these few cases, removal of the gall bladder may not remove the symptoms since the stones are produced in the liver itself and generally caused by a liver parasite contracted by eating raw fish. I did mention my love of Sushi, and he said that was an unlikely source of the parasite since Sushi grade fish in North America is treated (flash frozen) to kill such things. Fracture98 17:23, 24 August 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Cholecystectomy 

message: Yesterday I deleted this large quantity of unsourced and poorly integrated information added to the article by an anonymous editor, but in retrospect I should have moved it here. Doing that now! -Seventh Holy Scripture 18:27, 5 November 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Unfortunately, personal accounts and anecdotes aren't reliable sources. Did the woman's doctor write a case report on her? If further medical examination proved that her gallbladder flush had been effective, I'd be quite surprised if he hadn't; this would have been an unprecedented event in the medical literature, as far as I know. -Seventh Holy Scripture 03:00, 20 April 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  Unsourced information added by 63.198.115.166 

message: <snip> - Nevermind, I found a reference.  The Mayo Clinic should count as a decent medical reference. Xaa (talk) 12:45, 26 May 2008 (UTC)
thread_title: Effects of Surgury

message: Made changes to edit by 12.158.118.18. That user added an explanation for why eating apples might help with gallstones, and referenced the article on pectin as a source to backup the claim. However, that statement appears in the pectin article without citation, and has had a "citation needed" tag since November 2008.  I left the statement here, but added the same "citation needed" tag in this article.
That user also deleted the statement in the paragraph about drinking water which stated that there was no known evidence supporting this claim. I added it back.  If there is known evidence supporting this claim, someone should provide it before removing this caveat.  
Also moved discussions on gall bladder flush, magnesium and homeopathy under this header since they are all about CAM treatments. --Transity (talk) 14:36, 30 March 2009 (UTC)
replies: text: I'm no gastroenterologist, but if gastric juice were a component of a chemical reaction forming the stones, couldn't this be explained by the body's adaptation to the fasting that precedes the gallbladder flush? (I.E., as you fast repeatedly, the stomach learns to quickly stop producing acid that won't be used in the foreseeable future.) -Seventh Holy Scripture 18:27, 5 November 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: IP address 76.76.234.229 removed a significant amount of sourced text from the section about Gallbladder Flush without any comments about why this was done. Please discuss the reasons for such a deletion here before making them. For now, I have reverted these changes, pending discussion. --Transity (talk • contribs) 16:42, 18 April 2009 (UTC)

text: I think there is strong scientific evidence that homeopathy and drinking water, save for the placebo effect, are equivalent. Fracture98 17:26, 24 August 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: There's one important difference: Water's a lot cheaper.  Bruce Tindall (talk) 22:00, 20 December 2007 (UTC)
thread_title: CAM Treatments

message: Gall bladder flush should not be reinserted without a reference and without a clear statement that it is not standard treatment and favoured by alternative practicioners. JFW | T@lk 17:29, 15 December 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: I'm no gastroenterologist, but if gastric juice were a component of a chemical reaction forming the stones, couldn't this be explained by the body's adaptation to the fasting that precedes the gallbladder flush? (I.E., as you fast repeatedly, the stomach learns to quickly stop producing acid that won't be used in the foreseeable future.) -Seventh Holy Scripture 18:27, 5 November 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: IP address 76.76.234.229 removed a significant amount of sourced text from the section about Gallbladder Flush without any comments about why this was done. Please discuss the reasons for such a deletion here before making them. For now, I have reverted these changes, pending discussion. --Transity (talk • contribs) 16:42, 18 April 2009 (UTC)
thread_title: Gall bladder flush

message: "By drinking water, you reduce your body's need to produce this bile."
In what way is this homeopathic, and why would drinking water alter the active secretion of bile? --Coroebus 19:35, 31 March 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: I think there is strong scientific evidence that homeopathy and drinking water, save for the placebo effect, are equivalent. Fracture98 17:26, 24 August 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: There's one important difference: Water's a lot cheaper.  Bruce Tindall (talk) 22:00, 20 December 2007 (UTC)
thread_title: Homeopathic options

message: Surely the sick do not take Magnesium as the article claims. Some compound of magnesium perhaps....This lack of precision renders much of the article to be of doubtful validity.--SilasW (talk) 15:54, 4 February 2009 (UTC)
thread_title: Magnesium???

message: Is it just me or is one of those pictures likely to be a fake mocked up in the shape of male genitalia? --Crgn (talk) 00:28, 23 April 2009 (UTC)
thread_title: Picture Authenticity

message: Wikipedia takes a dim view of inserting pseudo science into its articles.  I'm not at all clear why we have a whole section devoted to it in this article.  We simply don't give equal weight to crackpots or mix non-medical sources in with medical sources.  I'll wait a bit for responses before removing the entire section.  Rklawton (talk) 16:20, 10 August 2009 (UTC)
replies: text: I think the whole section should be removed.Cooke (talk) 16:43, 12 June 2012 (UTC)
replies: text: For reference, here's the content that needs more references: https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Gallstone&oldid=422340718#Alternative_medicine The RedBurn (ϕ) 10:57, 22 April 2016 (UTC)
thread_title: Alternative medicine

message: This sentence appears in the middle of the Symptoms section:
"The patient should also make sure they're drinking an appropriate amount of water relative to the number of calories being taken in http://www.bio-medicine.org/medicine-news/Drinking-adequate-amounts-of-water-1452-1/"
It has nothing to do with symptoms, and it's not clear what the "also" refers to.  Perhaps it should be moved into the Causes section?
68.236.120.95 (talk) 21:00, 17 December 2009 (UTC)
thread_title: Drinking Water

message: Cholelithogenesis is also another name for gallstones. Needs to be added as a redirect.  98.234.81.195 (talk) 02:26, 25 May 2010 (UTC)
replies: text: I have created this redirect page, as per your request. DiverDave (talk) 13:00, 7 November 2010 (UTC)
thread_title:  Other names 

message: The article states "In addition, as many as 20% of patients develop chronic diarrhea" but the accompanying reference doesnt say that. It doesnt refer to "chronic" diarrhea at all, and it says that studies vary from "1 in 100" to "1 in three". The webMD references are given but they are not online far as I can tell. How should this be handled?  —Preceding unsigned comment added by RenderSeven (talk • contribs) 03:16, 5 October 2010 (UTC)
thread_title:  Frequency of post-op chronic diarrhea 

message: In the causes category of this page there s not a single cause mentioned but rather effects of gallstones, as such this needs to be corrected and if anyone with the proper knowledge has the time they should fill in that gap in this article.  —Preceding unsigned comment added by 41.138.1.212 (talk) 16:25, 5 January 2011 (UTC)
thread_title:  Causes sub-category 

message: This article does not meet the criteria for B class, and probably not even for C class. It is incomplete in content, contains factual errors and multiple unsourced assertions. Accordingly, I have downgraded it to Start class. I will tag it for copyediting and begin cleaning it up a bit. DiverDave (talk) 16:01, 5 November 2010 (UTC)
thread_title:  Article reassessment 

message: The image is upside down (you can see the spine at the top. Can someone rotate the image? thanks.192.77.126.50 (talk) 15:40, 7 July 2016 (UTC)
thread_title:  CT scan image 

message: User:Iztwoz was correct. Why do you think it is not correct? 
Ref says "Biliary colic occurs in 1 to 4 % annually" Doc James (talk · contribs · email) 22:23, 13 May 2018 (UTC)
replies: text: What is the ultimate source for 1–4 %? The source you used, Ansaloni et al., cites four sources after that figure. The first two are from 1982 and 1989. SarahSV (talk) 23:12, 13 May 2018 (UTC)
replies: text: It does not really matter what source they cite. The source we cite is a 2016 guideline. Doc James (talk · contribs · email) 00:21, 15 May 2018 (UTC)
replies: text: It matters a great deal which sources our sources cite. That's why sources that cite their sources are preferred over those that don't. SarahSV (talk) 15:14, 15 May 2018 (UTC)
thread_title: [https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Gallstone&diff=prev&oldid=841070846&diffmode=source Each year]