Fatty foods and dandelion tea as a cause?
Hello, my story:
I had a history of heavy drinking which I was under the impression had impacted my gallbladder. I used to get a physical pain on my side underneath my right rig cage. I still have it actually, it feels like if I dig underneath my rib cage I can feel this ball type long piece that physically hurts to the touch. So because of that I thought gallbladder because I also difficulty digesting fats, specifically steak would sit in my stomach for hours like 7+ hours sometimes. I would also get a lot of loose stools (thankfully no blood). When this first started happening, I went to many doctors, did a colonoscopy, ultrasound, CT scan, MRI, blood / fecal tests. All good no issues. The only thing they noted was a B12 deficiency. This was about 8 years ago, more or less the same issues with varying degrees.
About 8 months ago, I got my first gastritis symptoms. Just felt like everything I ate hurt my stomach, no appetite, and a ton of burning during the day and especially at night. I remember specifically what triggered it it was a Steak Frites lol. Told my PCP about it, he gave me a PPI and see if it improved. It sorta did? Definitely less pain but also just wasnt very hungry in general. When I finally got off the PPI got a ton of rebound acid and I kinda would go back and forth where some weeks I'd be fine other weeks I'd have some burning of varying degrees. What became clear to me though was that fatty foods (and alcohol but I mostly abstain) were the main cause, I even experimented with tomato sauce, spicy food and other common irritants. None of them caused issues it was specifically fatty foods. The pattern was, eat fatty foods, it sits in my stomach for hours, when it starts to finally leave my stomach and I start to get hungry again bam burning begins! This led me to conclude that it was my gallbladder simply releasing bile at the wrong time. One other thing though, I was also regularly drinking dandelion tea. I drank this because I thought it was good for my gallbladder / liver and I do believe it still is but I was specifically drinking at night, probably a couple of hours before bed and what i would notice is that some nights I would get the burning again.
Finally 2 months ago I finally got the endoscopy. The findings were minimal, nothing serious just mild chronic gastritis. The gastroenterologist rattled off the usual causes smoking (no) alcohol (no) NSAID use (no) and H. pylori (no) which again leads me to believe gallbladder but its simply not THAT bad, either secreting bile when it shouldn't(hours after food has left stomach) or not secreting when it is (stomach is empty).
At one point I discussed HIDA with my gastro, he said we could do it but since my symptoms are somewhat minimal (besides the bad gastritis 8 months ago) even if I had a low ejection rate a surgeon likely wouldn't want to just my gallbladder out anyway.
I wanted to know if anyone has a similar experience? In a way I don't want to just get rid of my gallbladder but also wondering if at some point I'll be forced to. Also browsing this sub I feel grateful my symptoms are mostly manageable with diet. Keep fighting for a solution yall 🙏 I remember at my worst, it was pretty bad.