Abdominal pain, fever, suspected bile duct stones when eating greasy food...Too much dieting is also the cause
Mar 03, 2025
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Gallstones are lumps in which bile clumps and solidifies as hard as stone, and the main cause of occurrence is known to be the change in the proportion of the components that make up the bile. Gallstones occur mainly in the gallbladder where bile is stored, and then move to the gallbladder duct and common bile duct where bile flows, causing problems. The common bile duct is a duct where the intrahepatic bile duct and the gallbladder duct from the gallbladder join, and is connected to the duodenum.
Gallstones do not necessarily cause symptoms. 80% of patients with gallstones live without any special problems. However, in the remaining 20%, gallstones block the gallbladder duct or common bile duct, causing pain or serious complications.
In recent years, the number of patients with bile duct stones caused by gallstones blocking the common bile duct has been steadily increasing. According to statistics from the Health Insurance Review and Assessment Service, the number of patients with bile duct stones increased nearly 70% over 10 years from 35,458 in 2014 to 60,246 in 2023. By age, those aged 80 or older accounted for 28%, those in their 70s accounted for 27%, and those in their 60s accounted for 21%, accounting for 76% of all patients in their 60s or older.
Professor Lee Kyung-ju of the Department of Gastroenterology at Dongtan Sacred Heart Hospital of Hallym University said, `The number of patients with bile duct stones has recently increased due to aging and western eating habits"Excessive diets, such as rapid weight loss, can also cause increased bile duct stones, because long-term stagnation of bile can cause gallstones."
◇It is not easy to distinguish from bile duct stones and normal abdominal pain…If left unattended, it threatens your life
Bile duct stones have similar symptoms to general abdominal pain, making it difficult to diagnose early. The three major symptoms of bile duct stones are abdominal pain, fever, and jaundice.
Bile contains enzymes that break down fat and is secreted after meals, and bile secretion increases when foods high in fat are consumed. At this time, if gallstones block the gallbladder duct or common bile duct, digestion becomes difficult, and if the gallbladder duct is blocked, acute cholecystitis may lead to acute cholangitis if the common bile duct is blocked. For this reason, if you experience pain in your solar plexus after eating fatty foods with a toxic fat content, you may suspect bile duct stones.
In addition, in the case of bile duct stones, if bile is not discharged, bilirubin pigments in the bile accumulate excessively in the body, causing jaundice that causes the face to yellow. Jaundice can also occur when cancer blocks the bile duct, but cancer does not show high fever in the early stages because our bodies adapt to it and expand the bile duct size or inflammation is slow.
On the other hand, bile duct stones can be accompanied by high fever initially due to sudden bile duct obstruction.
If bile duct stones are not initially detected and acute cholangitis progresses, blood pressure decreases and symptoms of consciousness confusion may appear. If two symptoms occur, the patient should be considered to be in a 'dangerous condition', and in severe cases, sepsis can be dangerous to life. In this case, since it is impossible to remove gallstones until the patient's condition improves, percutaneous biliary drainage is performed first to discharge bile from the outside of the skin by inserting a drainage tube from outside the skin.
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Ultrasound endoscopy is useful for the diagnosis of bile duct stones. Since the bile duct is difficult to see with the eyes, an endoscope with an ultrasound device is inserted into the duodenum and the presence and location of gallstones are checked through ultrasound. Abdominal ultrasound is useful for gallbladder examination, but there is a limit to bile duct examination. Abdominal CT can also identify pigmented gallstones, but there are restrictions on the diagnosis of cholesterol gallstones.
When bile duct stones are observed by ultrasound endoscopy, the bile duct stones are removed through endoscopic retrograde cholangiopancreatography (hereinafter referred to as ERCP).
ERCP is a procedure using special endoscopy and radiation, and the endoscope is inserted to the duodenum, the tube is placed in the bile duct through the papilla of the duodenum, and contrast agents are injected to confirm the exact location of the gallstones. After that, along the pre-installed guide line, put a basket or balloon instrument into the bile duct to remove gallstones. Even after removing the bile duct stones with ERCP, cholecystectomy is required to remove the gallbladder stones to prevent recurrence.
Although ERCP can remove bile duct stones through endoscopic procedures without surgical treatment such as laparotomy, side effects and complications can rarely occur due to high procedural difficulty and invasive treatment. In particular, the duodenal papilla is very narrow, so there is a risk of bleeding or perforation in the process of incising the papillary sphincter to remove stones. The most common procedure-related complication is pancreatitis, and most of them are mild or severe pancreatitis can occur. Nevertheless, ERCP has the greater advantage of being able to remove bile duct stones only with a procedure without surgery and relatively rapid treatment.
Professor Lee Kyung-ju said, `There are patients with bile duct stones who think that if they drink a lot of water due to confusion with urinary stones in the ureter, gallstones naturally fall out or can be treated with extracorporeal shock waves"Bile duct stones are rarely naturally cured and can cause serious complications if left unattended, so be sure to get proper treatment even if you have no symptoms, and if you have similar symptoms, you should get treatment at a nearby hospital as soon as possible."
Professor Lee also said, `To prevent gallstones, avoid eating fatty foods or overeating, eat enough vegetables and fruits, and do not become obese with moderate exercise"In addition, fasting for too long or losing weight rapidly can cause cholelithiasis, so you should gradually lose weight and have a regular eating habit" he advised.
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This article was translated by Naver AI translator.
