Dr. Esteban Kosak 
Cholecystitis is the gallbladder’s inflammation, and it most commonly occurs due to an obstruction of the outflow from the gallbladder. The latter is an organ in the belly’s upper and right side that internally locates just below the liver.
The gallbladder is a small sac-like organ below the liver of seven to ten centimeters in length and up to four centimeters in diameter. Its function is to store bile that comes directly from the liver. Importantly, the function of the bile is to promote fat digestion from food.
When people eat, and food enters the stomach and passes to the intestines. The gallbladder starts contracting to pass the bile through thin tubes. The first tube is the cystic duct, and then the second one is the common bile duct. Furthermore, it will reach the first portion of the small intestine, which is the duodenum, where bile mixes with food.
Cholecystitis means that there is swelling of the gallbladder for whatever reason. The most common one is cystic duct obstruction with stone-like elements (gallstones) coming from the gallbladder in ninety percent of the cases. On the other hand, the remaining ten percent is acalculous cholecystitis, in which there is no evidence of gallstones or obstruction from the duct.
Several risk factors put people at a higher risk of developing cholecystitis, such as female sex or obesity, among others. Still, the highest risk for people is carrying gallstones. Sadly, they are pretty common, with approximately 15% of the American population carrying gallstones. And as many as thirty percent of these people will have cholecystitis at some point in their life.
The cholecystitis symptoms are somewhat not characteristic, with abdominal pain as the predominant manifestation, which is common in numerous diseases. This situation is mostly true for cholecystitis without complications. Nevertheless, cholecystitis could prompt life-threatening complications, and it could cause other symptoms.
Treatment depends on the severity of cholecystitis and if there are complications. It could involve oral antibiotics and stay at home for later surgery or even emergency surgeries.
The tool is a Cholecystitis Symptoms Checker. It gathers the most important signs, symptoms, and risk factors for this disease.
Doctors must run several tests for diagnosing cholecystitis, such as blood-laboratory tests, imaging exams, and sometimes medical procedures (as an endoscopy). The symptoms and findings in these exams are what doctors consider for diagnosing and classifying cholecystitis and its complications. Keep in mind that after the exact diagnosis, it is possible to say which will be the patient’s treatment.
This tool gathers questions that aim to find the most important symptoms, signs, and cholecystitis risk factors. Therefore, the tool will tell anybody who uses it the likelihood of their symptoms because of this disease.
However, remember that this tool does not replace an adequate assessment by a medical doctor or all the necessary laboratory and imaging exams for the diagnosis. The tool will only talk about a likelihood because many other diseases could have similar symptoms and risk factors. Also, it may present with vague symptoms that do not suggest cholecystitis at the beginning in the older population.
Using the tool is free and would only take a few minutes. Find out if you have risk factors or your symptoms are compatible with cholecystitis.
- Question of
Are you a female?
- Yes
- No
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Are you a female older than fifty years? Or, are you a male over sixty years?
- Yes
- No
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Do you are of Scandinavian descent, Pima Indians, or Hispanic populations?
- Yes
- No
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Do you have obesity? (please search in google the “BMI formula,” and with your weight and height it will calculate you that diagnosis)
- Yes
- No
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Have you recently intentionally lost too much weight in a short period?
- Yes
- No
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Do you take estrogen replacement therapy or birth control pills?
- Yes
- No
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Do you are pregnant or have had several pregnancies?
- Yes
- No
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Do you have been diagnosed with sickle cell disease?
- Yes
- No
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Do you have been diagnosed with diabetes mellitus (high blood sugar)?
- Yes
- No
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Do you have been diagnosed with HIV or AIDS?
- Yes
- No
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Do you tend to have prolonged fasting between meals? (You eat every twelve or sixteen hours)
- Yes
- No
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Do you have long-term total parenteral nutrition? (Click yes if you have a disease that requires you to be fed through your vein)
- Yes
- No
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Do you have been diagnosed with cholelithiasis?
- Yes
- No
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Do you have been told in the past that you are a carrier of gallstones? (This mostly occurs when a doctor performs an abdominal ultrasound and find them unexpectedly)
- Yes
- No
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Do you have abdominal pain in the upper section of your abdomen that started after eating? (Typically after a fatty food)
- Yes
- No
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Is the abdominal pain just below the breastbone? Or it started below the breastbone and then moved to the right and upper portion of the abdomen?
- Yes
- No
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Does this pain felt colicky but now is a constant pain that does not go away?
- Yes
- No
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Does this abdominal pain have more than 6 hours?
- Yes
- No
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Does this abdominal pain extend to your right shoulder?
- Yes
- No
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Do you have a fever? (preferably use a thermometer which needs to shows more than 101,3 °F or touch your forehead and determine if the temperature is increased)
- Yes
- No
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Do you have nausea, and/or are you vomiting?
- Yes
- No
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Do you have yellowing of your eyes or skin? Or dark urine? Or pale/grayish bowel movements?
- Yes
- No
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Have you had in the past intense and dull abdominal pain episodes similar to the one described here (upper abdominal pain) after eating fatty meals that increase steadily for 10-20 minutes and lengths between one and five hours (never more than six)? Those abdominal pain episodes did not get better with antacids, vomiting, defecation, flatus, or putting yourself in a specific position? (Click yes only if your answer is yes to both questions)
- Yes
- No
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