Causes for Biliary Bile Duct Cholecystitis, Cancer, Cirrhosis, Sclerosing Cholangitis, Bile Reflux Symptoms

Your bile duct is a forked tube consisting of a cystic duct and common bile duct. These biliary ducts connect from your liver and gallbladder to your small intestine for the delivery of fat digesting bile and toxin waste removal.

FYI: Biliary refers to production and transport of bile.

A variety of health issues can cause blockage or obstruction of your bile ducts.  Gallstones being the most common.

Should your biliary duct remain obstructed, waste accumulates causing blocked bile duct symptoms like:

These symptoms may present abruptly severe or slowly.

If a gallstone stops between your gallbladder and common bile duct, cholecystitis might be your outcome. Cholecystitis is gallbladder inflammation caused by bile buildup leading to a bacterial infection.

Cholecystitis can be an acute or chronic infection, and its prominent sign is severe upper right or middle abdominal pain. This potentially excruciating symptom may display these variances:

  • dull
  • sharp
  • cramping
  • come & go
  • occur minutes after eating
  • worsen after eating fatty or greasy foods
  • migrate to your back or below right shoulder blade

These additional symptoms may mount up to cholecystitis as well:

Severe illness, alcohol abuse and gallbladder tumors (rarely) could also be your cause for cholecystitis.

Chronic cholecystitis is caused by repeated mild attacks of acute cholecystitis, which induces gallbladder wall thickening.  Eventually you may lose the ability to store and produce bile.

Chronic cholecystitis symptoms vary slightly from acute:

And consumption of fatty foods sure can exasperate these symptoms.

Cancer is a “not very common” cause of biliary blockage.  Cancers can develop anywhere along your bile duct and unfortunately they are not susceptible to early diagnosis.

Although the exact cause of most bile duct cancers is unknown, research indicates a definite connection between this form of cancer and anything causing biliary irritation and inflammation.

Jaundice is the frequent symptom for bile duct cancer.  But, gallstones are usually the root cause for yellowing. Nonetheless, immediately paying a visit to your health care provider would be prudent.

Other bile duct cancer signs and symptoms include:

Early stage cancer of the bile duct usually doesn’t cause any pain.

Primary biliary cirrhosis is a biliary destruction disease. Destroyed bile ducts allows for harmful substances to build up in your liver. Which sometimes lead to irreversible cirrhosis of the liver tissue.

Many experts consider this bile situation an autoimmune disease. With genetics and environmental factors having a hand in it.

Some with biliary cirrhosis go without symptoms, others may experience early symptoms of:

As your biliary annihilation advances, these further signs and symptoms may develop:

Also, accompanying primary biliary cirrhosis a number of serious health problems may emerge, involving liver damage, metabolic disorders or immune system disorders, the likes of:

Primary biliary cirrhosis develops slowly. And medication slowing its progression works best when started early on.

Sclerosing cholangitis is inflammation of your liver’s bile ducts.  The disease is associated with inflammatory bowel disease, namelyCrohn’s and ulcerative colitis.

Symptoms for sclerosing cholangitis are:

The disease is progressive, and ofttimes advances into biliary cirrhosis and liver failure.

Bile reflux occurs when bile flows into your stomach and esophagus from your small intestine.  Cause is the improper closing of your pyloric valve.  The result is painful gastritis.

Bile reflux and acid reflux have similar symptoms and they may occur together, causing:

Damage to the pyloric valve causing bile reflux is a complication of gastric bypass surgery for weight loss. Additional causes include:

Give your bile ducts a break via fat consumption reduction.

Associated Health Blurbs:

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