The Colon Club

Anybody experience faint pain below the right rib cage that comes and goes? My mom completed six rounds of oral + IV chemo. She also had a splenectomy + ablation of liver met in July.

She's not bothered by it, says it's about 3 in 1-10 pain scale. She has a CT scan coming up, last scan her CEA was below 4. Anybody experience the same type of pain in their treatment?

I have that. It comes and goes, on both sides. My disease in confined to my liver, so when it's on the right side, I sometimes worry. But my onc prescribed an antacid, which helps. I notice it flares when I eat a lot.

Yes, I get that pain now and then. I had my liver resection over a year ago. I think it’s caused by a little inflammation in the resected area — but my LDH is high right now and I’m getting an MRI on Thursday to confirm whether I have a recurrence. However, I think that pain is pretty common when you’ve had an operation on your liver.

Thanks for the responses! After doing more research it seems it's not uncommon. She has a scan in 2 weeks to see if there's anything to worry about.

Might be worth a discussion with the docs to be sure they image / assess her gallbladder in the process, especially since she has had hepatic involvement.

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC6082629/
describes the imaging efficacy in acute gallbladder attacks and suggests Ultrasound if CT is non-diagnostic, and vice versa
BUTT ... other causes MUST be ruled out, as many issues which cause pain are not severe acute gallbladder attacks.
Biliary sludging and gallstones are two distinct but related syndromes and while all of our cancer "docs" are looking for cancer related issues ....
Just because we are cancer patients dose not mean that every pain is cancer related !
" You miss more for not looking ... than not knowing !"

PLEASE ensure the docs keep looking !!

Best wishes
CRguy

gallbladder/stones? Sounds similar to the pain my son had and it turned out to be gallstones.

Deb m wrote:gallbladder/stones? Sounds similar to the pain my son had and it turned out to be gallstones.

Thanks Deb m. She has an appointment next week.

I get the same thing, both sides, just under the short ribs. Been happening since before my latest round of chemo started. I also get some central pain (front) that sometimes is triggered immediately by drinking water or eating. Current thinking from the docs is that it's related to GERD from stress and previous treatments. I'm taking GERD medicine (PPI - proton pump inhibitor) which seems to help with the GERD but I still get twinges right and left side, under short ribs, about 4" out from the central line. Never more than pain 2 or 3.

Oncologist suggests that if it were pain from liver mets that it would be more continuous.

Interesting because that's how she describes the pain. It comes and it goes and it's very faint and random.