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 Gallstones

Gallstones
Reading Level
     edHelper's suggested reading level:   grades 5 to 7
     Flesch-Kincaid grade level:   8.17

Vocabulary
     challenging words:    bile, bowel, compounds, incision, straightforward, abdomen, excess, experimental, internal, calcium, pigment, mainly, bilirubin, blockage, fatty, indigestion
     content words:    United States, American Indians

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Gallstones
By Jennifer Kenny 		  
1     Every human being is born with a gallbladder. It is an organ that stores bile originally produced in the liver. It releases this bile, a greenish-brown fluid made of bile salts, fatty compounds, cholesterol, and other chemicals, through a duct, which carries bile, to the small intestine. There, the bile breaks down fat. Sometimes the bile becomes chemically unbalanced and, therefore, can harden into stones over the course of time. These are gallstones. They are made of deposits of cholesterol or calcium salts. Gallstones form in the gallbladder or bile ducts.
 
2     Some people have gallstones but don't know it. They have no symptoms and so they don't need treatment. They are known as silent stones. If doctors spot them but a patient isn't complaining, the doctor will usually just wait and see.
 
3     Those who do notice symptoms are usually experiencing a gallbladder attack. This really means that all of a sudden a person experiences the symptoms of gallstones. The individual might experience an intense, steady pain in the upper right or upper middle abdomen. Sometimes the pain is severe but intermittent. The episode can last fifteen minutes to many hours. Attacks can be spaced apart by weeks, months, or years. A patient may also experience chronic indigestion with nausea and gas. Sometimes vomiting occurs. Symptoms during an attack can be very similar to other medical issues such as a heart attack, appendicitis, or irritable bowel syndrome, so it is important that the right diagnosis is made.
 
4     Gallstones come in all shapes and sizes. They can be really small like grains of sand or large, about an inch in diameter, like golf balls. They can be smooth and round or not-so-smooth with edges. They can be alone or one of hundreds.
 
5     There are three kinds of gallstones. Most, around eighty percent of them in fact, are cholesterol gallstones. These are usually yellow and consist mainly of undissolved cholesterol. Then if the bile contains excess bilirubin, pigment gallstones, which are often dark brown or black, form. While their cause is unknown, people with certain medical conditions such as cirrhosis or sickle cell anemia experience them. Finally, the third kind (the most rare), are primary bile duct stones, which form in the ducts themselves.

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