Hepatic or intrahepatic are the stones that form in the liver and consist of the same “harmless” components contained in the liquid bile. Their main ingredient is cholesterol. Most of them are just solidified bile mass –which is initially formed in the liver and contained in the bile liquids– and makes them invisible on X-rays and ultrasounds.
The difference with gallstones is that they are made up (about 20%) of minerals –mainly of bile pigments and calcium salts. Modern diagnostic tools easily detect these relatively large and hardened stones. However, the softer, non-calcified stones that form in the liver escape them… Ultrasound reveals a fatty liver (i.e. the deposition of fat in the liver cells) only when there are many stones that are mainly composed of cholesterol (95%) and block the bile duct of the liver. In this case, the ultrasound reveals a liver that looks almost white* (and not black). A fatty liver* (hepatic steatosis) can contain more than 26,000 stones before its functions are suppressed.
If you suffer from fatty liver and visit a doctor, he will tell you that your liver has “fatty structures”. However, he will most likely not tell you that you have intrahepatic stones (which block the bile duct of the liver).
As mentioned above, most of the small intrahepatic stones are not detected by ultrasound. However, a thorough ultrasound examination by specialists would reveal if the bile duct of the liver were dilated due to an obstruction (cholelithiasis – bile duct lithiasis). Some larger, older and denser stones may also be visible. But if there are no signs of severe liver disorders, doctors rarely check for intrahepatic stones…**
In essence, the medical world ostentatiously ignores the existence of liver stones and their attitude towards the event is indulgently unacceptable!**
In conclusion, the doctors do a “favor” to you… removing the gallbladder laparoscopically and without… pain –as they claim– they “pocket” the money, and for the things that will follow the cholecystectomy… they will again be happy to take it again from you!
* Almost white on ultrasound and fatty liver (liver steatosis) was also mine. I expelled more than 26,000 gallstones of various sizes in a period of 5 years!
** It is enough to observe the way doctors present cholecystectomy as a “divine gift” (this is what they have… this is what they sell) in their speeches and on their personal websites, to understand the essence of things. Just read in the Chronology the way they treated me and confronted me. Utterly, ironically, aggressively, with contempt, with arrogance and many times, without respect!
In the early hours of May 8, 2018, after a prolonged illness –the result of initially spoiled food and later in combination with exhausting work, fatigue and grief from some occupational inconsistencies of others– I visited the on-duty emergency department of ΠΑ.Γ.Ν.Η./PA.G.N.I. (University General Hospital of Heraklion).
For the first time in my hospital “wanderings”, three doctors happened to be on the ultrasound.
The oldest of them, was and proved to be… an excellent connoisseur of the subject and distinguished things that for the others were I N V I S I B L E !!!
Diagnosis:
Initially, mud and a few stones (10-12) in the gallbladder –less than 2 mm– biliary colic and acute cholecystitis.
Gallbladder removal…
However, after the objection of the oldest and most experienced doctor, the immediate proof to the other two –while directing their attention– and thorough observation, study and analysis… the diagnosis changed and became: Colic in the liver! ***
The pancreas was not diseased.
*** I asked the doctor in question if the liver makes/produces colic and he answered in the affirmative. I asked him again why the other doctors did not recognize these findings on the ultrasound and he replied that he himself, quite by accident, found out when he did his internship at the Mayo Clinic. The above incident was another confirmation for me! The liver makes/produces colic. This proves that from there begins the formation of gallstones that are deposited in the gallbladder. So, I had another proof that the doctors said the things as they wanted and as they suited them!