how "far away" can gastritis/duodenitis discomfort be felt?
Long background story, but I'll try to sum it up--had acute pancreatitis a little over a year ago, but since I don't drink and the gallbladder appeared perfectly normal on various ultrasounds, CT scans, MRIs, and HIDA scans, they think it was due to high triglycerides. I haven't felt well since then--mostly. There's been days where I feel almost totally normal, but the vast majority of days I feel tired, generally unwell, I can't gain back any of the 40 pounds I lost during the pancreatitis, my ALT and AST liver enzymes have been mildly elevated for months (with brief periods where they go back to normal), and have had visible abdominal bloating for a year now.
I've also had a burning/discomfort/tightness sort of feeling in the area just to the right of my sternum. It varies though--sometimes I also feel it all along the bottom of my right rib cage. Sometimes I feel it higher on the right side, almost below the nipple area. This discomfort has been going on for a year. It's not sharp pain.
I had an endoscopy in August that said I have "mild chronic inactive gastritis" and "peptic duodenitis".
So I guess my main question is--what is making me continue to feel this way? Is it the peptic duodenitis and perhaps even the "inactive" gastritis, or is it possible there's some kind of problem with my gallbladder that isn't showing up on scans? I would've thought gastritis/duodenitis would have a pretty limited scope of "feeling where the burning discomfort is"--but, is it possible for that to be felt "way over to the right" where the gallbladder would be?
Posted Dec 1, 2025, 8:11 PM UTC