Gall Bladder Issues?

Lisapayne76

I had my gb removed several years ago after suffering through several attacks over three pregnancies. Of course fatty foods set it off but something else I noticed is sweets set it off and even now if I eat too many sweets I have what th er says is phantom pains.

IHAVEPMS247

Did your doctor order a CT scan to see if you have gallstones? If you have pain, especially after a fatty meal, it is very likely you have gallstones. I had mine removed. I ended up going to the ER after eating some blooming onion from a restaurant, thought I was going to die. Hurt real bad with each breath I took. My CT scan showed my stone was as large as a mans thumb. I had the gallbladder removed without complications. Best of luck to you and hope you figure out what is truely wrong with you!

MumOfADuo

Does anyone or has anyone else experienced gall bladder issues? I went to the doctor today and he said everything looked fine except when he was palpating my stomach, my gall bladder was tender. I have no other symptoms. I was just wondering what changes other people made and what helped when they found out theirs was acting up? I know eating fatty greasy foods is a no-no, but is there anything else? Obviously I'm already on here because I want to lose weight and this will be one more motivator.

In October I woke up from a dead sleep in EXCRUCIATING pain...thought I was dying....thought maybe heart attack or indigestion....finally about 3 hours of horrific pain posted some random remark on fb about being woken up from a dead sleep blah blah blah...several people told me to get my gallbladder checked...ended up in emergency room an hour later, ruled out heart and indigestion, had ultra-sound, had blocked bile duct from large stone. a day later had surgery to remove it. Never had problem since Ü Once you get stones you cant 'get rid' of them. Mine were marble sized as opposed to lentil sized. The pain from mine was because one had traveled into my duct cauging a blockage...you dont want to mess with them.....eliminating the fatty stuff will help for future...and plenty of water helps too.....

softwind

I had a couple small flare ups, but nothing constant. My dr was treating me for reflux. Oddly it was things with seeds that set mine off, watermelon, cucumber, etc. Not fatty or greasy foods. One night I woke up with chest pains (on my right side), diarrhea, vomiting etc... I thought I had food poisoning. After about 6 hours, I woke husband up to go to ER. Turns out I had gallstones and they had lodged themselves in the duct and nothing could get through. I had surgery the next day and have been fine since.
It can go from something small to something big real quick, so keep up with it and your dr.
Best of luck to you!!

DebbieLyn63

I was around 37 when one night I woke up with severe vomiting and pains that felt just like labor pains. By morning, they were so strong I couldn't talk thru them. Hubby took me to the ER and they did a sono but found no stones. Dr was still certain it was my gallbladder so they sent me for a HIDA scan. Turns out my gallbladder was contracting backwards and forcing the bile backwards instead of out. They took it out and I have had no problems at all for the past 12 yrs now.

nashsheri33

1. stay away from high-fat foods and spicy foods.

2. drink plenty of water.

3. definitely get an ultrasound.

4. i think this is one of those surgeries that is better when it is planned ahead of time.

my dr. told me if my g.b. didn't come out, it could get horribly infected and then it would be MAJOR surgery, with a large incision and a long hospital stay, and therefore much more dangerous and painful than planning ahead, which would require the small (one inch) incisions and the use of scopes in an outpatient situation, and a tremendously easy recovery. so that's what we did, and i have never been sorry. one less thing to worry about, and no more pain!

softwind

Wow Mum, it sounds like we have the same story.

nailtechbec

A few weeks after having my son I suddenly had an excruciating pain and ended up in a and e where I threw up a lot ! They diagnosed gall stones, I had a scan a few days later where they confirmed it, haven't had any pain since and the hospital check me every six months, they're still there but I don't suffer any effects but I've been told I will eventually and that when that occurs I'll have to have my gall bladder removed.

Evachiquita

My story is very similar to many on here but I have a slightly different perspective about it now. In 2005 I had my gallbladder taken out (I was 21!!!). A year before I had it taken out I woke up in the middle of the night with excruciating pain and I seriously thought I was dying. I vomited, felt a little better and was able to get back to sleep somehow. The next day my gallbladder area was very sore and tender. I saw the doctor and she diagnosed me with heart burn, and gave me an rx for zantac. She thought it was stress related (I was in college and very stressed out all the time), possibly diet related (I was overweight, about 220 pounds or something like that). I was fine for the next year. I lost a lot of weight, down to 190. Then I started having symptoms again but I thought it was the flu. A really bad case of the flu. After a few days of not eating and looking like death I finally went to the health center at my college. I had jaundice (yellow skin and eyes) and all my digestive enzymes were totally out of whack. They said I should go to the hospital immediately. So I did and within a few hours of being there they told me I needed an emergency gallbladder removal. What?! That sounded crazy to me! It was only after this happened that I realized the incident the prior year was probably the passing of a gallstone but there is no way to know for sure. They don't know why I had stones or that mysterious sludge. Maybe it was the weight loss, maybe it was my crappy diet. My sister, cousin, and grandmother have all had theirs taken out, so maybe genetic? They are all also over weight and don't have a great diet.

I swear I have never been the same without my gallbladder. I know that it only stores products that are made by the liver but I don't feel the same. I have a pretty low fat, whole food diet and I have adjusted to it. I just don't like that the solution is to take the thing out. I would try diet, herbs, and other things to see if you can get it taken care of without surgery. I have found resources online that are based on Auyrvedic or Chinese medicine and I would try those first. But that is just me. If the choice is life or death, or extreme discomfort all the time, then yes get rid of it. The surgery itself was not that bad. Laproscopic for me, quick recovery time, not too much pain and discomfort. I did feel some tightness in that area for a while and it did take a while for me to get fully back to normal.

MBNagel74

I went through a good year of being sick and having pain that could not be diagnosed. I had test after test - and they couldn't figure it out. They treated the pain and symptoms without figuring it out. I even had a colonoscopy (sp?) at one point to be sure that nothing was going on there. (Birth father died of colon cancer, so it didn't hurt to get looked at.)

It got so bad, that I couldn't eat anything without throwing up. And, I was sticking to bland foods like you would when you have the stomach flu. Didn't matter. What went in almost immediately came back out. And the pain became unbearable... That's when they looked more closely at it. Although I had been in the ER a few times prior, they seemed to look more closely this time at it, and after another long round of tests, they diagnosed it as the gallbladder, and I went in for immediate surgery. Turned out I was septic. (The grey skin tone should have been a good indicator something was wrong...)

Now that I don't have the gallbladder, I watch what I eat more closely. Greasy foods are THE WORST, and my body tells me if something was cooked in too much oil almost immediately. (I haven't had fried chicken in well over 4 years now!)

Everyone - and every body - is different... If you suspect your gallbladder, PUSH for that ultrasound. I was told after they diagnosed me that the gallbladder is one of the hardest to diagnose, mostly because it presents itself so differently in everyone.

jennmodugno

I had mine taken out last summer. An ultrasound will tell them if it needs removing, and then laproscopic surgery (did I spell that right?) is minimally invasive and I was back at my karate class a week later. I can't eat Peanut Butter, but that's a minor inconvenience compared to the pain. Some people can't eat fatty foods without being sick, but if that happens there's a powder they give you to sprinkle on your food to make it better. Overall, worth it! The scars are small, also. Not the huge things people got not so long ago!

SanteMulberry

I never had gall bladder problems then one day i was having a problem breathing and it last about 10 minutes with a pain in between my shoulderblades and the chest and it felt like i was in a vice being squished. They started happening once a month and sometimes they would last for 10 minutes longest was 4 hours is was horrible horrible pain. Found out it was my gall bladder and 3 months later they took it out and i have felt great ever since. Hope you figure it out. I know my grandpa has gall stones but he never has any attacks so they haven't done anything with his.

This explains mine perfectly. It was difficult to breathe, had pain in my chest and it radiated to my shoulder blades. The night I was diagnosed, I woke up around 1 AM thinking I was having a heart attack. My husband was working 1,500 miles away and I had to call my sister and her hubby to come watch my 1 year old and have them take me to the ER. I seriously thought I was going to die. Took 3 morphine injections to alleviate the pain.

Many women have their first attack after they have a baby. It is because the fetus pushes up on the gall bladder as it grows and produces stasis of bile in the gall bladder, which then will often form a stone in the fundus of the gall bladder. After delivery, an especially fatty meal can cause the gall bladder to empty quickly and then the stone gets flushed into the bile duct. Often it will pass, if it isn't too big, and the victim is none the wiser. But, if it gets stuck---the victim will be in a world of hurt until the stone is extracted through endoscopy--and then once the victim is feeling better, following with a cholecystectomy. But just as often, a surgeon will just elect to handle it in one fell swoop---especially if he feels there has been damage to the bile duct that must be repaired.

Fat_Jimi

last time I was light I droped 25kg in arround 8 months

I went to a family function and there was A LOT of nanna food there and as I had been living on an extreamly low fat diet at the time, I went to bed with what felt like some one clamping my chest like a vice

as a typcal male, I said nothing

then at 3 am I said to my wife um I think you might want to take me to the hospital, I'm in agany and its getting worse blah blah blah

I got to the hospital and they didnt know what was going on, I got transferd to a hospital with a better cardio section they did an angiogram and found out I was strong as a horse did some more investigating and goung my gall bladder was full of stones

2 weeks later it was gone and ive been fine in that regards ever since