What if you don't have a gall bladder?
disaberry
Posts: 34 Member
Hey everyone,
This question/s has/have been on my mind... My mom is diabetic and controls her diabetes with her excellent diet. She is 77 and going pretty strong otherwise. She can't seem to lose the weight, which there is a lot of. She has a pacemaker defibrillator and is hip to low carb. I want to encourage her to go Ketogenic, but I am sure her docs would flip out and her gall bladder was removed. Can someone even go high fat without a gall bladder? And even with a gall bladder would this be harmful eating so much fat long term? I am a week in and up to 5 tbsp coconut oil and other high fat foods, but will be going up to 9 tbsp as recommended by Bruce Fife in his Cocnut Ketogenic Diet. So I was just curious about this.
I sure hope it works... It's a bit scary... Reading tons of books...
This question/s has/have been on my mind... My mom is diabetic and controls her diabetes with her excellent diet. She is 77 and going pretty strong otherwise. She can't seem to lose the weight, which there is a lot of. She has a pacemaker defibrillator and is hip to low carb. I want to encourage her to go Ketogenic, but I am sure her docs would flip out and her gall bladder was removed. Can someone even go high fat without a gall bladder? And even with a gall bladder would this be harmful eating so much fat long term? I am a week in and up to 5 tbsp coconut oil and other high fat foods, but will be going up to 9 tbsp as recommended by Bruce Fife in his Cocnut Ketogenic Diet. So I was just curious about this.
I sure hope it works... It's a bit scary... Reading tons of books...
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Replies
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Interesting question...my husband is likely getting his gall bladder out soon, so I'm also curious to hear the answer.0
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There was another post about this recently. Let me see if I can find and bump it for you. We have some members here who are gall bladder-less.0
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Thanks!!!0
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The gallbladder is basically just a storage place for the bile acids, it's your liver that makes the acids necessary to break down fats. So, in short, you're fine going high fat without a gallbladder. There are actually several people on here that have done it. The roughest part is shortly after the surgery and possibly the initial transition if you've been low fat for some time.
And no, LCHF doesn't cause gallbladder issues. It can, however, uncover existing issues. This is because the liver makes bile acids in preparation for fat in a meal, but if you eat low fat all the time, that bile never gets released. As a result, it sits and stagnates and forms crystals (gallstones, in the cases where diet is the cause of them). Since they're just sitting in the gallbladder, they don't cause any problems, but when you increase your fats, you start needing that bile and it starts moving. But the ducts between the gallbladder and stomach are smaller than the gallbladder, and the crystals cause problems. It's kind of like a car that's been sitting for years and the gas and oil stagnate and get sludgy and the car doesn't run as well until the sludge is cleared out and replaced with fresh gas and oil.0 -
I had my gallbladder out two years ago. I'm doing fine LCHF-keto.
Losing a lot of weight, no matter what diet, can cause gallstones. That is not the reason I had mine out, but when I was considering surgery, that was one thing the doctor brought up.0 -
So I asked my husband about this. He's actually going for an ultrasound today to see if his gall bladder is really dead like they suspect. He told me that he's actually been fine since going on this diet, whereas before he's been having pretty bad pain flare ups regularly. He also said his doctor told him the liver would compensate, so not to be worried about taking it out.0
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I had my gall bladder out 24 years ago and would have "phantom attacks" 3-4 times a year while eating SAD. I'm over 8 months into Keto and haven't had any trouble at all. My IBS symptoms are a thing of the past as well. I used to have to watch and get a lot of fiber to control it before. Now I average 7-9g fiber a day and no symptoms at all.
Everything I was ever told I HAD to do to stay healthy seems to have been wrong.
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Gallbladder removed in 2012, began keto in Jan. 2015. Haven't had any problems with the high fat!0
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lukesydaisy wrote: »So I asked my husband about this. He's actually going for an ultrasound today to see if his gall bladder is really dead like they suspect. He told me that he's actually been fine since going on this diet, whereas before he's been having pretty bad pain flare ups regularly. He also said his doctor told him the liver would compensate, so not to be worried about taking it out.
Interesting! That's great his flare ups have eased up. (I forget; when did he start?)
Let me know how the u/s goes!0 -
Hard to say; he's been eating quite low carb for a while now, but started adding in the fats a little over a week ago, I guess.0
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Dragonwolf wrote: »The gallbladder is basically just a storage place for the bile acids, it's your liver that makes the acids necessary to break down fats. So, in short, you're fine going high fat without a gallbladder. There are actually several people on here that have done it. The roughest part is shortly after the surgery and possibly the initial transition if you've been low fat for some time.
And no, LCHF doesn't cause gallbladder issues. It can, however, uncover existing issues. This is because the liver makes bile acids in preparation for fat in a meal, but if you eat low fat all the time, that bile never gets released. As a result, it sits and stagnates and forms crystals (gallstones, in the cases where diet is the cause of them). Since they're just sitting in the gallbladder, they don't cause any problems, but when you increase your fats, you start needing that bile and it starts moving. But the ducts between the gallbladder and stomach are smaller than the gallbladder, and the crystals cause problems. It's kind of like a car that's been sitting for years and the gas and oil stagnate and get sludgy and the car doesn't run as well until the sludge is cleared out and replaced with fresh gas and oil.
Thanks so much @Dragonwolf and everyone who answered. I appreciated the scientific facts you presented and the analogy is perfect. Calling mom now and I am ready.
Also good luck to your husband @lukesydaisy . Who knows maybe eating this way revived his gallbladder. That would be great!0
