Yup, that was a pretty awesome post.
To viva, hope you recover well!
I posted a thread and other posts here about what we just went through with my husband’s gall bladder - he had a stone about the size of a black olive in his gall bladder (his surgeon said it was the biggest he had ever seen! Overachiever.) He had to have the more serious surgery, we figure because of the size of the stone. If we had known that getting it out while the stone was still small would have possibly been laparoscopic, and waiting until it was a crisis meant a more difficult surgery and much longer recovery time, I think Jim would have opted to have it out four years ago.
My point is basically, if you have stones, your gall bladder has pretty much quit working already, so have it out now and make it easier on yourself.
Hmmmmm, it never occurred to me to blame the gallbladder for the excess poundage… But, no I don’t think the surgery made any difference. I’ve got a lifetime of bad habits that built up my butt.
This is the incision. If Jim had been able to have the laparoscopy, imagine just four little holes around the perimeter of the triangle the cuts make, instead of having that large one on one side.
I’d also recommend getting it out sooner rather than later. I kept ending up in the ER hooked up to IV Dilaudid after many an excruciating evening. If you start passing stones, it hurts. It made me cry and I never cry.
I ate a pretty lowfat diet and still had them. I’d never know what was going to set it off, it was like having a timebomb inside.
I had the laparyscopic surgery in November and it was really not bad at all. I had it on a Monday and went to work on Friday (granted, I sit for a living). The scars are almost gone. I gained a little weight (like 5 lbs.) but I think it was from not being able to exercise much when I was recovering (no sit ups for a while). I’m very glad not to have to worry about being in that much pain.
Don’t let that incision in featherlou’s pic scare you. The vast majority of gallbladders are taken out laparoscopically nowadays, so you’ll probably end up with the tiny incisions that can be covered with a bandaid.
But as she notes, the longer you wait to get it done, the more likely it is you’ll end up with the big scar, since repeated attacks of inflammation from the gallstones will tend to produce scar tissue that makes it hard for the surgeon to do laparoscopy (and just in general make the surgery harder!).
Yeah, sorry, don’t mean to scare anyone, since most gallbladder surgeries are laparoscopies. It was more of a cautionary tale - “Don’t let THIS happen to you!” If you ignore gallstones, they most assuredly won’t go away.
Okay, then; I will be calling the surgeon next week for an appointment. I’m sure he’s already got some things booked, but I would like to do it this spring or very early summer at the latest.
One more thing: my brother and his wife sent me a totally disgusting-sounding “liver and gallbladder flush” instruction sheet which involves the ingesting of Epsom salts, olive oil and grapefruit. Gaaaaahh! It made me sick just to read it. I can’t believe my brother actually did it. And I’m not convinced that what comes out is actually gallstones.
Epsom salts and a big quantity of oil? That’s a classic recipe for the double-whammy laxative. What comes out is poo, dear. 
Your body doesn’t have a workable way to flush out the pieces of grit that are stuck in your gall bladder, no matter what the chemical impetus. If it could, it would, similar to the way your body does have other self-cleansing processes, such as blinking and coughing, and you wouldn’t be having attacks of biliary colic.
And they’ll be coming over here on Easter and asking me if I’ve tried the concoction yet.
Yeah, right. As if.
Just tell them that absolutely, yes you did try it and it was delicious, but you didn’t notice any appreciable effects. Then bite the butt off a chocolate bunny 
.
That’s a good one! 
Good gravy, all I ever took for my gallstones was wine coolers.
Mine was laproscopic and almost 11 years ago. IIRC the recovery was about 3 days of yuck, couple more kind of yuck, and a few weeks of hmmm, these snug pants used to fit. I remember not being able to eat cheese coneys without ill effects for a while. In recent years, though, it hasn’t been a problem.
The relief from pain - ahhh! That part rocked! Good luck!!