How quickly does gall bladder surgery work?

Factual Questions
1

Inspired by this thread and by my SO’s very recent (3 days ago) gall bladder surgery, I need to know if the benefits of the surgery are immediate or if there’s a delay before they “kick-in”. Obligatory disclaimer - I am not seeking medical advice, you are not my doctor, I am not your patient. The person in question is under a doctor’s care and we will be asking these same questions of him as soon as possible. I am simply seeking the experiences of others who have undergone similar treatment.

My wife has been having considerable digestive distress after eating for some months now. The problem does not occur after every meal and the same foods that cause it one time don’t cause it the next. To date, she has seen a number of doctors, undergone a wide range of tests, and this week had her gall bladder removed. One of the tests (HIDA scan with ejection fraction) showed that her gall bladder was not functioning properly. As this would explain most of her symptoms, her doctor ordered it removed believing this would correct the digestion issues. 72 hours post-surgery, everything is healing fine and there are apparently no complications. The only problem is that she is still having the same symptoms following eating, but not after every meal, just like before.

So here’s the question - assuming your gall bladder is causing digestion problems, will having it removed eliminate your symptoms immediately, or will the benefits not be apparent for some period of days or weeks?

2

I can tell you from a personal point of view that after my GB surgury, the effects were immediate.

Maybe this has nothing to do with anything, but if your wife has a lot of digestive type problems, and or stomache problems, consider the possibility of H Pylori.

My wife had it for years, always complaining of stomache problems before she finally got tested for it.

Maybe it has nothing to do with her ailment, but just a suggestion if you havnt thought of it.

http://www.mamashealth.com/stomach3.asp

Good Luck!

3

CrazyFoo, thanks for the tip. We have checked that possibility, as well as everything else 3 different physicians could think of. All blood tests - normal, sonogram, CT scan, gastroscope, colonoscopy, etc - all normal. The gall bladder was the very first thing that anyone has been able to point to and say “This isn’t working right and could explain your symptoms.”
So since this is GQ, not MPSIMS, I’ll ask again - has anyone had their gall bladder removed and not had the relief be immediate? Or even not had any relief at all?

4

Just for the record, my wife had her gall bladder removed, and the results were immediate after recovery from the surgery, FWIW.

5

I had mine out several years ago. It took me a while to adjust my diet accordingly, which was the only real impediment to immediate results.

6

I’m sorry, but that made me snerk. I had my gallbladder removed because it was full of gallstones in 1983. They were causing great pain. The relief from that was immediate. The recovery from the surgery was not as painful as one good attack. I do not regret having it done.

But afterward, for at least half a year, having the gallbladder gone caused digestive difficulties (read: urgent diarrhea and various gurgles). And even after that, stress, high fat foods, or a shift of diet can make life difficult.

After the surgery I swapped stories with a lot of folks who had also had theirs out. They all said that the doctors told them that their digestion would return to normal ‘in a few months’ and they all found that advice hilarious. I’ve met no one whose digestion returned to normal soon or completely.

I’ve had the most luck with: 1) never letting my stomach get completely empty, 2) avoiding really high fat foods, and 3) trying to keep the level of fat in my diet about the same from meal to meal.

A working gallbladder stores bile from the liver and then releases it when sensors in the lower stomach detect fats. Not being a doctor, my best guess is that without a working gallbladder, the bile just trickles in as the liver makes it. If there’s nothing in your digestive system for it to work on, it irritates your intestines. If there’s more fat than the trickle can digest, the fat gets digested by your intestinal flora. Neither event is a happy one.

I’ve heard rumors that, with the gallbladder gone, the tube leading between the liver and the digestive tract stretches and acts like a mini-gallbladder. I’ve never heard a cite for that, though. I think it’s just a guess based on the fact that things do generally get better over time. Personally I think it’s more likely that, over time, people adjust their eating habits to match the new system and/or the intestines get less sensitive to a wider range of bile and/or undigested fats levels. That’s definitely a guess.

Hope your wife feels better soon, Rhubarb. During my troubles I ran across a claim that oatmeal would absorb the cholesterol from bile. I’m not sure that it ever really worked, but eating oatmeal cookies used to be comforting when things were unsettled.

7

Thanks for the replies. especially Yllaria. You’ve illuminated a point that has bothered me since they decided to remove the gall bladder, i.e., if the problem is caused by the gall bladder not working (it didn’t release bile very well), then how is its removal going to fix the problem? The answer the doctor gave is that a non-functioning gall bladder is similar to having gall stones blocking it up.

What you’ve said about the digestion slowly returning to normal makes sense and seems to fit with our (limited) experiences. Frequent small meals and avoiding fatty, greasy foods appears to be helping.

I’ll mention the oatmeal thing also (She loves oatmeal!).

8

I had my gallbladder removed a few years ago because I had gallstones. Aside from the discomfort of healing from surgery, relief was immediate. However, I’m aware of two issues that can arise after surgery. As someone else pointed out, the gallbladder stores bile until it’s needed - without a gallbladder, bile is released into the gut slowly but constantly.

First, the surgeon warned me that some people experience discomfort from the constant flow of bile into the gut, but he also said that the discomfort tends to go away quickly. Apparently there are some medications that can help. I didn’t experience this, so I don’t know if it’s true or not, and I don’t know how it feels.

Second, I have found that I don’t handle high-fat meals as well as before. If I eat a lot of fat at once (say, a high-fat dinner followed by a large piece of frosted cake), I’m likely to become nauseated in a way that didn’t happen before the surgery. I feel pretty good as long as I’m careful about the fat content of meals. YMMV.

9

My experience is very similar to cwthree. I had my gall bladder removed due to stones and got immediate relief from the pain. I seem to have adjusted well, but also get to feeling a bit bad after a heavy meal. Also, digestion seems to take longer - I feel full for a longer period of time after a large meal. Considering the excrucuating pain I was enduring, I am quite happy in my current state.

One more thing, the person who invented laparoscopy should be nominated for sainthood. The descriptions of previous techniques for gall bladder removal make me shudder. I was in and out of the hospital on the same day and was up and about on the next.

10

It goes without saying that removing the source of pain brings immediate relief from that pain. As Yllaria said so well, the pain of healing from surgery is bearable compared to a really stiff gallbladder attack.

I noticed no problems at all with digestion after the surgery; in fact, it immediately got better because of the unchecked flow of bile at first. Afterward, it seems like my liver adjusted to working without its little helper by its side, and bile production evened out, so everything seemed normal.

Unfortunately for me, they told me the GB was in such bad shape they couldn’t risk a laparoscopy. I got a two-inch incision. I was in heavy sedation for about 24 hours afterward. I was able to walk a couple days later. The sutures came out in a couple of weeks. I still have “issues” in the abdominal wall there.