I can tell you this much, from my own gallbladder surgery.
After it’s over, and you can start eating again, first thing they’ll give you is a cup of Jell-O
You will never taste anything as good as that cup of Jell-O. Regardless of how you feel about Jell-O normally, that one cup will be fucking amazing.
He will be, by about eleven ounces, I think.
Did you mean to use rollyeyes in your post, or did you mean this one: 
The :rolleyes: made the comment seem less than light…
My husband hates eggs with a burning passion, but after his gall bladder surgery (and after three days of no food at all) he devoured an egg salad sandwich that they brought him as his first solid meal. 
I hope it’s all over and you are recovering. I had my GB out in 2008 and never missed it.
Get it done. I don’t know which hurt worse, my kidney stone or my gall stone. I did NOT want a second round of that.
I’m glad you decided to have it out. It’s what I would have decided too.
I had a gallbladder attack…no stones found. Then another one. Then another one. It took a year, with several attacks, before the stones were large enough to actually be visible on ultrasound. I have no idea why it happened that way, maybe I have tiny ducts? Anyway, I was so glad when I had the damn thing out.
My Mom had a hysterectomy in the 1980’s, and she STILL raves about that post-op jello!
I hope you’re doing well, Sea Dragon Tattoo!
I know three blood relatives, including one parent who have had their gallbladders removed and all of them have suffered chronic diarrhea since. Eating greasy or fatty foods is an almost guarantee for sometimes public accidents for them.
In all three cases medical doctors and surgeons promised them they would never even notice their gallbladder had been removed.
So at least in my own case I would weigh the decision heavily.
In general peoples bodies will compensate for the lack of a gallbladder, the main bile duct expands a bit.
If people continue to have issues they can look into things like bile salt pills they can take when eating fatty foods to help with digestion and avoid the explosive diarrhea associated with the lack of a gallbladder.
For myself my gallbladder was effectively useless due to a gallstone taking it up almost entirely so I noticed no difference from before I had it removed. Eating fried food has always lead to me needing to go to the bathroom but it’s never been a serious issue.
It’s done! The actual Laproscopic sx went just fine. Problem was getting the ET tube in me. Apparently I have an unusual and small airway. Three anesthesiologists and two hours later, they had *to wake me up and trach me awake! *My throat is so sore. I’m on clear fluids for now, so ice water and apple juice. Going to get some sleep now.
Thanks everyone for your input and encouragement! Oh, and my surgeon said he found evidence of previous attacks, so I was having them with mild symptoms and didn’t know it.
Congratulations, and good wishes for a speedy recovery!
I notice that a few people in this thread seem to indicate that life without your gallbladder is just like life with it (once you recover from the surgery). But I’ve heard about some somewhat unpleasant digestion problems that can occur if you are sans gallbladder.
I’m curious about this because I’ve been considering having mine removed. About a year ago, after experiencing several really bad abdominal pain episodes, I consulted my doctor, he ordered an ultrasound and blood tests, and then diagnosed it as a blocked bile duct (blocked by gallstone(s)).
He said the only way to take care of it was to have the gallbladder taken out. But, he also said that it was elective surgery–all up to me. I asked what the downside was and he said the only real issue after removal was digesting fats. He said if I ate very much fat I might find myself needing to defecate like, NOW! (the urge comes on very quickly).
This (and the fact that the super-painful episodes are usually months apart) has kept me from undergoing the surgery. But then I read the comments here and you all make it sound easy-peasy (again, AFTER recovering from the surgery).
Does it vary that much between different people? Have you gallbladder-less Dopers just stopped eating any fatty food? What gives???
??
ETA: I wrote this before reading grude’s post. Yup. THAT is what I’m worried about.
I eat fatty foods all the time and just don’t notice any ill effects. no idea how common this is!
Back in 1995 I had an ovarian tumor removed - I spent Sunday fasting for doing some sort of barium enema thingy Monday afternoon, fasted Monday evening and night because surgery was to be Tuesday morning, got bumped because the doc had some sort of emergency surgery with a patient who had a car accident and went into labor. Fasted Tuesday because I was rescheduled for Wednesday which finally got bumped to Thursday morning. This was the time I discovered that Sunday’s liquiprep was still working Wednesday … I had mrAru bring me the largest ice tea and a 20 piece Mcnuggets … and inhaled them in front of the nurse assigned to watch me and whomever was on the other side of the curtain from my bed in recovery. I totally ignored the ginger ale and jello … though mrAru says the nice thing about ginger ale and fruit salad it is effectively the same going up as going down post op…
For me, the problems after the operation lasted a month or two. After that, though, no problems at all, and it’s been 25 years or so. Fatty foods don’t bother me, really, nothing does.
So I would say that different people have different results.
Yes, different people have very different results, digestion-wise. For me, it went like this. For several months, I’d have a sudden need to head for the bathroom in a hurry something like 15 minutes after I started eating. There was never an accident, I just learned to make sure I had a table near the restroom if I went out to eat.
For a couple of years, I had to be careful eating fatty foods. But I was already used to being aware of where the nearest public restroom was, because I had three small children. After that, for many years, things would be steady as long as I kept about the same amount of fat in each meal. No sudden loads and no skipping meals.
Then somewhere, maybe ten years after the surgery, things adjusted completely. Now if I think about fat, I’m thinking about my weight or my cholesterol level.
Oh, your bile duct doesn’t have to be blocked in order for gallstones to cause you pain. The liver creates bile and sends it to the gall bladder. The gall bladder holds it until it gets a signal from your duodenum that there’s fat about to go into your intestines. Then the gall bladder squeezes down, squirting a dose of bile through the bile duct, into the duodenum.
If it squeezes down on a bunch of stones, you feel pain. But there’s usually no pain when the gall bladder isn’t squeezing. (Although once it’s irritated, it can keep squeezing for awhile.) If a stone gets into the duct, you get a constant pain that will only let up if the stone passes through. Both are painful and usually neither one is dangerous. But if a stone gets into the common duct that the gall bladder shares with the pancreas, things can get bad fast.
The pancreas is a delicate and vengeful little organ. Do not mess with the pancreas. If you get what feels like a very, very bad gall bladder attack, get it checked out asap. Go to the emergency room if you have to. There’s a blood test that can indicate if the pancreas has gotten inflamed or infected. Do not try to wait it out thinking it’s just a bigger attack than normal. It’s not worth the risk.
(voice of recent experience here) Hot liquids will be more soothing than cold ones. The nurses will bring you hot water if you ask.
Even after a laparoscopic procedure, make sure you take it easy for about a week afterwards. You might feel back to normal and think you can do everything, but listen to the voice of experience - surgery is hard on your body, and you need to dial it down afterwards. 