So my Doctor now thinks that I have Gall Bladder problems. He wants to yank it out. We are doing test to decide if he is correct.
What did you go through? Have you had yours out? Has life changed for you since it was removed?
Ugh, the first I knew of anything wrong, I thought I was having a heart attack. Turns out I had gall stones lodged in my bile duct. I turned a bright yellow in the three days it took to fully diagnose it, so they made me wean my then eight-month-old baby, just in case it was hepatitis.
I had my gall bladder removed laparoscopically, and it put me out of the action for a couple of days, longer than any other laparascopic procedure I’ve had since. It hasn’t affected me at all since then. I don’t have any problems without it, and it’s been ten years.
When my sister’s gall bladder was messed up, she was in agony. She had stomach cramps and vomitting. It was removed laproscopically, and she’s fine now.
-Lil
I had a gall bladder full of stones, agonizing attacks lasted from 2 - 5 hours and I was too stubborn to get it treated ASAP. So, when my son was 3 months old, I went in for outpatient laporoscopy and ended up in the hospital for five days with the big cut. It was too big to come out through the little holes.
My gall bladder has a lot of small crud floating around, but that isn’t bothering anything. Once though, a larger stone apparently lodged in the duct, and the pain was horrible.
So, I went to ultrasound to have the thing imaged. Apparently it was hard to focus on; I was tipped at numerous angles and the tech tried pressing the sound thingie at different points. Finally, she got a decent picture.
And, apparently, all the manipulation massaged the stone back out of the duct and back into the bladder. The pain gradually eased throughout the next couple of days, then vanished.
I chickened out of surgery at that point. The same thing might happen in another year, or ten, or twenty. If it does, I’ll recognize the symptoms and talk to a surgeon.
I had mine out. Haven’t missed it.
I’m another person who waited years too long to get it done. The docs didn’t recognize that my gall bladder was showing up as clear not because there were no stones but that my entire G.B. was one big stone so it looked fine from the ultrasound!
I had it done two days before Xmas and the cut was bigger than expected so I was out of commission for a good ten days.
One thing they failed to mention to me was “dumping syndrome”. Rather than go into TMI let’s just say I will have to make damn sure I am near a toilet for a half hour to 40 minutes after I eat another meal for the rest of my life. Inconvenient but better than the horrible pain of the G.B. attacks.
I was supposed to get laparoscopic cholecystectomy, but when I went to the hospital for an exceptionally bad attack of pain and inflammation, they said it was too badly damaged to use the laparoscope. They were going to wait until it stabilized, but then it got worse than ever and they had to do it fast with a two-inch incision. 
So the miracles of modern surgical technology passed me by. I got it the old-fashioned ugly way.
I’d had occasional ripping upper abdominal pain now and then for a couple months before I was rushed to the hospital one morning. It was so bad, my fingers and toes went cold and numb. The EMT guy offered the opinion that I had an aortal aneurysm, so for the entire ride to the hospital I confronted the likelihood that I was a goner and was seeing my last moments on earth. Then when I actually saw a doctor, he diagnosed gall bladder at once.
My dad’s third gallbladder attack turned into pancreatitis. This meant he ended up being hospitalized for 4 or 5 days, on heavy doses of antibiotic* and painkillers. Once he recovered from that he scheduled laproscopic gall bladder removal immediately (like six weeks later). Since then he has lived a normal life and eaten what he wants.
*It is not a good feeling when the medical professional comes in to change the IV and says “whoa, this is a big dose of Cipro- usually the dosage is much smaller” - or so my mother says. Dad doesn’t remember.
Had an absolutely agonizing attack that lasted for two days. Was scheduled to have it done laproscopically, but once they got in there they found it was one big stone. So I had to have it done the old fashioned way (my husband refers to this as the “gutted like a trout” surgery). Was in the hospital for five days and spent six weeks recovering. Oh, and our large black cat thought the pillow I had on my tummy (to hold to my incision to cushion it when I got up off the couch) was there for his use alone. 
The odd aftereffect was that I became lactose intolerant. Though I probably was before, it just never got any notice because I was busy writhing in pain.
Had mine out some 30 years ago, long before a laproscope was even invented. 14 day hospital stay, an incision that started 4 inches above my naval, on a downward course, ending on my side, for a total of 12 inches. The removal of the appendix was standard while the surgeon was in there…they are close together…but the surgeon told me afterwards that my gall bladder was so diseased, he just took that, and got the hell out of there.
I have two of the stones in a bottle, that are the size of jawbreakers. Perfectly round balls of calcium. I think that’s what I was told.
Oh yeah, and much pain before, and much pain during recuperation. I was out of work for 5 weeks. Major stuff back in the day.
Had mine out 16 years ago, after one excruciating attack. The attack started out feeling like really serious gas pains, but quickly got much worse. I remember thinking that it felt like a kidney stone attack, but it was in the wrong place. My husband rushed me to the hospital, where they discovered the stones. That was on a Thursday. They operated on Sunday, even though the pain had stopped by then. Laparascopic surgery for gall bladder removal was pretty new, but at any rate, my bladder was too distended for them to do it. I have a nine-inch scar. I haven’t noticed any real changes since having it out.
I had mine out, let’s see, eight years ago. I was just starting to recover from mono, and had a horrible gall bladder attack. I honestly thought I was dying. I had the laparoscopic surgery. The docs said my gall bladder was “like a bean bag,” full of little stones. I have a weird little white scar. The most amusing thing about the whole non-amusing deal was the first time I went to the bathroom and took a peek at myself. I had several black stitches in various places. I haven’t had any trouble since, except for dumping syndrome, which I was also not warned of. Talk about unpleasant surprises.
I had the Surgeon from Hell. His story is I am a freak of nature and had an extra bile duct from my liver to my gall bladder. When my gall bladder was removed, my liver leaked bile into my abdominal cavity.
Let me tell you, that hurts more than words can describe. I believe the surgeon was sloppy and nicked my liver during removal. The surgeon no longer has his job and the hospital is writing off my bill.
I was out of work for 11 weeks. I was still in serious, I need Percocet to move pain for the next 8 weeks. Today I am at the 7 month mark and I am feeling much closer to normal. I’ve searched the internet high and low and I have found only a few people with stories like mine. I think 99.99 percent of people have no problems after it’s removed.
Oh, and MikeG, somehow I wound up with the opposite of your problem. Maybe I am a freak of nature.
I had mine out a little over a month ago. I had to come home from work after feeling nauseous and not being able to keep out of the bathroom. I felt sorta crappy and just not right. When it didn’t get better after a couple of days, I went to a doctor. When he palpated my abdomen, I just about hit the ceiling. I was sent for an ultrasound; it came back normal. Same for the HIPA (?) scan where I had to lie on a table in a cold room for 90 minutes for a continuous xray. My doc shrugged his shoulders and sent me for surgical evaluation. Surgeon said “I’m 80% certain that having your gallbladder removed will make you feel better.” She was right. I ate a steak dinner two days after surgery, and the pain under my shoulder blade I had had for years has gone away. Who knew? The surgery was done at an outpatient surgery center, and I was away from home a total of about 7 hours. I only needed the prescription painkiller for two nights, and was back driving in about five days.
Oh, yes. I thought I really was going to die right there in the doctor’s office. The palpation was not a good experience. My ultrasound and my scan were definitely abnormal, though. That scan wasn’t great, either; I was in a lot of pain, which was lessened only by lying on my right side. So I lay on my side in the intervals between x-rays.
Yeah, that was it exactly. Those are the right words for the attacks I felt.
I found that drumming helped ease the pain. A few months ago, when my daughter got gallstones late in her pregnancy, I helped ease her attack by having her play my djembé, a drum which is traditionally used in Mali for healing. She calmed and the pain eased. I talked her through some bad attacks. The pain seems so huge because most of it is referred pain. The actual spot of inflammation is relatively small. It just hits you so hard, the pain seems to spread out far and wide like an evil force field. I helped talk her through it to breathe deeply and relax with yoga methods to have her consciously release the pain from the outer areas, and by her conscious attention and relaxation, shrank the pain area down to the size of the localized inflammation. Then it didn’t seem so overwhelming and she was able to deal with it. She relaxed and slept and it got better.
After my surgery (having read this thread, I feel relatively lucky I only got a two-incher!) I was another two days in the hospital. I spent the first 24 hours heavily sedated. After I came to, I refused the sedation and began to deal with healing the incision. Another day and I was able to walk up and down the hall. The next day I was released and went home. I was out of work for I think another week after that. I had been already a week in the hospital before the surgery.
Walking around and living normally was tolerable a week after surgery, and I was pretty well healed within two weeks. However, at one point my wound began to suppurate and I had to swab it with gauze and hydrogen peroxide until the yuck stopped. Sorry for being gross, but that’s what you get when this happens.
As I said, they had discharged me from my first stay in the hospital in hopes my inflammation would subside enough to allow the laparoscope. Me, like a total idiot, had beef for my last lunch at the hospital. Bovine meat. In gravy. Idiot! <hitting head> Idiot! The evil result helped me decide to become vegetarian again, and I still am to this day.
The worst gallstone attack ever started that same evening. I called my surgeon and he said to meet him at the hospital. This was Dr. Badri, a very nice gentleman from Iraq, and a good, caring doctor. When I arrived at the ER they left me sitting around, doubled up in pain and groaning miserably for a long time. As soon as Dr. Badri came in, he yelled at the ER personnel for neglecting me while I was in pain, yelled for a wheelchair, and wheeled me directly to a room upstairs where I was put on IV and all that. The insurance could wait, you know, the patient was in dire pain, idiots. Thank you, Dr. Badri. I was lucky I had you.
I had undiagnosed gall stone attacks for about 7 years from age 23 to 30, roughly once every 2 weeks agonising pain lasting from 10 mins to 3 hours. My GP thought it was spinal nerves causing the pain, and I had been through every spinal scan the NHS could muster.
Anyway, close to my 30th I got serious baddo long lasting pain that needed the doctor to be called to my house. After being rushed to Hospital it turns out I had accute pancreatitis, which requires serious bed rest, pain releif, and a drip feed until the Pancreas can stop being inflamed. Pancreatits caused by a gall stone getting lodged in the pancreatic duct. Something with a roughly 10% mortality chance plus lots of possible nasties. Once my Pancrease recovered I had my gall bladder removed.
Since then I have not had any of the previous pains, which shows they must have been gall stone caused.
So point 1, gall stones can give you Pancreatitis if you are unlucky.
Point 2, you don’t want pancreatitis.
Since the removal of the gall bladder, there has been some effect on digestion and sudden urgency for bowel movements that can be inconvinient. But I was suffering similarly before the gall bladdder was removed since it wasn’t working too well even then. Stools will often be soft and colorful due to the bile and difficulty in properly digesting fats and oils.
Had mine removed about 4 years ago because of cysts my doctor feared might become malignant. I didn’t experience too much discomfort.
Mine was removed a few years ago. I had the laproscopic procedure, which is da bomb. I had the surgery on Thursday, back at work on Monday. None of this dumping problem, either, for which I am thankful.