# Well damn. 27 and I have a gall stone. **URL:** \ **Category:** Miscellaneous and Personal Stuff I Must Share\ **Created:** [July 14, 2005, 8:22pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/well-damn-27-and-i-have-a-gall-stone/312570 "2005-07-14T20:22:26Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 8\ **Page:** 2
**Author:** ![beckwall](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/b487fb/32.png) [@beckwall](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/beckwall)\ **Post date:** [July 16, 2005, 11:18pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/well-damn-27-and-i-have-a-gall-stone/312570/21 "2005-07-16T23:18:07Z")
I’ll see your gallstone at age 27 and raise you an artificial hip at age 51. I win! Seriously, I went thru the gallstone thing and it is hell. Hope you feel better soon! ---
**Author:** ![chaoticbear](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/f07891/32.png) [@chaoticbear](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/chaoticbear)\ **Post date:** [July 17, 2005, 12:06pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/well-damn-27-and-i-have-a-gall-stone/312570/22 "2005-07-17T12:06:53Z")
Whatabout [sic] a kidney stone at 18? Does that count? ---
**Author:** ![ataraxy22](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/ataraxy22/32/307_2.png) [@ataraxy22](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ataraxy22)\ **Post date:** [July 17, 2005, 2:13pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/well-damn-27-and-i-have-a-gall-stone/312570/23 "2005-07-17T14:13:17Z")
Well, I had shingles at the ripe old age of 20! I am with kidney stone now (my first, at age 31) and it is periodically the worst pain I have ever had. Stones just weren’t meant to co-exist with the human body. ---
**Author:** ![stargazer](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/eb8c5e/32.png) [@stargazer](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/stargazer)\ **Post date:** [July 17, 2005, 5:10pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/well-damn-27-and-i-have-a-gall-stone/312570/24 "2005-07-17T17:10:11Z")
Pah, I had shingles when I was 11. 😛 I tell you, **Anastaseon** , just hearing your story is about enough to get me to change my wicked eating ways! I’m also a fair redhead, fertile and on the pill, and overweight. And I have a phobia of vomiting, so even though you didn’t mention that you were throwing up in addition to your pain, I know that it frequently happens. Good thing I’m planning on taking charge of my fertility this fall, too! I hope you feel better soon, and that the diet does the trick. ---
**Author:** ![Foaming\_Cleanser](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/f05b48/32.png) [@Foaming\_Cleanser](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Foaming_Cleanser)\ **Post date:** [July 18, 2005, 12:01am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/well-damn-27-and-i-have-a-gall-stone/312570/25 "2005-07-18T00:01:12Z")
I had a series of gallstone attacks when in my early 20s. God, they were awful. I went to the hospital from work by ambulance. After the surgury, I was given a laundry list of stuff I shouldn’t eat, but in three months I was ignoring it, and I’ve never had a problem since. Peanut butter topped the list, but it’s never caused a problem. Ten or 15 years later, my mother had an attack in the middle of the night when she was visiting me in another city. I had to call an ambulance. She didn’t want the surgery so far from home, so they prescribed pain pills and bread-and-water diet, and she was OK until the operation. She told me the day after the attack that the pain hit a new high. Her previous standard was giving birth to me. I didn’t know whether to laugh, be insulted or feel guilty. I thought I read somewhere that a new treatment is to have the patient sit in a physical-therapy-type tub of water, where low-frequency soundwaves bombard the gall bladder and break up the stones. Maybe that was kidney stones. Or maybe I dreamt it. ---
**Author:** ![Anastasaeon](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/73ab20/32.png) [@Anastasaeon](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Anastasaeon)\ **Post date:** [July 19, 2005, 5:58pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/well-damn-27-and-i-have-a-gall-stone/312570/26 "2005-07-19T17:58:44Z")
And you might hate me for it… but… but… I passed it. It’s gone. I just came back from my follow-up appointments, and the stone is _gone_. I still have to stick to the low fat, plenty of exercise routine, since I’m have a high probability of developing new stones if I’m not careful… but no surgery needed (but we knew that anyway)… nothing. It’s gone. It’s _ **gone** _! The doctor laughed - my father is in the books for having the worst case, he says now I can go in the books for having the shortest case! I’m stone free! Grandmama will say it was all that apple juice I’ve been drinking. 😃 ---
**Author:** ![Anastasaeon](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/73ab20/32.png) [@Anastasaeon](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Anastasaeon)\ **Post date:** [July 21, 2005, 2:13am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/well-damn-27-and-i-have-a-gall-stone/312570/27 "2005-07-21T02:13:27Z")
Got a second opinion today, and saw the surgeon. Fer chrissakes. It’s not gone, it’s _still there_. It’s too damn big to pass. So, I’ve been told to eat right, exercise, and in about a year, come back for surgery. It has to be removed one way or the other. I can go for a long time being asymptomatic, but the surgeon says my liver makes abnormal bile, and it will always make abnormal bile. So, I will always get stones… which is why most people have their gallbladders removed. In the end, it’s just making trouble. _sigh_ I love my doctor… but I hate him today. I had my hopes up. I should have known it wouldn’t be that easy. ☹ If it sounds too good to be true… :smack: ---
**Author:** ![cwthree](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/9de0a6/32.png) [@cwthree](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/cwthree)\ **Post date:** [July 21, 2005, 3:46am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/well-damn-27-and-i-have-a-gall-stone/312570/28 "2005-07-21T03:46:21Z")
You have my sympathy. Gallstones are darned unpleasant. I am also insanely jealous that you passed your stone. I had my gallbladder out at about your age. I was taking classes at the time and it was really not a good time to be going into the hospital, so I managed it with a fat-free diet for several months. In retrospect, I probably started having symptoms in my late teens. However, no one expects a 19-year-old to have gallstones, so the first attack resulted in a trip to the ER followed by antibiotics on the assumption that the pain was caused by a common _cough_ sexually transmitted _cough_ infection. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/well-damn-27-and-i-have-a-gall-stone/312570.md?page=1)