THIS MESSAGE IS FOR KERIMON!!!

It took three hidascans to catch my bad gall bladder. I had mine for 5 years. I was beginning to seriously think about raising enough money to pay for my surgery out of pocket without a diagnosis because I was so certain that was my problem.

I was 23 when I had mine out, so age certainly isn't a factor. But my mother had hers out and several other people in my family as well, so I think you're right about genetics.

The surgery is relatively easy; you'll be released to go home the same day. Afterwards it takes some adjustment because foods that might not have bothered you before will (temporarily) bother you now. I found that eating any meat other than chicken or fish would give me diarrhea. This lasted 4-6 weeks, then I got to where I could eat beef and pork again. Stay away from any foods that bothered you before as well. Basically, you need to be on a fairly light, somewhat bland (don't go without any spice, but Indian food and some Mexican will be too much) diet for a month or month and a half. Then you can start adding things back in. You may not be able to tolerate all of your old offenders--I still can't tolerate caffeine--but you should be able to handle most of them, albeit in small doses (I can handle three pieces of pizza, but no more).

If, after a month or so, you are still having problems with diarrhea, then see a G.I. and get a prescription of Welchol. A year after my gall bladder surgey I was still having random bouts of bile diarrhea, and when my G.I. gave me this, it stopped the diarrhea. Now all I have to do is avoid caffeine, go a bit light on the pizza and fried foods, and take a Welchol every day and I have pretty good bowel function. Better than I had before the gall bladder came out. And I don't have pain or nausea anymore either.

You may want to start on the Caltrate 600 w/vitamin D pills as soon as you experience diarrhea after your surgery to help lessen that effect. I have a theory that bile--being such a strong acid--causes irritation to the colon when you let too much of it go through there too long. I also think (and there are studies which seem to indicate this) that the calcium helps heal/soothe that irritation quickly. So, after so long with gut problems, that might be something you really want to try and take in order to get your guts better faster. Linda (Inape) says that's all she needs to treat her post-gall bladder problems. Sometimes I take calcium in addition to my Welchol because I need a little extra boost. But I have seen people on here who take as many as 6 Welchols a day, so there's no telling what level your guts might set themselves to. And some people (a much smaller percentage, I think) develop chronic constipation. I have found that a diet too low in fat will (at least for me) cause severe constipation, so if you do have that problem, try adding some good fats back into you diet. There's also supposedly an old-timey product called bile salts which help replicate the missing bile (which is the cause of the constipation) and they're supposed to help. Other laxatives like aloe vera, prune juice, fiber and/or magnesium will probably provide as much relief as you need.

And one other thing I have noticed: you pay for your indiscretions for about twice as long as you enjoy them. So if you eat your offender foods all day one day, you can expect to have a bad day tomorrow and probably a not-so-good day the day after that. A week's bad eating ends up costing you two weeks of irregular bowel movements, and so on. So when you start having problems, it's best to nip them in the bud by changing your food and/or changing your medicine (some things can't be helped, like a cold or antiobiotics getting you messed up; that's when you try and apply more gut medicine to compensate).

Oh, don't worry, I've gained weight since getting my gall bladder out, lol. It's only the first month or so that you need to be careful with what you eat because your body has to adjust for the missing gall bladder. It's not longer getting the timed releases of bile that it was designed for, so the bile duct has to kind of take over. I've heard that there are people who are pefectly normal after getting their gall bladders removed, but I haven't actually met any of them. Even people who are good most all of the time and don't limit their foods in any way still get an occasional attack of diarrhea after a meal. The other thing that a lack of gall bladder can lead to is acid reflux. My mother has really not had any bowel problems since getting hers out, but she does have pretty bad acid reflux. My G.I.'s nurse practitioner said that sometimes the bile goes up and sometimes the bile goes down (and sometimes it's not there at all). There's no way to determine beforehand what kind of person you will be; everyone's bodies adjust differently.

My gall bladder attacks didn't generally confine me to home, but they were very bad when I got them. Mine had a tendency to come on in the middle of the night, which is why they weren't as limiting to me. Expect for when I was in Ireland; I had one there that lasted for three weeks without let up. I was popping pain pills every four hours day and night to no avail (I've since figured out that that medicine doesn't work on me) and putting boiling water in my hot water bottle because the intense heat was all that relaxed my knotted up muscles even slightly. When I had an attack, I couldn't sit or stand up straight. So yes, gall bladder attacks can be very, very bad.

There have been a few people on here who continued to have pain after their gall bladder surgeries. This can only be due to one of two things: a botched removal (scar tissue, bile duct damaged, stone left in the bile duct) or some other problem to begin with. My cousin's husband tested positive for a bad gall bladder and had it removed, but his symptoms didn't really improve. They did some more testing on him and found he also had Celiac's; since getting off gluten he's been fine (thus my saying "Nothing says you can't have more than one thing wrong with you at a time.") The vast majority of people who get their gall bladders removed immediately cease have the pain attacks. Even though there can be some cramping and discomfort with diarrhea epiosdes, they're nothing like the intense pains (someone described them as feeling a lot like labor contractions) that come with a spasaming gall bladder.

I hope it helps you too. I certainly felt like a new person afterwards. With the Welchol I feel like a normal human being the vast majority of the time!