Gallbladder attacks advice

[HeyBwoss]

Been having episodes of pain since January but have now had 2 in the past 2 weeks. I thought it was trapped wind (actually the first one I thought was a heart attack, at first) but have seen it may be gallstones. All my pain matches everything I have read. Except for labour, it's the worst pain I've ever had.

Anyway, I'm hoping to see the GP tomorrow, but in the meantime I'm terrified to eat incase something triggers it. Does anyone have any advice on how to manage or anything that stops the attacks? Thanks in advance

Reporting back to say today's phone appointment was very much a waste of my time and the doctors. It seems the purpose of the call was mostly to check if I had magically recovered in the last three months. I had not.

Waiting on the surgery waiting list continues and doctor either couldn't or wouldn't tell me how long that might be.

Really very disappointing after I'd got my hopes up.

The only actual information I got is that my bile duct is 6.5 mm and that's bigger than 'normal' but not sufficiently'abnormal' for the nhs to take much interest. So there's that.

Oh dear, just saw my last post and i have no idea what my typos were meant to say, but you have my sympathy @Lionoso.

That's disappointing @summergreens. Where i am the local service couldn't/wouldn't give a timescale, but an Internet search did show the average waits for this surgery at my hospital and it was over a year. It's crazy that something that causes so much disruption to one's life, ability to work or parent in a reliable and consistent way, that causes such fear, preoccupation and depression, and that causes extreme prolonged pain with the possibility of serious knock on health concerns because of diet and the health of the pancreas, etc., is something we're expected to cope with. So when you have a medical appointment that doesn't move things forward it can feel like a real set back.

I am sorry summergreens, that sounds very frustrating for you. It's made very clear from everything I've read (and physically experienced!!) that it's generally accepted that it can't fix itself so that was very condescending of them.

I had my MRI first thing this morning (glad I didn't even notice the fasting time as I was asleep!). They've said the results will go back to the surgical ward. I'm hopeful as they've been pretty spot on so far they won't leave me waiting on results for too long but we'll see 🤷‍♀️ We want to go away for half term but I'm a bit scared to book in case that's when they want to see me? The MRI today was to check if there are any stones 'on the loose' outside the gallbladder. I've been pretty fortunate up to this point about how quickly they've been responding.

How’s everyone getting on?

I’m two weeks post surgery and have had a few episodes of urgency the last few days, thankfully I’ve been at home each time. The last couple of days I’m feeling uncomfortable under my right rib. It feels a bit disheartening at the moment but I know I just need to give more time to heal properly.

Hey @Trollfeet, that sounds disconcerting, I guess as you say, only two weeks post op you might still be healing. For me, since @Lionoso's last update I am paying more attention to things but I'm ok. I've noticed I wake daily to a very mild feeling of nausea which I'm putting down to the constant bile drip as opposed to it being store in the gb until needed.

I haven't had another attack since that one last week. I'm taking codeine today for pain so I'm hoping it was just a one off and doesn't happen again.

My surgeon when I had my post op appointment said it's common to have aches in the area up to six months after surgery. He says scar tissue can cause discomfort for a.while. I felt much better around the six week mark. No urgency since then and apart from one very weird incident I'm feeling so much better and can eat pretty much anything. Two weeks is still really early.

@dudsville can I wake u to expand on that. Since this has happened I have woken up dizzy and feeling sick. Getting fed up with it now. Is this a thing then? Not had mine out.

Well I didn't have it pre op, only in the last handful of weeks. I had nausea when I was having a flare up, but then that would also accompany actual vomit. This is just mild nausea. I've had a couple of acid reflex moments, nothing at all really significant, just something I've been noticing. It's difficult to know what's what. I'm also quite peri, haven't had a period in many months, but I was feelign very hormonal last week - so it may be unrelated to the liver or absence of gb for me. Whre are you at in the process @Bananas1350 ?

@dudsville right at the beginning. Just diagnosed a month ago. Had a scan but apparently I’m hard to scan and she couldn’t really see properly. But I feel sick and dizzy every morning.

Oh yes, I remember your description now @Bananas1350 . It's such a long convulted process.

@lionoso, sorry to hear you're still in pain, or maybe that isn't gb-ectomy related, anyway, fingers crossed that awful event was a one off.

I occassionally feel something like a gentle poke around where either the liver was clamped off, or in the void where the gb was - I expect everything else will have used up that void now, but sometimes I think I can feel it!

Good morning

yesterday, I had my procedure which went smoothly, efficiently and relatively pain free. Pain from carbon dioxide dealt with by oral morphine and now paracetamol.
arrived at 2pm home by 8pm - went to bed and slept until 7pm. Just drinking a cup of tea. I will get up and toddle around as I have phlegm from the anaesthetic - move to shift it. But will take life easy today.

socks for 1 week, driving in 2 weeks and lifting heavy weights in 6 weeks. And that is me done.

they saved the stones to show me as the surgeons said that they were huge - about the size of dice. At least I wasn’t wasting their time!!

so good luck those still waiting. I will watch with interest.

Just to say which might help - the surgeon said it will take 6-8 weeks for everything to settle inside me with the new procedure going on. So I will take everything in moderation to assist that process.

Wow @whitewave! Glad it went well and is behind you now!

I know this is trivial in the scheme of things but I feel like my increasingly dry almost scaly skin might be linked to my lower fat diet. Anyone else noticed the same (about your own skin, not pointing and laughing at my face) and if you have, have you found a way to fix it?

Moisturiser and serum don't seem to be helping and it'll likely get worse once I put the central heating on.

That's great, @whitewave glad all went well. I hope your recovery is quick and smooth!

Glad to hear everyone else is mostly doing ok. I'm fine, still getting some pains but seem to be held at bay by buscopan and paracetamol thankfully. Counting the days until my surgery.

My puzzle now is what to eat. I want to avoid any upset, and there is so much contradictory advice out there. The hospital told me I could eat anything, except to go reasonable easy for up to 8 weeks. Google tells me to avoid fat, other site avoid fibre.

this morning I’ve eaten a banana and no reaction. Lunch will be a boiled egg with very thin bread and a scrapping of butter.

dinner will be one tablespoon full of home made fish pie with peas and green beans, and the same of rice pudding (I fancy sort of nursery food at the moment)

water to drink tea and coffee tastes peculiar.

see how I go with that.

@whitewave I was told to eat high fibre due to the painkillers. I wasn’t given any other diet advice.

I reckon it is put your finger in the air, and hope for the best. The high fibre makes sense though. Muesli for breakfast then😄 fruit for lunch. Mind you I’m lucky with the pain, I’ve only taken paracetamol first thing and that was a “just in case” and nothing since.

Yes @summergreens I'm pretty sure my skin got horribly dry. I slapped on the moisturiser at night. I've got a big tub of Ameliorate cream and that seemed to sort out my body. I used my usual moisturiser for my face.

Back to oily skin now so it does sort itself out once you eat normally again.

For me the dry skin wasnt trivial, I've always had dry skin and have to moisturise daily with heavy creams usually, but it was worse during the time of my gb, which was about 10 or 11 months from 1st episode to it being removed. My skin is definitely improving, also my hair and nails have returned to growing - nails had slowed from needing to be cut weekly to monthly, and hair seemed to stop altogether, which was annoying because I cut my own hair and had made a mistake. I thought it wouldn't be a problem, a few weeks would sort it out, but no, stupid hair for months! Also I had stopped shedding hair. I have a lot of hair so it's usual for me to lose a lot when washing or brushing it, but that had stopped. My hair growth has returned with a vengeance, after a month post op the tub drain got blocked. My god the amount of hair was the size of a rat!

If I lost the size of a rat I’d be bald!!

I reckon pain from carbon dioxide has more or less gone, now it is sore at the points of entry, particularly the one near my belly button. But it is only day 2 so I reckon they’ve done a really good job. I had my fish pie and melon and grapes for dinner (forgot to put the rice pudding in) and it is all fine. I ate very small portions though. Have enough for today and rice pudding.

@whitewave my belly button was the more sore point of entry and took the longest to heal enough to take the dressing off. All fine now though.

One of the other wounds is a bit odd. I noticed a bit of a scab rather than just a scar. Picked the scab off and there was a tiny circular hole, gave it a little squeeze and loads of broken up stitches popped out!

Did the same Thursday night and more stitches and a bit of pus came out. Everything seems clean and smooth now. Before that I could feel a lump under the scar so I don't think the stitches were dissolving properly.

That sounds horrible! How long after your operation?