Gallstones advice and ideas

[Limelight]

So the doctor thinks i might have gallstones and I'm winding myself up into a right two and eight about it. I've already posted about this but prior to seeing the doctor. The problem is that I'm obsessively symptom watching and obsessing that I'm going to drop down dead at any moment. Clearly this needs to stop.

I've got a niggling ache most days and have had three more pronounced attacks in the last ten days. The first was severe (think labour). The subsequent two have been uncomfortable but manageable with a hot water bottle and pain relief. I should also say that i had a severe attack four years ago (a&e thought it was indigestion) and have had the occasional bout of discomfort (nothing worse than that) in the intervening years. The doctor has prescribed a high dose of ranitidine and buscopan and has referred me for a scan.

I need a bit of calm advice. What do I actually need to worry about (rather than cancer and dropping down dead from some sort of hideous infection)? What should I be watching for (in case anything more serious is on the cards)? Am I likely to be in pain every day until I get operated on (if that's what happens)? I'm currently frightened of eating and need to sort this out because I'm BFing. What an earth should I be eating? Will altering my diet reduce the risk of another severe attack?

And good news stories!

I know this probably seems really trivial but I'm getting very anxious about all of this. Having lots of information tends to make me feel more in control so I'm internet searching and just finding scariness. I need positive. Can anyone help?!

hi!
i had gall stones and was misdiagnosed for over a year after birth on 2nd baby. gaviscon and tablets but finally demanded a scan. have you got a scan date yet? had scan in april 10 and had gall bladder removed in sep 10. and it was the best things ever. no more attacks or complications.

i found eating low fat foods helped in the run up to op, no oily food or spicy. this lessened the amount and intensity of the attacks. the op was fine, keyhole so 4 small incisions around my belly- under brastrap, belly button and 2 on right hand side, went home the same day and had painlillers for 3 days. it was slow going just to let the internal side heal nicely but i have 2 DC and looking after them was fine, just no heavy lifting, which included the boy!

good luck and dont worry, if its gall stones you wont drop dead anytime soon from them!

x

I have gallstones and I'm due to have my gallbladder removed on the 30th of April. I can't wait. I have had no attacks now for nearly a month after I worked out wat I can and cannot eat.
At first, like you, I was to scared to eat so survived on toast with jam.

I am now on a v.v.v. low fat diet. So no dairy apart from skimmed milk, fat free yoghurt and fat free cottage cheese. I can have v.small amount of extra light philadelphia. nothing fried. no cheese, eggs, butter or any other spreads.
no oily fish.

so what I eat is: toast with jam or honey. tuna in water. potatoes, pasta, rice. grilled chicken, grilled lean pork (I marinade without oil), extra lean minced beef made in the slow cooker. lean ham sandwiches. oven baked lentil burgers or falafels. cooked veg, vegetarian curries.

I learned (in a v.painful way) that I can't have soya milk (more fatty than skimmed cow milk), belgian waffles (contain egg), musli (nuts are too fatty), olive oil, and many others.

Hi I had mine removed in February and it was a relatively simple day surgery, took about 2 weeks to feel ok but after the first week you can do most things

until then perhaps you should avoid fatty food, alcohol and in my case it was things like too much coffee, eggs on empty stomach and citrus fruit.
I usually felt better if I made sure I ate plenty of fibre and water

hope it helps

I could actual;y drink soya milk but did not have much dairy

Thanks everyone! I'm starting to feel better about it and your advice certainly helps. My issue at the moment is that I seem to be having an attack every day which is pretty debilitating. I'm sure they'll settle down though. I'm trying to eat a little more and am taking supplements and drinking lots to help with BFing. Roll on the scan...

Don't worry about the your diet in regards to breastfeeding, it really does not matter.

I had gallstones and eventually an emergency gall bladder operation, which meant I had two emergency hospital admissions both lasting a week. First one was when my baby was 4 months old and again when she was 6 months old.

I didn't eat for 7 days each time !

I still managed to exclusively breastfeed my baby (via my breast and bottle) I had a drip in constantly and breastfeeding friendly painkilling drugs. I had visitors bring baby DD1 for milk during the day and expressed at night for her.

Diet wise they didn't know what was wrong with me regarding the pain and throwing up for months and it wasn't until I turned yellow and my wee turned bright red that they realised I was on the verge of organ failure and had to go to hospital straight away.

After that discharge whilst awaiting my operation date, I found everything trigged me, pretty much down to clear broth :( I had worse reactions with fattier or spicier food of course.

I do have some longer term bowel issues which was trigged by gall bladder removal and it might be wise to chat to the doctor about side effects before you go ahead with the op. If I could of controlled things with diet only I would of done so, but it wasn't an option for me. It might be an option for you.

On the bright side my diet is pretty varied now, some things trigger problems (cream, full fat milk, sugar free coke) but the majority of food is back on the menu :)

Thanks babieseverywhere. That's really reassuring because if I'm honest, I'm worrying quite a lot about BFing and also the impact of a possible op on DD.

I'm at the point where I really really hope it is gallstones (hopefully the scan will be soon!) just so that I have an answer. I seem to shift between three different kinds of pain: a sort of stabbing but manageable pain in my upper back; an actual attack; and the 'after pains' of an attack which is like a dull ache under my right ribs, my side, and back. So no pain free periods at all.

Everything seems to kick it off at the moment, including doing too much. I think I might go back to the doctors when I'm back from my holidays to see if there's anything else they can give me.

So exhausting and can't help but feel a bit gutted that this is all happening.

Ho hum.

limelight this might help reassure you regarding BF and surgery
It is actually a reasonably straightforward procedure
If that is the diagnosis and you go through with surgery do get help for the first week, it can be awfully sore but the recovery is swift after that, in my experience
best of luck

A scan will tell you v quickly whether or not it's gallstones. I was b'fing dd2 and suffering horribly for months until they diagnosed gallstones (gaviscon, ranitidine, etc did nothing for me and I was having 3 attacks a week at the peak). I lost a lot of weight but did manage to continue feeding dd2 (I gave up just before the op tho when she was 10 months).

I had the gallbladder removed and it was the best thing I ever did. Honestly, 2 weeks recovery, absolutely fine now and I can eat what I want. So worth it. I hope for your sake the scan is soon and you get a diagnosis of gallstones as it's an easy one to treat.

I hope so too. I'm feeling rubbish today and getting a bit sad about it. I'm having an attack every day and they just completely floor me. On top of the constant dull ache in my back, it's dreadful.

DH is on annual leave this week which helps but I'm so worried about how I'm going to manage with DC when he's back at work. It doesn't help that I've discovered that my stock of carefully frozen breast milk has gone off so I've got no emergency feeds for DD. Oh and she's mid 3 month growth spurt so is feeding round the clock. Oh and DS is having his holiday ruined!

Ok grumble over. Clearly I've let it get on top of me today.

DH had them and had bouts of agony-had to go to bed and could do nothing. He had his gall bladder out, with keyhole surgery, and it was all sorted. He was only in overnight so I think bfeeding would be OK.

I had gallstones/pancreatitis last year when DD3 was 6m old (exc.bf too no solids due to her ill health and at paeds request).

After I recovered from the pancreatitis I had no more than 10g of fat a day other wise I had pain. I lived off weetabix made with skim milk, diet cuppa soups, pasta with diet cuppa soup sauce, weight watcher ready meals (carefully selected ones though) and extra low fat yogurt. I lost 3.5 stone in 3 months .

I also had ora-morph prescribed so I could manage the pain at home before the op happened when DD3 was 9m.

I only got pancreatitis because I was told I had heartburn and was prescribed omeprazole which did nothing so I was drinking gallons of strawberry milk to soothe the pain (worked in pg for heartburn).

Have you had an aterial blood gas done to check your pancreas is ok?

BTW DD3 is still nursing now at 18m (and so is DD2 at 3.4y/o ) so being hospitalised a fair few times didn't put either of them off it.

No I haven't. I've been referred for a scan but that's it so far. I'm actually away on holiday at the moment but am going to ring the doctor tomorrow to book an appointment for my return. The meds I've got aren't really doing much - the ranitidine helps a bit but I'm basically having an attack every day at the point when it's about to run out IYKWIM. The buscopan takes the pain down from unbearable to severe which I'm grateful for but nevertheless. I'm also taking paracetamol which appears to be doing nothing except giving me the runs!

How did you know that you had pancreatitis by the way? I'm worrying a bit that I'm in fairly constant discomfort/pain and that I can't seem to process any food. My attack today was caused by a piece of dry toast and a carrot.

Buscopan is an anti-spasmodic so apparently helps gall stone attacks. I don't know how though but I was given it a few times when I had gall stone/pancreatitis attacks didn't do a great deal but then the IV morphine didn't either .

Could your GP do you a split dose or up the levels for the ranitidine?

I don't think ranitidine will do much if it is gallstones. The gp didn't believe for ages that it was gallstones (I don't "fit the profile" apparently) whereas the consultant said "oh yes, it's often exacerbated by pregnancy..." and was much more useful. He also said that it's not necessarily food related, it can just come any time which is another misunderstanding gps sometimes have.

If it's gallstones and is really bad, then lie on your right-hand side (this was his tip and it worked for me one). There's nothing much else that will work, he admitted that himself and also said that most women report it being a worse pain than childbirth (which is definitely true for me).

If you can afford private scan then maybe just do that to get a straight answer (I know that's not an option for everyone but it was for us and it was money well spent after 9 months of suffering and misdiagnosis - the gps assumed it was stressed from having 2 children within 15 months)

I didn't know I had pancreatitis until I was told after they got the results back from the arterial blood gas test and even then they didn't know if it was caused by gall stones or if I was an alcoholic (I am teetotal as I have epilepsy). The gall stones were confirmed by ultrasound scan.

The pain was quite literally unbearable when I was passing a gall stone but off the scale when I had pancreatitis with a horrible burning sensation added in too. Apparently that was the pain of my pancreas being digested by the enzymes that should be released through the bile duct but as that was blocked by a gall stone they couldn't get out).

I writhed for hours the first time I passed a gall stone, bizarrely enough I was already at a hospital as DD3 was having breathing difficulties due to bronchiolitis and I collapsed in the children's assessment unit and had to be carted off A&E. I was pretty much ignored for about 2 hours (during which DD3 got ever worse) and then suddenly the pain was almost gone so I self discharged. I put it down to the stress of DD3 being so ill and it didn't happen again for a month or so.

When it happened again I went to the local walk-in centre where they gave me some tramadol (not safe for epileptics!) in the waiting room as I was groaning and pacing about (sitting/lying down/staying still made the pain worse). The Dr gave me some omeprazole and told me if the pain went soon it was heartburn. It did but as I had 2 tramadol and it was by then a few hours after the start I'd passed the stone and the pain was subsiding anyway. I tripped home on the bus - was sooo stoned from the tramadol - with a weeks supply of omeprazole.

I got a repeat from the GP but of course they didn't do anything so saw an out of hours GP who prescribed an over-dose of the omeprazole (i.e. more than is usually prescribed) but was still in agony so was downing bottles of strawberry milk to 'soothe' my stomach. By the next day I was vomiting uncontrollably and actually begged my DH to take me to A&E (I really don't like hospitals so very unusual for me).

When I got there DH turfed me out at reception so he could park and unload the DDs, I walked in and started vomiting and screaming in pain - funnily enough I got seen very quickly and soon had a ton of meds injected in me to try to control the pain. I couldn't feed DD3 though as I couldn't stay still long enough for her to latch on even with the meds so the very kind nurse arranged for DD3 to have a bottle from children's A&E brought to her.

I should add I'm no big baby when it comes to pain as I have had a home birth and a hospital birth with only a few mins of G&A each time but this was totally unreal I had max doses of IV morphine, IV paracetamol, buscopan, diclofenac and had G&A and it was still worse than child birth even after all those drugs. So I think if you have got pancreatitis you would know it unless you had babies like shelling peas and didn't even notice it until baby was out.

If the pain gets worse please don't be afraid to go back to GP/A&E for pain relief/treatment. Sometimes you have to keep on at them to get a diagnosis.

Sorry that was an essay and a half

All very useful truthsweet. Thanks so much.

So I gave in today and went to A&E after a particularly bad attack. They've doubled my dose of buscopan and prescribed diclofenac. Revelation! I'm no longer in constant pain so can relax a bit and start enjoying my holiday with my kids. Don't think it's going to completely cut the mustard during a full on attack but to be honest, I'm pretty grateful at the moment for a bit of respite.

Booked an appointment with my GP for when I get back. Hopefully there'll be a letter with a scab date waiting on my doorstep too.

Not fixed. Still worried. But feeling tonnes better!

My GP said rantadine is not good for gallstones. It reduces acid and encourages your gallbladder to release more.

Drink plenty of water and eat a low fat diet.

Orlistat reduces attacks to almost nothing as it stops you digesting fat and therefore your gallbladder doesn't need to work. I took this on the run up to my op and it was a godsend.

I feel so much better since my op and have lost 20lbs.

If your scan date is slow coming through, you can always ask to be seen privately v quickly. I had a heyuge attack just after I had my ds and was rushed in to hospital with a suspected clot on my lung. The pain was spectacular. I was scanned and they found "multitudinous" stones so then it was just a matter of a surgery date. I waited till ds was 7 months old as I was ebf and by then we were weaning and he'd take expressed, and had my gallbladder out, and I was like a new woman afterwards. I had the stones in a jar on the mantlepiece but my mum made me throw them out. Best of luck!

I had gallbladder removal years ago and recovered very quickly with minimal scarring. Prior to surgery I was told to look out for severe pain associated with a high temperature - visit A&E immediately. Have had no after effect from the surgery.