Fuck. Gallstones. Probably. What can/can't I eat?

[Cagliostro]

Not confirmed yet but it may take a while to get scans etc and in the meantime the A&E doctor recommended I eat carefully anyway.

I have huge anxiety at the moment - baby was born last month - and I currently feel like eating nothing at all in case I end up in pain again or unwittingly make things worse long term (I had gestational diabetes and was much the same during pregnancy).

I will be keeping a food diary but I have read lots of different things so any experiences or advice would be great.

They told me to cut out fat entirely but it made fuck all difference. Even an apple or salad would give me an attack in the end and I had to have it snipped out.

The current advice is to cut out anything that triggers an attack, not necessarily fat. Most doctors don’t seem to know this, despite it clearly being on the NICE website,

Some people find that eating a high fat diet helps gallstone attacks at bay. Certainly did for me, had very few attacks until one major severe one when a stone moved!

Small portions. Sad but true.

I cut out rich food, oil, curry etc. All it did was prolong the whole thing. It settled down until that faithful tuna sandwich 🙄 and then everything hurt me. I had over a hundred small stones btw. The consultant called me his rock star —preens—

It’s different for everyone.

When I had them, I could eat what I wanted pretty much but would have a constant burning type gnawing pain in the upper central part of my stomach. It wasn’t reflux or heartburn, it was my gallbladder!
I had three attacks in the 3 years I’d had it. And the last attack I’d had boiled potatoes, broccoli and pork. I realised it didn’t matter what set it off, it was when it decided to flare up on itself. I couldn’t control that.

I had it out Feb this year. I haven’t got the same digestion I used to have, but I don’t have pain anymore, definitely none of that burning gnawing pain either!

Thank you all for replying. I have been eating more carefully and had no attacks until 2am. Well I think it is one anyway, got ultrasound tomorrow thank goodness so will hopefully find out if it's gallbladder or something else!

Can it cause back pain? This time I started with horrific pain in my upper back and bottom ribs, it feels like they are in a vice. But I'd only read that gallstones can sometimes cause shoulder pain, so not sure if that's something else (could even be because of my posture when feeding baby or something?! Or they did mention kidneys due to some other symptoms but I think it's too high for that)

I stuck to a fairly low fat diet but my GP also prescribed me Buscopan so that any stones that were caught in the bile duct would just fall right back out instead of my gallbladder going into spasms to try to move it.

Low fat worked for me to a certain point but sometimes it just didn't matter what I ate. Chips from the chippy were definitely a no go!

I would get indigestion to start with followed swiftly by a pain starting under my right rib. This increased in severity and spread round to my back and up to my shoulder. All I could do was pace up and down waiting for it to stop. Usual attack would last 5 hours and be at night. The pain would also make me throw up.

Had my gallbladder removed earlier this year and had 18 stones. Consultant said my gallbladder was very irritated (not sure exactly what that meant) So after 5 years of pain I am now completely pain free and can eat whatever I want. Can someone pass me the chocolate please?