Best way to diet when suffering with gallstones?

[FrazzledBlob]

I'm vegetarian and in need of shedding some weight but now have the added problem of gallstones.

I just wondered if anyone else who had suffered with them had success following a particular diet or did you wait until the gallbladder was removed?

I have a couple of weeks to wait for my first appointment at the hospital so I have no idea how long the wait for surgery will be and I want to try and lose some weight now.

I felt great when low carbing but I can feel my gallbladder niggling so have decided to look for something else. I am a bit wary of slimming world as I end up eating loads of carbs and I find the more i eat them the more I crave them and end up eating non stop

DH had gallstones - ultimately surgery to remove his gallbladder. He actually lost weight anyway as the best diet for someone suffering from gallstones is fat free. Everything steamed, baked or poached, never fried. He eats a lot of chicken and fish(even though when we got married he claimed to hate fish! mil can't cook tho ) , rice, pasta, boiled potatoes and whatever fruit and veg he wants, once you are on that kind of diet and know how painful it is to have anything greasy or oily, then ime you tend to stick with it.
Good luck.

is this any help?
btw I don't actually think I mean completely fat free (it was 4 yrs ago when he was at his worst) I did still use olive oil in cooking, he did switch to fully skimmed milk though, and as our dc are dairy free anyway he occasionally went for soya instead when he was having a big attack.

thanks gigglewitch. Can I ask what your DH did diet wise after removal?

I am wondering if I will be able to follow a low carb plan again after gallbladder removal.

At the moment it does not seem to be oily/fatty foods alone that are triggering the attacks.

I have found milk, eggs and peanuts have brought on a flare up but i seem fine when cooking with a little oil/fat and cheese and cream have been ok so far.

as with most things I'm sure it's a pretty individual thing. Sounds a horrible thing, I just hope you get sorted quickly. Afterwards he was so paranoid that he stuck religiously to the low-fat and low sugar style stuff he'd been doing pre-op, that lasted for around 6 months or so, but he now eats normally. A bit too normally imho, because he's put a lot of the weight back on... partly due to a lack of decent exercise tbh. But that goes to prove that if you've got a particular kind of diet in mind, that has worked for you or you think it'll work, then there are far fewer barriers post-op.

OMG coffee is on the 'don't' list! I cannot survive without coffee!!

A soya milk protein shake gave me an attack the other day so I have ditched soya milk aswell.

Looking at the list I think I am going to go back to SW as alot of the helpful foods are free foods.

Unless anyone has any better diet suggestions?

thanks for posting the link gigglewitch

I had my Gallbladder removed in Jan. I had 143 stones in it. Prior to removal, I was told to follow a low fat diet and avoid caffeine.

Had my gall bladder removed 4 yrs ago. I followed a NO FAT diet prior to the op which helped minimise the pain but I was never "pain free" and in the end the waiting list was sooo long for the op on the NHS I had to go privately. Surgeon was worried about inflamation and got me in and operated on Easter Saturday and produced a bowl of stones for my inspection post op! Very easy recovery after the first 12 hours. Surgeon said to resume no fat diet for a couple of weeks and then "a little of what you fancy"! Never looked back but remember the pain - I thought I was having a heart attack!!
UGGMUM - Who counted the stones? Dont remember anyone volunteering to count mine!!

I had my gallbladder removed just over a year ago now via the NHS. I was on a waiting list for about a year. Initially I would have just a bit of pain that I could cope with in the middle of the night. The pain got progressively worse and I would have big ATTACKS!

I tried every cleanse, pill, natural supplement and diet that I could find because I couldn't bear having the horrendous attacks. The problem is if you get a stone stuck in a bile duct, it just keeps spasming until it falls back or pushes out and this can cause, vomiting, fever and excrutiating pain. Even if you are super careful with your diet if you have big stones as I did (several were 1/2cm in diameter) that roll around and get lodged at the entrance to a duct there is nothing that you can do to help the situation out. It just needs to move inside you so it is no longer causing a blockage. The month prior to getting my surgery I was in hospital at least every 2-3 days with a massive attack and eating only lettuce, apples and drinking water.

After the surgery I was still very worried about my diet and found that I was fine eating anything but that certain things (ice cream) triggered explosive diarrhea. You will discover if you have any triggers or not pretty quickly. However I am so glad that I had it finally taken out as I feel like a year and a half of my life was taken from me.

Good Luck!

Gailforce1, I was given my stones in a jar. I show them to everyone. (I washed and counted them)

ugg, that's gross