Abdominal Pain After Gallbladder Surgery (recovery, breasts, shoulder, abdomen)
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i also find that exercise does help a lot too, especially abdominal stuff. muscle burns fat, so it feels a little like it pulls a lot of the fat out that way. pushing through the pain is the real first hurdle, but once in the groove, the pain and complications DO subside as long as its done 3-4 times a week. i work out vigorously when i can do it (hard with 2 toddlers and 60 hour a week job), but even a little bit helps.
I had my gallbladder out in 2005 and started to have problems about 11 months later. Severe upper abdominal pains that radiated to my back. The pain became so severe that I had trouble breathing. I had several MRCP's but no-one could give me any answers. This sounds hokey but I was watching Mystery Diagnosis and a women had the same symptoms. It turned out she had Sphincter of Oddi Dysfunction. I saw an Inter-Gastro doc at UofC here in Chicago and she said (after yet another MRCP) the odds are good that that's what my problem is. Bad news is that the only place to get tested for this is the Univ of Indianapolis and the testing alone can make the problem worse. SOD is a problem with a duct in the pancreas. Good news is that she doubled up my protonix to 2X a day. This seemed to reduce the amount of episodes I have. The women in the Mystery Diagnosis show had the procedure that my doctor suggested and she never had the pain again. Why did it take 4 doctors and 1 TV show to find this out???
I had 7 gallstones and one of them happened to clog some connection between the gallbladder and the pancreas, being also diagnosed with pancreatitis. I got the gallbladder removed with all the gallstones (even the lost one). My pancreas went back to its normal state the day after the surgery. This happened in Nov 08. Not long ago I experienced what I could distinguish as the same sort of pain when I woke up and for some reason I thought it was connected with holding going to the bathroom to pee, but after that the pain kept bothering for another hour. Today it's happening again: Abdominal pain, right on the area that the gallbladder should be and stabbing the same way it did when the GB was there.
For some reason I am pretty sure that is connected with a bad diet, stress and sleeping disorder. Anyone having the same issues with a healthy diet, no major worries and sleeping 8 hours straight a day?
Smoking and drinking highly contributes to have bad side effects to the gallbladder removal surgery.
Last edited by J "JR" R; 05-08-2011 at 12:48 PM..
Reason: Grammatical mistake
I had 7 gallstones and one of them happened to clog some connection between the gallbladder and the pancreas, being also diagnosed with pancreatitis. I got the gallbladder removed with all the gallstones (even the lost one). My pancreas went back to its normal state the day after the surgery. This happened in Nov 08. Not long ago I experienced what I could distinguish as the same sort of pain when I woke up and for some reason I thought it was connected with holding going to the bathroom to pee, but after that the pain kept bothering for another hour. Today it's happening again: Abdominal pain, right on the area that the gallbladder should be and stabbing the same way it did when the GB was there.
For some reason I am pretty sure that is connected with a bad diet, stress and sleeping disorder. Anyone having the same issues with a healthy diet, no major worries and sleeping 8 hours straight a day?
Smoking and drinking highly contributes to have bad side effects to the gallbladder removal surgery.
Well, lots of things can cause unspecific abdominal pain. The first thing I would try was to cut it out with a bunch of the stuff you mentioned, including: smoking, drinking and bad diet. The stress and the sleeping disorder are tougher, but chances are a healthier lifestyle might help some there too. At some point, your body can only take so much. You can't expect to keep beating the crud out of your insides and not think they're going to start to show damage, right? You have a choice to make.
I have heard that gallstones do not begin in the gallbladder and that they are caused by the crystallization of bile in the liver first. The thick bile which is mainly composed of cholesterol is nearly undetectable. Nearly 80% of all gallstones are composed of cholesterol and because its composition is almost identical to that of bile, the solidified deposits cannot be differentiated from the bile itself.
I would suggest looking into alternative approaches of dealing with this pain. From what I learned, pain CAN be eliminated AFTER the gallbladder has been removed, but thru natural means. Do a search for:
"how to eliminate gallbladder pain naturally"
Because of bilateral hernia repairs, my PCP suggested we have the surgeon remove the painful gallbladder as well (2009). I had had intestinal shingles in late 2006 that really took me down as well. Underlying diverticulitis was also found and a severely redundant colon which caused severe difficulty having a BM...often for 3-5 days at a time.
I recovered very slowly with the hernias. However, also slowly the deep aching in my right upper medial abdomen under the ribs increased as if the gallbladder was still there or had grown back . From these websites I am glad to know I am not alone. The loss of weight and persistent diarrhea, especially right after a meal is the worst part. I changed to the Caveman diet...strict combinations of foods that eliminated the other severe pain...colon spasms following the GI shingles. However, the gallbladder-type aching persists and the inability to have normal BMs is not fun. My PCP is actually pleased somewhat because our greatest worry was an impaction.
So far, other than diet suggestions I don't hear any surgeon or doctor coming in and showing us that the medical profession are concerned about this post-surgical gallbladder pain, weight loss and changed BMs. Are there long term negative side effects if weight loss and diarrhea are a chronic problem? Yes, I would suggest that there might be. Someone needs to get to the bottom of this situation. Has anyone heard of any research going on?
I had my gall bladder taken out in 1998, and since then had serious burning and pains in the same area, I have noticed that it happens more frequent if i try to eat any kind of artificial sweetner, or if i eat any kind of peanuts with the skin still on them, Ijust recently had a chest scan thinking i had something wrong with my lungs, and the other dr noticed i still have the staples left in there from the surgery, in her personal opinion, my body is trying to reject the staples, and that is where the burning and cramps are coming from, does anyone expierence burning in the area of where the gallbladder would have been, and do you still have the staples left inside you? My friend had the same surgery and doesnt have the staples and she never has any of the problems that i do, the pain under my rib cage gets so bad it takes my breath away andi have noticed if i sloch down while typing the burning starts immediately, so now i am wondering if maybe the staples are poking something when i sit some kinda way and then it is a ridiculous ride of nausea, cramps usually throwin up and breaking sweats. We all cant be suffering the same thing after getting the surgery if there isnt some sort of problem causing it. Thanks Theresa
I had my gallbladder removed 2 months ago and I have had really bad pain three times now and I'm not positive but it may be acid from tomatoes. The doctors will tell you you can go back to eating anything after surgery but you really need to stay away from certain foods......different for each person....process of elimination. I am going to see if it's the acid by eliminating tomatoes from my diet.....we will see!!
I had my gallbladder removed 2 months ago and I have had really bad pain three times now and I'm not positive but it may be acid from tomatoes. The doctors will tell you you can go back to eating anything after surgery but you really need to stay away from certain foods......different for each person....process of elimination. I am going to see if it's the acid by eliminating tomatoes from my diet.....we will see!!
It took me a good year before eating wasn't much of an issue any longer. I can still get pain on the right side but it isn't too bad.
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yep
. From these websites I am glad to know I am not alone. The loss of weight and persistent diarrhea, especially right after a meal is the worst part. I changed to the Caveman diet...strict combinations of foods that eliminated the other severe pain...colon spasms following the GI shingles. However, the gallbladder-type aching persists and the inability to have normal BMs is not fun. My PCP is actually pleased somewhat because our greatest worry was an impaction.
