It's about 11 months since the surgery, and I have only good news at this point.
For starters, I am still alive and I did not become a statistic ... always a plus. I have been pain free for as long as I can remember, and 99% of the time I don't even think about my missing gallbladder or my surgery.
At this point I can eat anything I wish. I try to follow a paleo style diet anyway (mostly real food: meats, veggies, fruits, nuts, healthy oils, etc.) and avoid fast food now, but from time to time I go to town and the system seems to work just fine.
If I go nuts eating foods that are high in the unhealthy kinds of oils such as fried chicken, deep dish pizza, and so forth, I may feel a little bloated and uncomfortable, but isn't that normal?
I only have two regrets at this point:
1) I should have done it sooner.
2) Wish I had eaten better earlier in life as poor diet was probably the reason I had issues to begin with.
I just want to say, I love the Internet. I had my gallbladder removed 4.5 weeks ago. A few weeks ago I was looking for other people's experiences with exercise after surgery. I stumbled upon your blog. It was very reassuring to read about such a similar - almost identical - experience. Thank you for the great blog!
ReplyDeleteThanks Jen, that was my exact intention! Thanks for posting, and let us know how it goes for you or if you have any different experiences that you think might help others.
DeleteI'm having gallbladder surgery in the morning and your blog has helped me feel better as I am extremely nervous. Thank you for documenting your experience :)
ReplyDeleteIvonne, you are probably in surgery right now, and I am sure you wont feel tip top over the next few days, but hang in there and everything will work itself out. Best of luck!
DeleteHi, I had a laparoscopic gall bladder removal about 2 years ago, and have just recently started exercising. I have noticed what feels like tearing in the area where the laparoscopy went through, but only occasionally. I don't know whether it is because I am losing fat or how the wound knitted back together. Apart from this I haven't had any problems..
ReplyDeleteI am not a doctor, and I would recommend seeing one. My best guess would be that it is scar tissue, and that can sometimes adhere to things internally
DeleteHey Justin - how are things these says with the exercise discomfort?
DeleteYour symptoms and run up to cholecystectomy are eerily like mine. I hope to join you in your symptom resolution. My goal is to be fit enough in 6 months to be ready to compete again on the curling rink. A really helpful blog and story. Thank you!
ReplyDeleteI had my gallbladder taken out via lap chole 16 days ago, and everything seems to be going really well besides a little soreness in the right rib area. My healing process seems a lot like yours.
ReplyDeleteThank you so much for your blog. Honestly, it's gotten me through this whole process and I found it incredibly reassuring. It definitely counters all of the horror stories out there, which do nothing but incite panic.
Hopefully I continue to heal as well as you seem to have (from my keypad to God's ears) and you're continuing to live a wonderfully healthy life without a gallbladder.
Thank you!
Im at exactly 4 wks since my gall bladder keyhole surgery n i feel pretty good ..now im wondering if i can go swimming at the waterpark everything seems to be closed up except my belly button area where strangely the tape from surgery is still on their??? I wonder if i should just ttake it off ..but other than that the surgery wasnt as scary as i thought phew ! N the weeks after werent too bad :) im also back on my normal diet but trying to eat better so maybe this all was a blessing in disguise to start eating better before worse problems arise ..very nice blog btw
ReplyDeleteHi my name is Kimberly and I just had my gall bladder removed tues morn .July 30 2013 . ,i'm ok .I hurt every so often . But I take pain meds only when I have to . And i'm so glad that the pain in my shoulders don't hurt as bad as the first two days home. So i'm just taking it easy and not trying to do to much to soon . Hopefully I can go back to work in two Weeks .is there a limit on how much I should lift when I do ? Anything will help. I'm glad I found this blog it has helped me alot thanks Kimberly criner
ReplyDeleteI can't remember what the limits were for lifting after surgery, so please check in with your doctor on that one! I wouldn't lift anything over 10-15 pounds until you get your answer from the doc. I do remember him telling me that I could do quite a bit, but it may hurt a lot if I try.
DeleteI am so glad I found your blog. I am to have my gallbladder removed a week from now and it's nice to have someone's actual experience to read instead of just reading about all the possible risks and complications.
ReplyDeleteHopefully I will have as successful of a recovery as you have had.
Best of luck, Sara, and a speedy recovery to you!
DeleteWant to say thanks for this. I'm now 5 days post surgery and was looking for answers to some things I'd been feeling and some pains. Glad also you commented on the Paleo / Primal diet stuff as I was messing with that before the surgery. Unlike some, my surgery wasn't planned. It was one of those things that had to happen. Thanksgiving night around 9:30pm I started feeling pain, no idea what. It lasted all night, had looked up the pain on my phone while lying on the couch with a heating pad for comfort and saw everything I felt pointed to wards Gall Bladder issues. Had my wife take me to the ER in the morning (yes that night was hell). 24 hours later I'm on a table getting it removed. The doc did say, and I quote "it was nasty". Apparently I had an infected and enlarged gall bladder never mind a stone stuck in a bile duct. I had to stay two days in hospital post surgery because my blood pressure was up. All because I don't do hospitals or guys in white coats. What was worse is that this was my first ever hospital stay or surgery.
ReplyDelete2 Days post they let me go home, I'm up and mobile, walking around the house. Even went outside to the car to get something for my wife.
Thanks for all the insight. I really appreciate you taking the time to do this blog during your surgery as it answers all the unknowns for a lot of people.
Sorry to hear about the nasty way it had to go down. Was your laparoscopic or did they have to do it the old fashioned way? I hope the former and not the latter.
DeleteGlad you found this helpful, and I wish you the best in a speed recovery!
Yep I have the 4 nice neat holes. Yes it was more than helpful. Thanks my friend.
DeleteI had my gall bladder taken out 2 days ago. And I was curious about my recovery if I was "where I should be" I am SO glad I stumbled across your blog. I'm following the same path you went down right up to my belly button hole being the most painful and knowing someone did too is comforting! I just wish I had found this sooner I was so nervous before surgery. Everyone having the operation should read your blog! Thank you for sharing your journey!!
ReplyDeleteHi there.
ReplyDeleteI'm about 2 months post-surgery. Everything went smoothly. Recovery was surprisingly painless. Didn't bother to take a pain pill at all. Didn't get gas pains at all, which I was worried about. Only pain was from the staples they used to close me up, but that was more of a nuisance than painful.
Anyways, I want to ask, how long did it take for your bellybutton wound to heal. Mine seems to still be swollen and the incision is still pinkish. On the inside it looks black like it's either still bruised or crusting. And my finger doesn't fit in my bellybutton anymore. So I was wondering, based on your surgery, how long (if at all) does it take for this to get better or is my bellybutton forever jacked up.
Thanks for starting this blog. It was really helpful!
I realize I am getting to this one many months late - apparently a few messages were caught up in the approval bin that I hadn't seen.
DeleteMy belly button healed completely normal ... but that was not before I went through exactly what you are going through. I suspect by the time you read this response yours will be fine too ... but I remember being quite concerned about mine, the scabbing, etc.
Why did you have your gallbladder removed to begin with? Stones? Sludge? low EF rate?
ReplyDeleteSymptoms basically. They ran two ultrasound tests on me that didn't see anything wrong. I kept having bad pain in that area that resembled symptoms of gallbladder attacks. After a few years of these attacks my gastro simply recommended removing it. The attacks were growing more frequent so I went for it. It alleviated all of my attacks. The surgeon said when he removed it, he saw no stones ... But did see sludge. The gallbladder didn't look infected at the time it was removed ... But I would go for weeks and even months at times without sn issue - but then a very Painful flare up over almost nothing that would keep me home from work it was so painful.
DeleteThey never did any real internal testing (whatever EF rate is, or looking at the sphincter of Odi, etc). Just ultrasounds and CT scan (in addition to blood work at first to rule out other things).
These days I worry about potential future scar tissue adhesions, or maybe even one day a stone in the bile duct ... But I don't worry about gallbladder attacks, which is very nice!
Thanks for the reply! It was recommended to me to have mine removed due to Ejection Fraction of 14%. (Normal is 35%) Just recently diagnosed with celiac disease, so am nervous about having it removed. Everyone says the two are not connected, but I am afraid the celiac will rev up if I do anything drastic. Probably unrealistic, I know, but I tend to be more of a pessimist than an optimist at times...:( I have no stones, sludge, ultrasound looked okay, CT scan okay...just the hidascan result of 14%) And I have the pain on the side under ribs that will sometimes radiate to my back. Not terribly painful, but more of a constant annoyance. Glad things are going well with you!
ReplyDeleteThanks for the detail Pam! It's very possible that my EF was the problem. We never checked that.
DeleteI will say one thing which my very good gastro told me when I was leaning away from surgery: while your symptoms are manageable now, one day this could lead to an infected gallbladder, which in a best case scenario would lead to extreme pain and a middle of the night ER trip with a non laparoscopic emergency surgery. When he said that, I did some soul searching, got the same advice from another family member that was a surgeon, and decided to have it out.
did they ever mention chronic cholecystitis? That's what they call mine. I've never had any gallstones to my knowledge and there is none in there now (that showed up anyway). Surgeon did tell me that I was at no risk for it blowing up (my words) or for it becoming gangrenous (like my husband's did), but I have wondered how they know that! Did you ever have any problem with acid reflux that was resolved with surgery, by any chance??
ReplyDeleteI had my gallbladder removed 6 days ago, all going well... i was slightly constiapted for the first few days. Today i have felt so normal i stupidly thought it would be ok to have 2 gin and tonics - Big mistake - dioreah set in straight away. I'm not going to touch alcohol for another couple of weeks.
ReplyDeleteCan you tell me if you are able to drink alcohol now? If so what do you drink and how much? Thanks :)
I absolutely drink alcohol. Not excessively, but I tend to primarily drink IPAs. Last night my wife and split a bottle of wine, and other times I drink vodka tonic or bourbon. No real issues with them (outside of standard things that come with alcohol - which is hangovers, or dehydration). I would keep to regular foods and no alcohol or coffee shortly after the surgery and work up to that later. Alcohol
DeleteDoes damage, period, not ideal for healing.