My surgery was on 8/26/11, which puts me at 4 years and just about 4 months since my surgery. First and foremost, I am still here, so that is a great sign.
Painful Gallbladder Attacks Since Removal: 0
Complications: 0
Doubt always creeps in. We think everything is going fine, but then one day you start to feel some abdominal pain, and you always flashback to your gallbladder removal and wonder if it is time to finally pay the piper.
A few months ago, I began having terrible abdominal cramps (in the intestines area). It felt like ulcers, or something, on my lower right side. I was worried ... was this a result of my surgery? Was this something worse, like diverticulitis, Crohn's Disease, or colon cancer? The pain persisted for a week and I began to wonder if it was appendicitis based on the radiating pain from the lower right abdominal area. Doc had me do an MRI to check for appendicitis, and they saw nothing wrong. They also said other organs looked normal (no large grapefruit tumors or anything).
So now what? The pain persisted for another week so I went to my gastroenterologist (the same one who helped me resolve the gallbladder issue) and we set up the dreaded colonoscopy. I should put together a whole other blog for that experience ... hah ... but another time perhaps. The colonoscopy had me fast for essentially 2 days while "cleansing", and then the procedure. I felt better the day after the procedure, and within 2 days I was entirely cured. So what was it?
Apparently, I had been taking a men's super multivitamin that my wife had picked out for me, that included a bunch of other things I wasn't aware of. Saw palmetto, probiotics, and so forth. How am I sure this was the culprit? Because I had stopped taking these just before the surgery, and the pain went away. A month later I started taking them again, and within a few days those same abdominal pains started to return! It had to be the MV, not sure which ingredient, maybe just the probiotics?
In either case, that is now resolved, and as I am not in my early 40's (I was only 37 when my GB was removed), I am wading through one minor health issue after another, whether it be a bone bruise in my foot from trying to start up running again, or being checked for Sleep Apnea. But the one thing I do not worry about on a daily basis now is my gallbladder.
My diet is much better now than it was then. I still eat cookies or bad foods, but very much in moderation. I follow a somewhat Paleo type diet. I'm not a believer that Paleo means you have a green light to eat bacon and steak all day (the WHO recently claimed that processed meats were carcinogenic, and even non-processed red meats probably were as well), but I do try to minimize the refined carbs (breads, chips, etc.) and go heavy on vegetables instead. I also try to stick more often to poultry or fish than steak and bacon. Other things I try to avoid: Added sugars and other preservatives.
Signing off for now, thanks for following and reading, and for those of you who have had the surgery or are planning to have it, good luck and best wishes! Hopefully I am updating this blog with happy news for the next 40 years =)
