Cholecystectomy Recovery: What You Need To Know

Your Gallbladder Removal Recovery Process

People who underwent a laparoscopic cholecystectomy can usually return home on the same day, while those who had an open cholecystectomy can expect to need to stay in hospital for three to five days. Laparoscopic cholecystectomy will normally allow you to return to your normal daily activities within two weeks, while people who have had an open cholecystectomy require longer — up to six weeks. 

Regardless of how your gallbladder removal was performed, you will need someone to drive you home from hospital. After that, you can expect to be swollen and bruised, and to experience pain, which can be remedied with the over-the-counter painkillers your healthcare team will have recommended to you. You may experience discomfort in your abdomen and shoulders, and some people feel nauseous after their gallbladder removal surgery. These side effects should all pass very quickly. 

Diet After Gallbladder Removal Surgery

As the gallbladder is not essential to the digestive process, people who have had a cholecystectomy are not usually advised to follow a specific diet. However, you may find that you experience abdominal bloating, indigestion, diarrhea, and excessive flatulence after your cholecystectomy. If you do, there are dietary adjustments that can help. 

Eating a healthy and varied diet benefits everyone, and although it is true that a fatty diet will give some people who have undergone a cholecystectomy terrible discomfort, everyone needs some healthy ("good") fats in their diet. Avoiding processed, unhealthy fatty foods (AKA junk foods) may help you steer clear of the discomfort some people experience after their cholecystectomy, though. Pizza, French fries, chicken wings, and their cousins will likely no longer be your best friends after your gallbladder removal. 

Spicy foods are another common trigger for discomfort in people who have had their gallbladder removed, so stay away from those if you find that this applies to you. Besides that, you will want to rethink your caffeine intake, and make sure to increase your consumption of high-fiber foods in the weeks following your surgery. In order to avoid flatulence attacks, you will want to add notorious gas-producing foods, such as cauliflower, beans, and broccoli, into your diet  very gradually. 

What's more, many people who have had their gallbladder removed notice that they function more comfortably when they eat smaller portions (more frequently if necessary) than they did before their surgery. 

READ Cholecystectomy - Laparoscopic Surgery for Gallbladder Removal

The bottom line is this: as you return to normal life without a gallbladder, you will notice what foods you do well with and what your body would rather you avoid, now. Keeping a food journal will help you identify offending foods more easily. Pay close attention to your body, and talk any concerns you have over with your doctor, and you will soon find your new normal. Chances are that this new normal is much closer to an ideal, healthy, diet than what you were eating before your cholecystectomy.