Successful gallbladder surgery.....why did I wait?

Having mine out next Tuesday. I too only have what they call sludge and am getting my umbilical hernia fixed at the same time from being so big during pregnancy. All these bad stories make me scared but I also have a painful swollen belly and still get asked if I am pregnant. My belly never really went down from all the pain gas and attacks. I hope I have a success story as well. Thank you

I have that same feeling in the morning - and same thing it doesn't wake me up but when I wake up it hurts immediately

My 3rd baby is 7 weeks old and I have a consultant appointment next week after being diagnosed with 'lots of' gallstones at 30 weeks pregnant. I have had numerous horrendous attacks since then, the worst being the day after my son was born when the only way it was relieved was when the emergency doctor came to my house after 7 hours of pain & injected me with tramadol. My 5th attack in 7 days has just ended as I type this. I'm not overweight and, although some attacks have been triggered by spicy & fried foods, most of them happen for no identifiable reason (triggered by hormones One doc said). Basically my question is this - how do I 'persuade' the consultant next week to remove my gallbladder asap? I am struggling to look after 3 children, including a newborn, when I have these frequent horrendous attacks. I feel so sorry for myself that I can't eat normally & that soon my maternity leave will be over & I'll be back working full time in a demanding job. But most of all it's the pain & its unpredictable nature that's wearing me down. I feel like I'm being such a c**p mum at the minute.

I am a 37 year old female. I have had constant abdominal pain, shocks of pain in my right side and pain in my upper back for over a month now along with extreme bloating that gets worse as the day goes on. I am scheduled to have an umbilical hernia surgery and also considering having my gallbladder removed at that time hoping it will eliminate these nasty combined symptoms that I have been dealing with.

Can you tell me if you had mesh inserted for your umbilical hernia? Have you had any issues with that part of the surgery (as far as pain) or with your gallbladder removal (as far as digestion)?

Any information you could provide would be great! I am so nervous about having this combined surgery with the horror stories I read on the internet.

After 2 months of nausea, a month of constant pain, and a random day where I felt as if my ribcage was going to split apart, I decided to see my dr. I was being awoken at night every few hours from pain. I was EXHAUSTED and it was effecting my life tremendously. Dr immediately suspected the gallbladder and sent me for blood work and abdominal u/s (1 wk later.) Blood work came back pretty normal but u/s showed a polyp in the gb. A week later I had a hida scan which showed my EF to be 15%. I swear when the CCK hit that gb I thought I was going to pass out! Consult with my surgeon came a week later, and we scheduled surgery for 2 days later. I had ridiculous anxiety about the procedure and not much time to prepare! Prior to this surgery I had never so much as gotten a stitch! I ended up having a really great surgeon that I clicked with immediately so she helped a lot to ease my fears. Surgery went wonderful and I went home 2 hrs after waking up. I was VERY sore (stock up on ice before!) and had some consistent shoulder pains (from the gas/air they blow you up with). I was up and walking that evening to help get that darn air OUT! For me that was definitely the worst thing about the whole procedure. It was an all consuming ache that I just could not take my mind off of.Those lasted about 3 days. My appetite started to come back around the 4th day, and everything I tried to eat was ok! No diarrhea or stomach pains! :) It is now 3 weeks post op and I feel very good, back at work after using 2 1/2 weeks paid vacation (because why not..). I no longer have daily nausea and my incisions are healing perfectly! I just wanted to post a positive outcome from this surgery!! I feel very lucky to feel so good at this point. I know it's not like that for everybody but don't let all the horror stories get to you. The day my surgeon took my gb she had 2 others to do also. So it is fairly common and they get lots of practice! Take the time to rest when you need to and let someone else take care of you for a few days.. good luck!

I need help finding a good surgeon In houston área. My gallbladder is functioning 22%. Please let me know who had a good Drs. Experience. Thank a lot!!! Adri

I wanted to post my story because I know when I was going through all my pain and misery I spent a lot of time on these sites trying to find answers.  About a year ago I began to have mild "episodes" pressure in the chest kinda like indigestion but worse.  These episodes came every few months and then  few months ago escalated into "attacks" pressure in the upper right quadrant between the breasts, pain radiating through to my lower mid back area.  I went to the ER for the first time Aug 10th, 2013, in excruciating pain (a 10) they ran an ultra sound, blood tests etc. the only thing that came back was my white blood count was slightly elevated.  I followed up with my primary Doctor and she concurred with what the ER Doctor said "Ulcer" I curtailed my diet so that there was nothing acidic and bland as could be.  Actually within this timeline I lost 26lbs. and felt so sick I really wasn't eating anyway.  I had begun to have these attacks in early evening that sometimes kept me passing the floors until 3am-4am-5am in the morning so now I wasn't even really getting good sleep.  My primary Doctor finally prescribed Vicodin because I couldn't handle the pain and it did help for about a month.  My perception was only for 10 pills at a time so I had to call back numerous times to get refills and felt almost like a drug seeker and paranoid when I was running low as to not sink back into the extreme pain I had been experiencing.  In the meantime my Doctor ordered an endoscopy which showed Barrett's Esophagus, well I had never had acid reflux or GERD for years which is what my researched said i should have been experiencing to acquire this aliment. My Doctor ordered a HIDA SCAN at my request since everyone I talked to said it sounded like my Gall Bladder.  I had the HIDA SCAN which showed nothing which made me sink into the desperation mode and scared because the symptoms seemed to be escalating but the Doctors couldn't really find anything.  On Oct 9th, 2013 I had a few bowel movements that night and within about 5-10 minutes I vomited.  The next night the something only the second night I felt deathly ill and couldn't quit vomiting. We called 911 and went back to ER.  I had to wait 1 1/2 hours and although they gave me a medication to help with the nausia within an hour I started to dry heave and could hardly breath I was so sick.  Finally the Doctors got me in a room, ran blood tests and the Doctor came back into the room he asked if I had ever had Pancreas issues?  I had not but my enzyme level for my Pancreas should have been around 100 it was 4,500 and they found a Gall Stone lodged in between the Pancreas and gall bladder.  They removed that stone the following morning and two days later when my pancreas was recovering they removed my gall bladder.  I was a very sick person.  The reason I am sharing this story is because instinctually I knew what I had was not just an ulcer, I knew something was very wrong even though the Doctors at the time could not find out what it was.  I kept pushing asking and searching. I am actually glad it finally came to a conclusion although it was so painful and living hell really.  Keep pushing keep asking doctors! After the GI specialist nurse told me that his diagnoses was Barrett's Esophagus and he was not going to give me anymore tests i disagreed and said I was in real pain and not really living, that there had to be something else they could do.  His office had actually called back to do another follow up when I went back to the hospital but i am sure its because I complained and did not accept the final answer they were trying to give.  I hope that if you are in pain and living in hell God helps you find the way out.  Keep the faith and I hope your suffering ends soon.

I had my Gallbladder removed 8/28/2013 and it was the best decision that i've ever made!! I trolled the internet for days and hours looking for answers and reasons not to have the surgery and possible natural remedies and it was a waste of time. As it turns out my gallbladder was the size of an orange and I had over 50 gallstones that were the size of a marble and larger, my gb could have burst at anytime. I did not find this out until after my surgery. I have had no issues with any foods. I havent had any of the bathroom issues like people were suggesting. I feel so much better than I did before and I also have less migraines (1 or less) a month now. as people mentioned the worst part of the whole thing was the gas pains after the surgery, they can travel from your foot to your shoulder, it lasted me a good 5-7 days. I also got sick form the pain meds so i stopped taking them the next day and took 2 motrin every few hours.

I also wanted to mention that I was out of work for 3 days and was working form home the following Monday for the week.

Thank you for telling your story because I have found out that I have gallstones and I have been reading all the scary stories that people have been telling and they had me scared and I thought maybe I will try and live with it but after reading your pre and post surgery story I will go to my appointment tomorrow and set a date thank you again and god bless

So sorry for you

Thank-you so much for your positive story about your gb removal. I am going in two weeks to have mine removed.

Hi I am having this same surgery done this Friday (umbilical hernia repair & getting my gallbladder removed) I was wondering how long recovery was for you & when you were able to go back to work? Thank you! :)

I had a good experience. I was in and out within hours. I was working the next day after surgery. It was the best decision for me. The pain of the surgery was more tolerable than what I was feeling on a daily basis before the surgery. I actually had to convince my doc I needed the surgery as he was not convinced I needed it since I was not experiencing upper right quadrant pain and nausea or fever. Pathology reported inflamed gallbladder with 3 large pigment stones lodged near the neck of gallbladder. It was apparent why I was feeling so swollen. Surgeon ignored that I had 2 gallbladder attacks that felt like heart attacks, that I had gallstones, and that I had the shoulder pain and sharp stabbing pain between the shoulder blades. My liver enzymes were good he said. I think the best thing since the surgery is that I no longer have the swelling that affected my breathing and caused really bad upper and mid back pain. I hated that these symptoms caused me to no longer work out. Crazy how this all works. Again...I'm glad that it is finally over and I feel so much better. I was so worried since everything I read was so negative....hope this positive experience gives you hope.

Worried penises sounds terrible