Anyone Have Gallstones/Gallbladder removed?

[DrPizza]

I was having gall bladder attacks fairly regularly over the course of a few months - whenever I'd eat fatty food. Prior to going to the doctor (and especially because having surgeries doesn't appeal to me), I decided to try home remedies. The first one I came across suggested drinking a half glass of olive oil. It claimed that I'd see the stones come out, but other research indicated that what I'd see was actually globs of undigested olive oil. Anyway, that "cure" seems to have worked.

 

[Inspector Jihad]

Yeah no kidding. HIDA scan? WTF, I think Ive seen one or two of those in my ten years of medicine. For gallstones, its usually US or CT then off to surgery.

yup, i saw one during my rotation and even then i was all 'wtf'. mostly it was just sending them off for a CT and popping that sucker out.

maybe he's in yurope or something?

 

[jupiter57]

I was having gall bladder attacks fairly regularly over the course of a few months - whenever I'd eat fatty food. Prior to going to the doctor (and especially because having surgeries doesn't appeal to me), I decided to try home remedies. The first one I came across suggested drinking a half glass of olive oil. It claimed that I'd see the stones come out, but other research indicated that what I'd see was actually globs of undigested olive oil. Anyway, that "cure" seems to have worked.

Same here.
Did the Olive Oil, Lemon Juice, etc. thing.
Saw nothing that resembled Gallstones, but it fixed the problem.

NOTE: "Gallstones" are not like Kidney Stones in that they are not technically "Stones" as the name suggests.
They are semi-soft "blobs" that grow too large to pass through the Bile ducts.
The Olive Oil/ Lemon Juice trick is to soften & shrink them somewhat & force them through the Bile Ducts, IIRC.

 

[Pliablemoose]

1st ex wife had the intolerance to fatty foods after removal. She was pretty miserable.

 

[CycloWizard]

Bullshit, absolutely. While a majority of patients (somewhere in 60% range) can eat "normal," it still would be a restricted diet because your bile is not being managed. I'm in an unfortunate minority where I can't eat fat, or I get seriously uncomfortable and sick. I lived like this for 6 years until I got to the point where I finally saw a different doctor who actually prescribed me something that helps greatly and allows me to live a normal life.

Or, if you had eaten a relatively normal diet shortly after the surgery, your gut fauna would have adjusted to take care of the fat, possibly with the aid of probiotics. You yourself noted that your problem was solved by finding a doctor who knew what he was doing.

 

[dougp]

Or, if you had eaten a relatively normal diet shortly after the surgery, your gut fauna would have adjusted to take care of the fat, possibly with the aid of probiotics. You yourself noted that your problem was solved by finding a doctor who knew what he was doing.

I have to take medicine twice a day, everyday for the rest of my life to even resemble a normal diet. I ate normally after the surgery and I was just as miserable as I was when I passed 5 stones in 2 months. Has nothing to do with the doctor knowing what they're doing, but more to the fact that everybody will have a different reaction to having their gallbladder removed. You suggest everyone will be fine, when that is simply not the case. My grandmother can eat normal food perfectly fine, where as my wife's great aunt can't eat and has the same problem I did.

 

[CycloWizard]

Where are you practicing medicine? I've never heard of requiring a HIDA for surgery in the US for common gallbaldder disease

From my experience indications for choley is usually:
Symptomatic cholelithiasis w/ or w/o complications
Asymptomatic cholelithiasis in patients at increased risk for gallbladder cancer
Acalculous choleycystitis
Gallbladder polyps
Procelain gallbladder

Essentially, if you have gallstones and you have symptoms (biliary colic, actual cholecystitis, pancreatitis, choledocolithiasish, cholangitis), you should have it out.

HIDA scans are usually reserved for unclear cases where you might not see stones on ultrasound but you're concerned for acute blockage on the cystic duct or patency of CBD. In which case youre really looking for lack of Tec99 uptake into the gallbladder rather than this "floppiness" that you keep mentioning which isnt mentined in most of the guidelines as a legitimate surgical criteria.

I don't practice: I'm a doctor, but not the kind that helps people (according to my mother in law ). I work at Washington University School of Medicine. I'm a chemical engineer working in the biomed field, so I've always had a casual interest in endocrinology, where the systems of the body behave like industrial chemical processes. I sat in on lectures when my wife was having issues with her gall bladder. These reinforced what I was told by MDs in Indiana and at other hospitals in St. Louis: my wife's surgeon, who has performed over 1800 such surgeries in the last 20 years, walked us through this. I called my father (also an MD who wrote a thesis on the chemistry of gall stone formation while at Pitt) who concurred with the course of treatment. The HIDA scan is a method to test gall bladder function. It's not working if it can't expel anything - how is it going to dose your system with bile? Maybe I am completely off base, but it seems unlikely based on the number of surgeons and physicians who gave me the exact same opinion on the same course of treatment.

 

[olds]

Thanks for the well wishes and input.
I guess I'll know something definitive on Tuesday, my follow up appointment.

 

[Slew Foot]

I don't practice: I'm a doctor, but not the kind that helps people (according to my mother in law ). I work at Washington University School of Medicine. I'm a chemical engineer working in the biomed field, so I've always had a casual interest in endocrinology, where the systems of the body behave like industrial chemical processes. I sat in on lectures when my wife was having issues with her gall bladder. These reinforced what I was told by MDs in Indiana and at other hospitals in St. Louis: my wife's surgeon, who has performed over 1800 such surgeries in the last 20 years, walked us through this. I called my father (also an MD who wrote a thesis on the chemistry of gall stone formation while at Pitt) who concurred with the course of treatment. The HIDA scan is a method to test gall bladder function. It's not working if it can't expel anything - how is it going to dose your system with bile? Maybe I am completely off base, but it seems unlikely based on the number of surgeons and physicians who gave me the exact same opinion on the same course of treatment.

Maybe 20 years ago they got hida scans. Nobody does that anymore.

 

[Mo0o]

I don't practice: I'm a doctor, but not the kind that helps people (according to my mother in law ). I work at Washington University School of Medicine. I'm a chemical engineer working in the biomed field, so I've always had a casual interest in endocrinology, where the systems of the body behave like industrial chemical processes. I sat in on lectures when my wife was having issues with her gall bladder. These reinforced what I was told by MDs in Indiana and at other hospitals in St. Louis: my wife's surgeon, who has performed over 1800 such surgeries in the last 20 years, walked us through this. I called my father (also an MD who wrote a thesis on the chemistry of gall stone formation while at Pitt) who concurred with the course of treatment. The HIDA scan is a method to test gall bladder function. It's not working if it can't expel anything - how is it going to dose your system with bile? Maybe I am completely off base, but it seems unlikely based on the number of surgeons and physicians who gave me the exact same opinion on the same course of treatment.

I was quoting directly for standard practice guidelines. I repeat, HIDA is not required for evaluation of common gallstones/gallbladder disease.

Many people have gallstones, most of these folks are not symptomatic. People that do become symptomatic usually have stones too large to fit through the cystic duct, which causes the gallbladder to contract against a closed opening. This leads to postprandial pain that people experience, which is known as biliary colic.

Do some people have actual intrinsic malfunction of the gallbladder? Sure. But that's not why most people have gallstone and is not why most people have biliary colic. For the most part HIDA scans are used to detect obstruction by detect lack of uptake of tec99 into the gallbladder (suggesting obstruction at the opening).

I'm not making this up. I just confirmed all this information from primary literature, published guidelines from various surgical societies and from synthesized practice guidelines online.

 

[Mo0o]

I have to take medicine twice a day, everyday for the rest of my life to even resemble a normal diet. I ate normally after the surgery and I was just as miserable as I was when I passed 5 stones in 2 months. Has nothing to do with the doctor knowing what they're doing, but more to the fact that everybody will have a different reaction to having their gallbladder removed. You suggest everyone will be fine, when that is simply not the case. My grandmother can eat normal food perfectly fine, where as my wife's great aunt can't eat and has the same problem I did.

Yep. Without the gallbladder you dont have a storage facility for your bile, so you GI system is just constantly circulating bile in small amounts rather than being able to excrete a large amoutn at once to match your fat intact at mealtime. I think in your case, you probably have a lower amount of circulating bile than your relatives so when you eat a large fatty hamburger, there isnt enough bile to emulsify the fats and you get some wicked diarrhea. It's a well known sideeffect of the surgery that some patient experience and it seems like you already made adjusts to your diet and with medications.

 

[Mo0o]

Same here.
Did the Olive Oil, Lemon Juice, etc. thing.
Saw nothing that resembled Gallstones, but it fixed the problem.

NOTE: "Gallstones" are not like Kidney Stones in that they are not technically "Stones" as the name suggests.
They are semi-soft "blobs" that grow too large to pass through the Bile ducts.
The Olive Oil/ Lemon Juice trick is to soften & shrink them somewhat & force them through the Bile Ducts, IIRC.

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmedhealth/PMH0001318/

They can be quite hard. Theyre not just blobs. And the olive oil/lemon juice does not "wash up" into the gallbaldder or anything like that to soften up the stones. That's simply not how the body works. And if any amount of juice you drink could seriously acidify your bodily fluids to the point of dissolving gallstones, you'l have a lot more problems to worry about.

 

[Inspector Jihad]

Same here.
Did the Olive Oil, Lemon Juice, etc. thing.
Saw nothing that resembled Gallstones, but it fixed the problem.

NOTE: "Gallstones" are not like Kidney Stones in that they are not technically "Stones" as the name suggests.
They are semi-soft "blobs" that grow too large to pass through the Bile ducts.
The Olive Oil/ Lemon Juice trick is to soften & shrink them somewhat & force them through the Bile Ducts, IIRC.

this is categorically false.

 

[Mo0o]

this is categorically false.

apropo of nothing but are you still in NY and are you interested in meeting up this afternoon or tomorrow?

first weekend in 5 weeks for me

 

[Inspector Jihad]

apropo of nothing but are you still in NY and are you interested in meeting up this afternoon or tomorrow?

first weekend in 5 weeks for me

hey bud, i'm back home in philly this weekend. had to help my sister move in...she's starting her md/phd at psu next week. i'll be back late tomorrow. any of the upcoming weekends free?

 

[CycloWizard]

Maybe 20 years ago they got hida scans. Nobody does that anymore.

I was quoting directly for standard practice guidelines. I repeat, HIDA is not required for evaluation of common gallstones/gallbladder disease.

Many people have gallstones, most of these folks are not symptomatic. People that do become symptomatic usually have stones too large to fit through the cystic duct, which causes the gallbladder to contract against a closed opening. This leads to postprandial pain that people experience, which is known as biliary colic.

Do some people have actual intrinsic malfunction of the gallbladder? Sure. But that's not why most people have gallstone and is not why most people have biliary colic. For the most part HIDA scans are used to detect obstruction by detect lack of uptake of tec99 into the gallbladder (suggesting obstruction at the opening).

I'm not making this up. I just confirmed all this information from primary literature, published guidelines from various surgical societies and from synthesized practice guidelines online.

Apparently they do, as my wife had it done six months ago. WebMD agrees that it's still commonly done. Sorry, didn't realize I was pissing in so many peoples' Cheerios by simply recounting how a recent, real-life case was actually diagnosed. In any case, it has nothing to do with beer consumption, so take some anti-eViagra and unwad your panties.

 

[Inspector Jihad]

Apparently they do, as my wife had it done six months ago. WebMD agrees that it's still commonly done. Sorry, didn't realize I was pissing in so many peoples' Cheerios by simply recounting how a recent, real-life case was actually diagnosed. In any case, it has nothing to do with beer consumption, so take some anti-eViagra and unwad your panties.

you can do a HIDA scan but you would do a CT and/or an ultrasound first. if those don't show you anything and you still suspect cholelithiasis with an obstruction, you would move on to a HIDA scan. it is never the first diagnostic test.

i think the confusion is that you stated a HIDA scan is necessary for diagnosis. it isn't, however, it is used if the other tests (CT and US) are equivocal.

 

[Mo0o]

Apparently they do, as my wife had it done six months ago. WebMD agrees that it's still commonly done. Sorry, didn't realize I was pissing in so many peoples' Cheerios by simply recounting how a recent, real-life case was actually diagnosed. In any case, it has nothing to do with beer consumption, so take some anti-eViagra and unwad your panties.

I dont think you were pissing in anyones cheerios. I was just wondering where you were coming from since you seemed very confident that HIDA scans and floppy gallbladders were one of the main indications for surgery. Looks like you feel like you were being directly attacked or that people responding to you were somehow getting their panties in a wad, which certainly wasnt our intention

 

[Mo0o]

hey bud, i'm back home in philly this weekend. had to help my sister move in...she's starting her md/phd at psu next week. i'll be back late tomorrow. any of the upcoming weekends free?

Next weekend should be good